This is something that I had originally spelled in a Twitter thread, as it was too much to explain completely in 280 characters. (No, I’m not paying for Twitter Blue, which allows you to compose tweets of up to 4,000 characters. I’m cheap, that’s why.) But as I still truncated my comments for space, here’s the expanded version, all in one place.
This article from The Daily Caller repeats an interpretation of Florida law which I think is obviously erroneous:
While All Eyes Are On DeSantis For A Presidential Run, A Florida Law Still Stands In His Way
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to run for the GOP nomination in 2024, but a Florida law would require him to resign as governor before he runs.
The law in question, linked in that article, is in Florida statute 99.012, commonly called the “Resign-to-Run” law. Here’s the relevant part:
…which, I contend, doesn’t say what The Daily Caller (and other venues) say that it says.
Paragraph (2) prohibits being a candidate for more than one office. So DeSantis couldn’t, for instance declare his candidacy for another gubernatorial term and his candidacy for the presidency if the terms of those two offices would overlap.
Paragraph (3)(a) is, I think, the paragraph which is most substantively misread as saying that DeSantis couldn’t continue to hold the office of Governor while being a candidate for the Presidency if the terms of those two offices would overlap. However, (3)(a) specifically leaves “federal” out of the list of public offices which disallow candidacy for another public office; compare the list given in (2) which does specifically mention federal office.
By a clear reading of the law, then, a present holder of a state, district, county or municipal office is disallowed from candidacy for another state, district, county or municipal office if those terms overlap, but the present holder of one of those offices can legally be a candidate for federal office without the necessity of resigning his present non-federal office.
I’m a big fan of the Rule of Law, which means that we need to apply the law as it is written until such time as the text of the law is changed by proper legislative means, or until a court rules decisively that it conflicts with a more authoritative law (for instance, a state constitution). It is not acceptable to apply the law as we think it should be, or as we wish it was, or even as we think that the original legislators “really meant.”
That is all.