(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Senators OK for DeSantis, other FL candidates, to run for president or VP without resigning [1] ['Mitch Perry', 'More From Author', '- April'] Date: 2023-04-26 Saying that senators wanted to avoid any confusion about current state law, the Florida GOP-controlled Senate passed a provision Wednesday to ease the pathway for Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida candidates for president or vice president to remain in office while campaigning in a presidential race. The provision was part of an election bill of nearly 100 pages, with the Senate approving the overall legislation on a vote of 28-12. The House version of the bill goes to the floor on Friday. DeSantis is expected to declare his candidacy for president of the United States within the next month. Senate Democrats on the floor on Wednesday said that Republicans were doing the governor’s bidding, and that it wasn’t good for Floridians. “The governor of 23 million people is going to spend a year and a half going around this entire huge country and not govern the state – isn’t that a dereliction of duty and we are giving him a pathway to do so?” said Democrat Tina Polsky, representing parts of Broward and Palm Counties. “We elected our governor to be the governor for four years,” added Palm Beach County Democrat Lori Berman. “Not two years. Not three years, and how can he fulfill his requirements when he’s running around the country?” South Florida Democrat Shevrin Jones said that there were events going on in Florida “going neglected right now,” with the governor traveling abroad — a problem for the state’s 23 million residents. In fact, Democrats and former President Donald Trump have criticized DeSantis for being out of the state when Fort Lauderdale was contending with unprecedented flooding earlier this month. For months there has been a question about whether Florida’s current “resign to run” law would compel DeSantis to resign as governor if he formally enters the 2024 presidential race. That law says that “any officer who qualifies for federal public office must resign from the office he or she presently holds if the terms, or any part thereof, run concurrently with each other.” But in recent weeks Florida’s Republican leadership in the Legislature has said that they didn’t believe that anything needed to be changed. Nevertheless, Palm Coast Republican Travis Hutson introduced an amendment to clarify the issue. Hutson told the Senate that “scholars from both sides of the aisle” had agreed that Florida’s current law did allow anyone to run for president or vice president without having to resign, but he decided to add the provision anyway. That provision in the bill (SB 7050) reads: “Any person seeking the office of President or Vice President of the United States is not subject to the requirements of chapter 99, Florida Statutes, which govern candidate qualifying, specifically those which require the submission of certain documents, full and public disclosures of financial interests, petition signatures, or the payment of filing fees.” Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said during a break on Wednesday that in her view, the current resign-to-run law doesn’t apply to presidential and vice-presidential candidates. “We don’t need to do this, but the problem is, we keep getting calls from all over the country while we’re trying to end session,” she said, which is why she said she worked with Hutson to “confirm what we already know.” She later added “as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter who it is, if someone from Florida runs for president and wins, it’s really going to be great for all of us.” Hutson said that there have been other governors who have run for president at the same time “and there hasn’t been any issues that I’m aware of.” South Florida Democrat Jason Pizzo offered a bitter line to end the discussion. “This is probably the line you’re going to hear from the former president,” he said, referring to Donald Trump, who leads DeSantis in most Republican polls for president. “You filed a resign to run, which is designed to lose. The governor’s going to lose. And you just gave him a soft landing to come back.” Meanwhile, one of the biggest objections in the overall election bill were the penalties on third-party voter registration organizations for turning in voter registrations late. An amendment introduced Wednesday by Sen. Hutson includes a new penalty: A fine of $50,000 for each person who is not a citizen and is collecting or handling voter registration applications on behalf of third-party voter registration organizations. Other provisions in the bill dealing with third-party voting rights organizations include: Requiring that those organizations that are registering voters to apply every election cycle with the Department of State. Currently the groups don’t have to do that. The deadline for submitting voter registrations has now been shortened from 14 calendar days to 10 calendar days, with the fines increased substantially if they are turned in late — up to $100 per registration per each day late (from $50) to a maximum of $2,500. If the voter registration form is submitted after the book-closing deadline (29 days before an election), the fines now go up to $100 per day late per registration, to a maximum of $5,000. And for each voter registration form never submitted, the fines go up to $5,000. Organizations registering voters must provide a receipt to each applicant upon accepting possession of the application. And the groups would have to re-register with the state for every single election cycle. Plus, the bill would also require all first-time Florida voters who have never been issued a current and valid Florida driver license or a voter ID card or a Social Security number to vote in person the first time. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/04/26/senators-ok-for-desantis-other-fl-candidates-to-run-for-president-or-vp-without-resigning/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/