TALLAHASSEE — DeSantis administration employees who solicit money for political campaigns or campaign for political issues while they are supposed to be doing their jobs could face criminal penalties under a proposal moving in the Florida House.
The bill, HB 1445, appears to take aim at staffers in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration who reportedly solicited political contributions for his presidential bid and have asked state lobbyists to commit money to a political committee as first lady Casey DeSantis considers a run for governor in 2026.
“What this says is that whether it’s after hours or during hours, which is already prohibited, you cannot solicit funds, you cannot be engaged in the political campaign fundraising process,” the bill sponsor, state Rep. Debbie Mayfield, R-Melbourne, said during a House committee hearing last week.
The bill would also prohibit state employees and officers from participating in any political campaigns, whether it be on behalf of a candidate, a political committee or an issue on the ballot, while on duty or during hours for which they are compensated by the state. And state employees would be barred from using their positions to influence or interfere with an issue on the ballot.
State employees who violate the fundraising or political campaign provisions could be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison, according to the bill.
The sweeping House ethics proposal is the latest example of how House Republican leaders are trying to rein in an executive branch that has increasingly blurred the lines between campaign politics and state duties by using taxpayer-funded resources.
It also appears to target some of the ways in which the DeSantis administration used the power of state government and its employees’ time to defeat ballot measures related to abortion and marijuana in the last election cycle.
The governor enlisted his chief of staff to serve as the chairman of a political committee targeting both ballot measures, and administration officials like Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo participated in official news conferences advocating against the issues. Employees at a Florida health agency also launched a state-sponsored website that took a position against the abortion ballot measure.
The bill could be considered by the full Florida House as early as Wednesday. So far, it has bipartisan support.
“It seems like we need to do more than just tap people on the hand,” state Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, said during the committee hearing last week. Some employees have been finding loopholes and “exploiting them,” Gantt said.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the proposal.
In addition to this bill, Republicans in the Legislature are also advancing legislative proposals that would prohibit state funds from being used to advocate for or against constitutional amendments.
Proposal comes in light of state campaign efforts
Florida law already sets boundaries around the political activities public officers can engage in and bars career government employees from using their official positions to “secure support for, or oppose any candidate, party, or issue in a partisan election.”
DeSantis has defended his administration’s efforts in the past, saying state agencies “have the authority to educate the public on resources available under Florida law.”
The bill would not apply to the political and fundraising activities of elected officials. It would only apply to state employees and officers, including senior administration officials who are not elected.
If approved, the House bill would make the legal boundaries between political activities and state duties more clear. But it remains unclear how enforcement of such changes would play out in the future.
Former Attorney General Ashley Moody at one point last fall argued that high-ranking state officials, like the governor, are exempt from the law that prohibits using their offices to influence an election — and that “leaders have both a duty and right to say which course of action they think best, and to make use of their offices for this purpose.”
The anti-Amendment 4 website hosted by the Agency for Health Care Administration led to court challenges from people who argued the state was improperly using its official power, including one case in front of the Florida Supreme Court.
The state’s high court, which has five DeSantis-appointed justices sitting on it, declined to intervene, in part saying it does not compel criminal prosecution or allow private citizens to enforce a criminal law.
Moody, who was recently appointed to the U.S. Senate by the governor, made a similar argument, saying that because the law is enforced with criminal penalties, it would have to be the attorney general or other state official, like a statewide prosecutor or state attorney, who takes action.
Florida’s current attorney general, James Uthmeier, is the governor’s former chief of staff who helped coordinate the amendment opposition campaign.
When the abortion amendment campaign sued over the Agency for Health Care Administration website in circuit court, a judge declined to block the state website, saying that it wasn’t appropriate for the courts to decide what people should consider in an election.
Uthmeier’s office did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.