Executive Ethics

LaRose hasn’t responded to repeated questions from the Capital Journal about the move. But it would be improper for him to engage in campaign activities in the downtown Columbus building, said Mia Lewis of Common Cause Ohio, because it’s vital to keep the work of running a fair election walled off from that of trying to win one. “You have to keep the campaign and the government work separate,” she said. “Once those things start to blur, it becomes harder and harder for voters to trust their elected officials.” “This man is our secretary of state,” Lewis said. “He’s supposed to be in charge of elections in Ohio. And yet he seems to spend an incredible amount of his time putting his thumb on the scale of one issue or another — openly campaigning for one result or another.” She added, “Now he’s running for office himself and the fact that he doesn’t see that it is unseemly at the very least to be operating as secretary of state while in the same building you’re running your campaign for Senate at the same time. How are Ohioans supposed to trust you when you have so much trouble putting the voters first?”

"It is blatantly about race from Day 1," said Gregory Diskant, attorney for plaintiffs including the NAACP, Common Cause, Fair Districts Now and individual voters who want the congressional boundaries thrown out by the court. They charge that DeSantis violated the U.S. Constitution's equal protection and voting rights protections with the Republican-heavy map that has left no Black member of Congress from North Florida for the first time in 30 years. "Why did he care about this so much?" Diskant said, answering by claiming that "racial animus" was behind the governor's actions. "He did not want a Black performing district in North Florida," he added.

Kathay Feng, Common Cause vice president for programs who was on hand for the trial, contended that Kelly’s testimony showed that the DeSantis administration was struggling to explain their actions. “There’s a lot of twisting and turning, there’s a lot of fabrication, there’s a lot of denial of history,” Feng said.

“The governor pushed and pushed and pushed,” said attorney Greg Baker who represents Common Cause Florida, the Florida branch of the NAACP and Fair Districts who are now are suing to have the map thrown out.. “He pressed his argument by sound bite bullying.” Baker, who represents the three organizations along with 10 individual voters, told a three-judge panel that DeSantis’ goal was to dismantle the district then held by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, who is Black, and disperse it among other conservative north Florida districts easily won by white Republicans. The 2022 election left north Florida without Black representation for the first time in 30 years, Baker said. The state’s population of more than 22 million is 17% Black.

White Republicans won all North Florida congressional districts in the November elections after the map was redrawn. Attorneys for plaintiffs such as the NAACP and Common Cause Florida argue in the federal lawsuit that the overhaul to Congressional District 5 involved "intentional discrimination" and violated the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures equal protection, while the 15th Amendment prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote based on race. The Legislature passed the plan after DeSantis vetoed a proposal that could have led to electing a Black candidate in District 5, the attorneys wrote in a pre-trial brief filed Tuesday. "Gov. DeSantis was viscerally opposed to any district in North Florida in which Black voters could elect a representative of their choice - no matter how such a district was configured," the brief said. "He vetoed the Legislature's plan, and pushed through his own, not in spite of his plan's adverse impact on Black voting power, but precisely because of it. That is unconstitutional." "The evidence will show Governor DeSantis went into the 2022 congressional redistricting with one overriding goal: eliminating (the previous configuration of) Florida's Fifth Congressional District, a district where Black voters could elect their candidate of choice," said the brief filed Tuesday by the plaintiffs' attorneys.

Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the voter advocacy and election watchdog organization Common Cause in Connecticut, says the primary will be a test for Trump supporters and mainstream Republicans. "I don’t think he should be on the ballot," Quickmire said of DiGiovanni. "I think anyone who participated in an insurrection against the U.S. government should be disqualified."