An amendment to the Florida law opens DeSantis’ path to the White House

The Florida Legislature will consider an amendment introduced Tuesday by a Republican lawmaker that, if approved, would allow state Gov. Ron DeSantis run for the White House without having to resign from your current positionstate media reports.

It is an amendment to the election law, SB 7050, which, if approved, will exempt candidates for president or vice president from having to resign from their position in order to run, according to CBS4. The Florida Senate is scheduled to take up a proposal from Republican Sen. Travis Hutson, who could support DeSantis if he runs for president, on Wednesday.

Current law mandates that any government official who “qualifies for federal public office you must resign from the position you currently hold if the conditions or any part of them are carried out concurrently».

Governor, re-elected by a large majority in 2022. He has not yet revealed whether he will run for the Republican nominationbut there are many signs that he is already on the campaign trail, starting with the attacks he regularly receives from his former political godfather, former President Donald Trump, who claims he would not have won the governorship in 2018 without his support.

For now, only Trump, Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Governor William Asa Hutchinson have officially been nominated for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The DeSantis administration has pushed a conservative agenda during the current legislature ahead of his planned presidential bid to try to capture the White House, with laws such as the controversial “Don’t Say Gay,” targeting education, other anti-abortion regulations and a law making it easier to carry guns without a license, all approved by Florida’s Republican-majority Congress.

Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo downplayed concerns that the bill would ultimately resolve the ambiguities in DeSantis’ resignation to run. “We are still investigating whether we really need it or not. We just didn’t have time for it.”Passidomo said in statements he collected today Florida Politics.

“From my point of view,” added the president of the state Senate, “it is already evident that the resignation of candidacy does not apply to presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Under our law, the time to resign is entirely based on qualifications. Presidential and vice-presidential candidates do not have to meet the requirements,” he said.

In a statement, Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, said Republican lawmakers “allow DeSantis to pursue national ambitions while failing Floridians on the issues that affect them most”. “Florida Republicans in the Legislature are following DeSantis’ push to serve his ambitions.

Throughout this legislative session, DeSantis lobbied lawmakers to pass his extreme anti-abortion agenda and legislation that could make it easier for criminals to carry guns to boost his national profile. and to gain the base of MAGA (an acronym for ‘Make America Great Again’, a slogan popularized by Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign), before a possible presidential bid, criticized Fried.