Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, not too long ago tapped one in every of his allies in the Florida House to develop into the new secretary of state.
The new elections chief, Cord Byrd, has a historical past of sparring with Democrats and, when requested, he has refused to say Joe Biden gained the 2020 presidential election.
Voting rights advocates and a few Democrats in the state say they’re anxious that Byrd’s appointment may make the office much less impartial.
Before his choice for the new function, Byrd was one in every of the more right-wing members of the Florida House. And Abdelilah Skhir, with the ACLU of Florida, says Byrd sponsored a few of the most divisive laws in the previous few years.
“This is somebody who has sponsored in the previous the anti-protest bill HB 1 in 2021, sponsored the anti-voter payments that handed in 2021 and 2022 — he sponsored the House variations of these payments — the trans athlete ban, anti-immigrant laws,” he says.
Skhir says Byrd additionally sponsored Florida’s controversial Parental Rights in Education laws, which has been derisively dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” invoice by opponents. He additionally sponsored a 15-week abortion ban, in addition to laws prohibiting colleges and employers from discussing race.
One of Byrd’s former colleagues, Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville, says it wasn’t simply his insurance policies that had been divisive, both. She says Byrd had a tough time maintaining his composure and collegiality throughout debates — particularly when these debates had been coming from the different facet of the aisle. In a minimum of one occasion, Nixon says, Byrd “cussed” at members of the Black caucus whereas on the Florida House flooring.
“The way he made arguments and debates on the floor, it really made many of my Black colleagues and myself uncomfortable with some of the things that he said,” she says. Byrd’s office says the allegations that he cursed aren’t true.
Byrd’s allies say issues over his appointment are overblown. Republican state Rep. Randy Fine of Brevard County says he and Byrd had been amongst the few lawmakers in Florida who weren’t afraid to problem views or feedback they thought had been unsuitable.
“Unfortunately, the woke left defines any conservative who fights as a bully, because that’s what they use as a weapon to try to silence the right,” Fine says. “It doesn’t work with someone like me or Secretary Byrd.”
But critics of Byrd say his is just not a really perfect temperament for somebody whose job it’s to presumably settle disputes in a state that always has very shut elections.
“It seems as though the governor chose someone who he knew was going to do his bidding,” Nixon says. “I think someone who may have already been a judge — or someone who had previously been a supervisor of elections — would have been great for this job, but not someone who is as uber-partisan as Cord Byrd is.”
In a press release, the Florida secretary of state’s office stated allegations that Byrd will act as a partisan “are simply not true and have been repeatedly addressed.”
“This is a false narrative that appears to be perpetuated by inaccurate or incomplete news stories and by partisan political attacks,” the office stated. “The Secretary of State’s office is nonpartisan and will not respond to those allegations.”
Byrd stated in a press release to NPR that he has “always advocated for the rule of law, and now serving as Florida’s Secretary of State, that will not change” in his new place.
“I think he shares a lot of the same views as the governor,” Fine says of Byrd. “But I don’t think it’s because he is being told what to do. I think it’s because it’s what he believes. And look, if Democrats want a Democrat to be secretary of state, they need to win some elections.”
Florida’s elections chief is appointed by the governor
Florida is among the minority of states the place voters do not get to decide on who runs their elections. Instead, in Florida and another states, like Pennsylvania and Texas, the elections chief is appointed by the governor.
Floridians used to vote for a secretary of state till the disastrous 2000 presidential election. One of the individuals who bought the most warmth from that election was then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris. In response, state lawmakers determined that selecting the place must be as much as governors from there on out.
Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, says that has meant all secretaries of state since then have been appointed by Republicans and have ties to the get together in a roundabout way.
“We have had a mixed history here in Florida of secretary of states who have tried to toe a little independence and those that have veered over into becoming effectively a pawn of the governor,” he says.
Byrd will lead a new election crimes unit
Byrd has stepped into this place at a time when Republicans and Democrats are at critical odds about how elections must be run.
Like many different GOP-led states over the previous two years, Florida lawmakers have handed new voting legal guidelines that Democrats say will make it more durable for folks to vote. A 2021 legislation created new restrictions on mail-in voting, drop bins and third-party voter registration efforts. And Skhir, of the ACLU of Florida, says there’s concern amongst voting teams over a legislation enacted this 12 months that creates a new election crimes unit.
“And that will be overseen by the secretary of state, who is not an elected position,” he says. “And our main concern around this office is that there is no guardrail to ensure that under any administration it couldn’t become a political tool.”
So far, there are usually not lots of particulars about the election crimes unit and the way it will be run. Byrd says he plans to hire knowledge analysts, investigators and legislation enforcement as soon as a director is in place.
High-profile Democrats in the state have already requested the federal authorities to look into Florida officers in mild of Byrd’s appointment, although.
Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture and client companies commissioner, recently sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice asking officers to “closely monitor the election-related actions of Florida officials and take appropriate federal action if necessary.”
Fried, who’s at the moment a Democratic candidate for governor, wrote that the mixture of restrictive new voting legal guidelines, new political maps that she says disenfranchise Black Floridians and Byrd’s appointment is “startling.”
“He believes in ‘nationwide irregularities’ in the 2020 presidential election and still refuses to acknowledge whether President Biden officially won,” she wrote. “These qualities matched with the newfound voter suppression powers granted to the Secretary of State by S.B. 90 create an environment rife for voting abuse.”
Similarly, Democratic Congressman Charlie Crist — a former Florida governor who’s working once more for the office this 12 months — also asked DOJ officials to “consider using all available authorities and resources to protect the rights of Florida voters.”
Crist stated the scope of the new election crimes unit “is purposefully vague and undefined, and provides those under the purview of the Governor’s office with unilateral authority and virtually no guardrails.”
An absence of guardrails on the whole is one thing that Smith, with the University of Florida, says worries him. He says in the previous few years the courts have sided with state officers curbing voting rights in the state. So, even when Democrats and voting teams had been to sue to cease alleged voting rights violations, it’s unlikely the courts will step in.
“I think it sends a very scary signal that these elections and those who are ultimately going to be deciding the rules and umpiring are ultimately one and the same,” he says.
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