Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday appointed state Rep. Mike Caruso as Palm Beach County clerk of the circuit court and comptroller.
“Very excited. Very honored that the governor has the confidence in me to take on this role,” Caruso said in a phone interview. “Here’s a great opportunity. I think my background lines up perfectly with it.”
Caruso said he will be sworn in early Tuesday morning, then swear in the deputy clerks in time for the county’s daily court business to proceed uninterrupted.
Monday was the last day in office for Clerk of Courts Joe Abruzzo, who resigned to take a new position as Palm Beach County administrator. Abruzzo’s first day as county administrator is Tuesday.
The decision by Democrat Abruzzo to seek the administrator’s job, and the decision by the County Commission to hire him, provided an opening to the governor to appoint a Republican replacement to run the office.
DeSantis was widely expected to name Caruso, one of his staunchest allies in the Legislature. The governor has called Caruso “the legend” and praised him for standing up to political pressure.
The appointment as clerk lasts through next year’s election. Caruso, 66, said he would run in 2026 for the final two years of the term Abruzzo was reelected to in November 2024.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in Palm Beach County, but the county has been trending Republican in recent years. Caruso said he is confident he can win.
He has name recognition in different parts of the county. He used to represent a more southeastern state House district, but moved north following the redistricting that changed district boundaries to reflect population changes uncovered in the 2020 Census.
As a state representative since 2018, Cruso said he has served constituents “without regard to their party affiliation.”
“It was awesome to serve in the Florida House in the Legislature. There’s no other place like it. And it was time well-served. I think I got a lot done. I accomplished a number of objectives that I set out to do,” he said, including bringing back funding for many community projects in the county.
But, he said, he determined he “can’t be as effective going forward based on what happened in the last session.” Caruso was such a strong ally of DeSantis and supporter of his priorities that when House Speaker Daniel Perez started clashing with the governor, Caruso was a political casualty.
Perez retaliated by stripping Caruso of his committee chairmanship and booting him out of his corner office into another space.
Caruso has credentials for the new position. Besides maintaining a vast array of court records and other government documents, the clerk and comptroller serves as the county’s chief financial officer, treasurer and auditor.
He is a certified public accountant with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from George Washington University. He’s worked for big international accounting firms and founded his own firm and has done work as a forensic accountant.
Caruso wasn’t eligible to seek reelection next year because of term limits. He was still a state representative on Monday afternoon, but he said he would submit his resignation from the Legislature by midnight.
One benefit of the new job is location. Caruso’s office will be the county Governmental Center in West Palm Beach, which Caruso said is about two miles from where he lives. The state Capitol is a seven-hour drive.
His wife, Tracy Caruso, hopes to start making that long commute. She has already filed as a candidate to succeed her husband.
Two other Republicans, Jon Maples and Gretchen L. Miller Feng, and one Democrat, Emily Watson Gregory, have filed paperwork with the state Division of Elections for Mike Caruso’s House seat in he 2026 election, and it is routine in such situations for the candidates to switch to run in the special election.
DeSantis will ultimately set special election dates for House District 87, in the central part of the county along the Atlantic coast, which leans Republican. The latest figures by the Supervisor of Elections Office show its registered voters are 40.4% Republican, 28.4% Democratic, 27.3% no party affiliation/independent and 3.9% minor party.
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.