Since taking office, Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken two different approaches when a member of Congress or the Florida Legislature resigns or dies.
Sometimes he acts speedily to call a special election to fill the vacancy and get a replacement in office quickly, especially if it’s a district in which voters are likely to elect a Republican.
In other cases he takes his time, waiting weeks to schedule elections, with dates far in the future, more commonly when the vacancy is in a Democratic district.
State law leaves the timing — when to announce special elections and when to hold special primaries and general elections — up to DeSantis. State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, and state Rep. Michael Gottlieb, a Broward Democrat, are sponsoring legislation that would require governors to act more quickly, setting timetables for various scenarios.
A Florida governor can fill many vacancies on his own, including members of the Florida Cabinet, county commissioners and school board members. But he doesn’t have the authority to pick replacements for the legislative branch.
For federal offices, the governor can appoint a replacement senator to fill in until the next election. (That’s how Ashley Moody became the appointed senator when U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio resigned to become secretary of state.) U.S. House vacancies must be filled by voters.
Under DeSantis’ unexplained delays, lasting far longer than under previous Republican governors, sometimes mean residents of vacated lawmakers’ districts go without representation for months.
“It’s terrible that we can’t count on special elections in a timely manner,” said state Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat. The result, she said, is sometimes “there’s no representation for certain people.”
The decisions are widely believed to be political. “It shouldn’t be dependent on politics or what the seat looks like,” Polsky said.
The governor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Polsky-Gottlieb legislation or about how DeSantis goes about deciding when special elections will be held.
In 2021, in response to questions about a delay in setting election dates — and the assertion that his actions were aimed at keeping Democratic seats vacant — his press secretary at the time said simply that he “has fulfilled his constitutional and statutory duties.”
No representation
A DeSantis delay in setting special election dates means a Palm Beach County district in the state House of Representatives will be unrepresented in Tallahassee for the entire 2026 legislative session.
An unusual feature of the current example is it involves Republican-leaning District 87, home to 115,600 active registered voters — including the state’s most prominent Republican, President Donald Trump whose official residence is his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
The vacancy didn’t come as a surprise; it came about because DeSantis appointed the previous representative to a new job. Former state Rep. Mike Caruso resigned from the District 87 seat on Aug. 18 when DeSantis appointed him clerk of the circuit court and comptroller of Palm Beach County.
DeSantis set the special primary election in District 87 for Jan. 13 with the special general election to determine who takes the seat set for March 24 — 11 days after the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn its 2026 session.
Even though the vacancy occurred on Aug. 18, DeSantis didn’t announce the dates for the primary and general election to replace Caruso until Oct. 24 — 70 days after Caruso resigned to take the gubernatorial appointment.
DeSantis acts quickly to set special elections when he chooses. On July 21, Blaise Ingoglia resigned from the Florida Senate because DeSantis named him as the state’s new chief financial officer.
On July 22, the day after Ingoglia resigned to take the new office, DeSantis set the dates for special primary and general elections to fill the vacancy.
On the same day DeSantis set the dates for the special primary and general elections in another Palm Beach County district after the July 18 death of state Rep. Joe Casello.
That quick setting of dates for the special election stood out because Casello was a Democrat who represented a largely Democratic district. Voters picked Democrat Rob Long to fill the remainder of Casello’s term in the Dec. 9 special election.
Democratic districts
Often he waits longer to call special elections in Democratic districts than in Republican areas.
When longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings died on April 6, 2021, DeSantis waited 30 days to set election dates. He then set the special primary for Nov. 2 and a general election for Jan. 11.
As a result, the seat remained empty for more than nine months after Hastings’ death.
The district was so Democratic, that voters were all but certain to elect a Democrat.
Delaying the special election for the Hastings vacancy meant Democrats had one less seat in Washington, D.C., making it harder for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pass her party’s priorities in the House.
By contrast, when President-elect Donald Trump announced in November last year he was elevating then-U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz to senior jobs in the administration, DeSantis set what the state said was the soonest possible election dates. (Gaetz’s nomination ultimately was withdrawn, but he didn’t attempt to undo his resignation.)
DeSantis set the special primary elections for Jan. 28 and the general elections on April 1.
The Waltz district was unrepresented for 10 weeks, and the Gaetz seat for 20 weeks. The speedy special elections in districts where Republican victories were virtually guaranteed made it easier for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to pass the Republican agenda.
DeSantis has often delayed setting special elections in Democratic state legislative districts.
Unlike the closely divided Congress, Republicans have such a commanding majority over Democrats in the state Legislature that a vacancy is unlikely to affect the outcome on major issues. Not having a representative means there isn’t someone to advocate for funding projects in the district.
Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP
State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Broward-Palm Beach county Democrat, is sponsoring legislation that would require Florida governors to act more quickly to set special elections to fill state legislative and congressional vacancies. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press)
Break with past
Data compiled in 2021 by the Harvard Election Law Clinic, which filed a lawsuit that year seeking to compel him to set election dates, showed DeSantis was keeping vacancies open far longer than his three predecessors, all of whom were Republican governors.
For 69 special elections set to fill vacancies, dating to 1999 and spanning DeSantis and former Govs. Rick Scott, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush, the dates were usually set much more quickly. And the elections themselves were held more quickly.
No other governor in the previous 20 years had waited as long to set elections or scheduled them so long after the vacancies occurred.
After Hastings died, DeSantis kept the seat vacant for 280 days. The previous five special congressional elections took place an average of 154 days after the vacancy occurred, Harvard Election Law Clinic research showed. That’s more than four months shorter on average.
In another instance, on Oct. 27, 2021, DeSantis set primary and general special election dates for three Broward and Palm Beach county seats in the state Legislature. The seats had been vacated when the lawmakers who held those jobs all submitted irrevocable resignations in July so they could qualify as candidates to fill the vacancy caused by Hastings’ death.
DeSantis waited 91 days to set two of the special elections and 92 days for the other.
And under his timetable, the general elections were held months later: 223 or 224 days after the vacancies arose.
Lawsuits
There’s another pattern. When DeSantis delays setting special elections he has repeatedly been sued by Democratic candidates or their supporters asking a judge to order the governor to perform his election-setting duties.
When those lawsuits are filed, DeSantis often responds by moving quickly to set election dates — avoiding the prospect of a court ordering him to act.
— In state House District 87 in Palm Beach County, he announced the election dates 17 days after a lawsuit was filed by a Democratic candidate Emily Gregory’s campaign seeking a court order compelling him to act.
— In the congressional district that had been represented by Hastings, he acted five days after a lawsuit was filed.
— In the 2021 case in which the Harvard Election Law Clinic filed a lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs in the Broward and Palm Beach counties state Senate and House districts, DeSantis acted 12 days after the case was filed.
Legislation
Polsky’s Senate Bill 460 and Gottlieb’s House Bill 597 would require, rather than simply authorize, the governor to call special primary and general elections. The measures, which would go into effect July 1, would also require the governor to set the primary and election dates within 14 days after the vacancy occurs in most cases.
If the governor doesn’t act, voters could ask a circuit judge to set the election dates.
It wouldn’t impose the same time limits on every vacancy. If, for example, a state legislative vacancy occurred in December when the legislative session is scheduled to run from Jan. 13 through March 13, the seat could be held open until the regular August primary and November general election, Polsky said.
If there was enough time to conduct elections before a legislative session, the process would be expedited.
Similar legislation in 2022 didn’t advance. Even if the 2026 version were to pass the House and Senate, it faces a big obstacle. It would then go to DeSantis, who could veto it.
“It’s going to be tough to get enacted,” Polsky said, “especially because the person who has to sign the bill is the one who caused these problems.”
Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.