A Florida state attorney branded Ron DeSantis a “weak dictator” on Wednesday after he suspended her, making her the second elected, Democratic state attorney that the Florida governor has removed from duty.
In an executive order, DeSantis said Monique Worrell had failed to prosecute crimes including violent crime, drug trafficking, and pedophilia. He nominated former judge Andrew Bain, a member of the conservative group the Federalist Society, to serve during her suspension. DeSantis appointed Bain to the bench in 2020.
Worrell, for her part, hit back hard, accusing DeSantis of using her to distract from his “failing and disastrous” presidential campaign. Suspending her was just a way to throw a bone to his supporters and get more media attention.
“If we are mourning anything this morning, it is the loss of democracy,” Worrell told reporters. “I am your duly-elected state attorney for the ninth judicial circuit, and nothing done by a weak dictator can change that. This is an outrage.”
Worrell announced she would still run for reelection. She is now the second state attorney that DeSantis has suspended for disagreeing with him.
State Attorney Andrew Warren sued DeSantis in August, two weeks after the governor suspended him for alleged “willful defiance of his duty.” DeSantis justified the suspension by pointing to a joint statement Warren signed with other elected prosecutors the day Roe v. Wade was overturned, which codified their “firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions,” such as abortion or transgender health care.
Warren denied explicitly refusing to enforce laws and argued his suspension was political retaliation and a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech. A federal judge sided with him in January—but said he was unable to restore Warren to office because that would be an overreach of the court’s authority.
Worrell alluded to Warren in her comments Wednesday. “Elected officials are being taken out of office solely for political purposes,” she said. “Under this tyranny, elected officials can be removed simply for political purposes and by a whim of the governor and no matter how you feel about me, you should not be OK with that.”
It is deeply concerning that DeSantis feels he has the right to remove elected officials at will, and it should raise major red flags about what he might do as president. But given his performance so far, he may never get there, anyway.