TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Republican state Rep. Debbie Mayfield of Melbourne lashed out Wednesday against Gov. Ron DeSantis after his administration blocked her from qualifying to run in a special election to replace outgoing Sen. Randy Fine.
State elections officials on Wednesday notified Mayfield, a veteran lawmaker who is seeking to return to the Senate after being elected to the House in November, that her “name cannot appear” on the ballot for an April 1 special primary election, citing part of the Florida Constitution that imposes term limits on legislators and statewide elected officials.
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The Constitution says “no person may appear on the ballot for reelection” as state representative, state senator, lieutenant governor or any Cabinet seat “if, by the end of the current term of office, the person will have served (or, but for resignation, would have served) in that office for eight consecutive years.”
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Mayfield served eight years in the Senate before exiting in November because of term limits. She was elected in House District 32 but decided to try to return to the Senate in Brevard County’s Senate District 19 after Fine announced his resignation to run for a congressional seat.
In a memo to Mayfield on Wednesday, state Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews pointed to the term-limit language.
“Upon review and consultation with counsel regarding your candidacy for state Senate District 19, the Division of Elections has determined that your name cannot appear on the special election ballot, as it violates article VI, section 4 of the Florida Constitution,” Matthews wrote.
Mayfield filed paperwork to run in the special election to succeed Fine, a Brevard County Republican who was elected to the Senate in November. Fine is running in an April 1 special election for a congressional seat that opened when former U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., was chosen as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
Mayfield on Wednesday accused DeSantis of orchestrating her disqualification from the state Senate race as retaliation because she backed Trump — not the governor — in last year’s GOP presidential primary election.
“Today Governor DeSantis used the executive branch to punish me for endorsing Donald J Trump for president. He has weaponized the Department of State just like Joe Biden weaponized the Department of Justice against President Trump,” Mayfield said in a statement. “The law is on my side. We will fight for the people of Brevard on this just like I always have.”
Mayfield told The News Service of Florida she intended to file a legal challenge at the Florida Supreme Court as early as Wednesday. She pointed to a previous legal dispute over the eligibility of a candidate who had served eight years in the House.
The secretary of state at the time of the previous case said that his role was limited to reviewing the candidate’s documents for accuracy, Mayfield said.
“So the secretary of state does not have the authority to disqualify me based on his opinion of term limits. It’s strictly whether or not I submitted the papers properly, if they were signed properly, if they were submitted on time. That’s all his role is,” she told the News Service.
Three other Republicans — Marcie Atkins, Mark Lightner III and Tim Thomas — and Democrat Vance Ahrens qualified to run in the Senate District 19 special election, according to the state Division of Elections website. The qualifying period for the race ran from 8 a.m. Monday through noon Tuesday.
The dispute over Mayfield’s qualification developed as DeSantis squares off against House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, and Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, over legislation aimed at carrying out Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
DeSantis last week threatened to channel “huge sums of money” to legislative and gubernatorial candidates in Republican primaries who sided with him in the immigration dispute, which has resulted in a week-long standoff between the governor and the legislative leaders.
In anticipation of running in Senate District 19, Mayfield submitted her resignation in House District 32, effective in June. DeSantis has scheduled special primary elections in Senate District 19 and House District 32 on April 1 and special general elections on June 10.
Mayfield on Wednesday appeared to be relying on a lawsuit challenging former state Rep. James Grant’s eligibility for re-election in 2018. Grant was first elected to the House in 2010 and was re-elected subsequently. But lawmakers vacated the results of a 2014 election, resulting in a five-month hiatus from the House for Grant. He won back the House seat in a 2015 special election but faced questions about whether term limits should apply in 2018.
In the 2018 lawsuit, attorneys for then-Secretary of State Ken Detzner wrote that the constitutional amendment “is clear and unambiguous” about term limits.
“In order for an office holder to be termed out under Section 4, it must be that the office holder will have served for eight consecutive years. Where, as here, there is a five-month vacancy during the office holder’s period of service, it cannot be said that the office holder will have served for eight consecutive years,” Detzner’s lawyers wrote. “The phrase ‘for eight consecutive years’ denotes service for all of each consecutive year. If the Constitution had been written differently, so that it imposed term limits where an office holder will have served ‘in eight consecutive years,’ the meaning of the provision would be different.”