Florida GOP lawmakers ready move allowing DeSantis to run for president without resigning

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature will clear the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president in 2024 by changing state law to make it clear he would not have to resign his current position if he became the GOP nominee.

With time running out on this year’s annual session, Senate Republicans will add the provision to a sweeping elections bill that will go before the full Senate on Wednesday. The elections bill is a top priority for DeSantis and Republicans and is expected to go to the governor’s desk between now and May 5.

The move comes shortly before DeSantis is expected to jump into a potentially volatile Republican primary for president, where he will go up against former President Donald Trump. DeSantis has already been visiting early primary states as part of a book promotional tour that has been seen as a warm-up exercise to a full-blown campaign. But Trump has racked up a number of endorsements, including from many Florida GOP members of Congress and has been leading in multiple polls.

There have been dueling legal opinions about whether Florida’s existing “resign-to-run” law would apply to someone running for president or vice president. But GOP legislators have opted to remove any doubts with this legislative proposal.

“If there is ambiguity, and it’s been something that’s been talked about — especially ad nauseam since November if not longer — then let’s do it, let’s clarify it,” said Republican state Sen. Danny Burgess, the chair of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee. “That way, should we be fortunate enough to have a president or vice president from Florida one day, we’ve cleared that air.”

The DeSantis campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The change by GOP legislators is likely to spark sharp criticism from Trump allies who had already been critical of lawmakers for discussing it previously. The Trump campaign earlier this month put out a statement zinging DeSantis over his recent travels and noted that he had resigned from his post in Congress while he was campaigning for governor the first time. Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung called it a “massive flip-flop.”

Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, slammed legislators for "doing the bidding of Ron DeSantis."

"This is just the latest example of Florida Republicans enabling DeSantis' pursuit of his national ambitions as he fails Floridians on the issues that affect them most," Fried said in a text message.

Florida law currently requires anyone running for a new office to put in an irrevocable letter of resignation ahead of qualifying if the terms of the two offices overlap. The law was changed in 2007 to open the door for then-Gov. Charlie Crist to seek the vice presidency, but legislators reversed course in 2018 and added back a requirement that someone seeking federal office would have to submit their resignation letter ahead of the actual election.

The 2018 law did include a carve-out for someone whose term is about to end, but that would not apply to DeSantis, who was just reelected last year.

Right after DeSantis’s blowout reelection win, the state’s two legislative leaders said they were willing to alter the existing law in order to help a potential candidacy. But for the first seven weeks of this year’s legislative session, GOP legislators did not release any actual proposals.

The Senate on Tuesday afternoon released a nearly 100-page rewrite of this year’s election bills that spells out that the state’s qualifying requirements — including the resign-to-run provision — do not apply to those running for president and vice president.