![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Ron-DeSantis-during-his-victory-speech-at-the-Tampa-Convention-Center.jpeg?resize=580%2C386&ssl=1\")
Ron DeSantis during his victory speech at the Tampa Convention Center on Nov. 8, 2022. In a case that has drawn attention from media organizations and open-government advocates, state lawyers late Monday urged an appeals court to uphold a ruling that said \u201cexecutive privilege\u201d shields Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 administration from releasing records.
Lawyers in DeSantis\u2019 office and Attorney General Ashley Moody\u2019s office filed a brief disputing arguments that the use of executive privilege conflicts with a 1992 constitutional amendment aimed at providing access to public records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case stems from a person, identified in court documents as J. Doe, filing a public records request seeking information from DeSantis\u2019 office about people involved in discussions about appointing Florida Supreme Court justices. In a subsequent lawsuit, Leon County Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey rejected the public records request on a series of grounds, including executive privilege.
\u201cThe confidentiality of consultations with advisors \u2014 precisely the information Doe demands here \u2014 is critical to the execution of the governor\u2019s constitutional duty to fill judicial vacancies, and Doe has not identified any need for this information that would overcome the governor\u2019s presumptive privilege to maintain that confidentiality,\u201d the state\u2019s 52-page brief Monday said.
The brief, filed at the 1st District Court of Appeal, also said executive privilege was not \u201coverridden\u201d by the 1992 public records amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaintaining the confidentiality of deliberations concerning judicial appointments is necessary to enable the governor and his aides to receive candid, unfiltered advice regarding the exercise of an important constitutional function,\u201d the brief said.
But in two friend-of-the-court briefs filed in July, state and national media organizations and open-government advocacy groups said such use of executive privilege would undermine Florida\u2019s public records law.
One brief filed by a coalition that includes groups such as the League of Women Voters and the Florida Center for Government Accountability said the circuit-court ruling \u201cupends decades of jurisprudence interpreting\u201d the public records law.
\u201cIn the 178 years that Florida has existed, not a single (other) court decision has recognized the existence of any executive privilege,\u201d attorneys for the groups wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case is rooted in an Aug. 25, 2022, interview in which DeSantis told conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt that a group of \u201csix or seven pretty big legal conservative heavyweights\u201d had helped him screen candidates for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court.
J. Doe filed a public records request seeking information from DeSantis\u2019 office about people involved in the Supreme Court appointment process. J. Doe filed a lawsuit after not receiving records.
The issue went to the 1st District Court of Appeal in January after Dempsey ruled against the requester. While the ruling also involved other grounds, Dempsey wrote that the \u201cpurpose underlying the executive privilege supports its recognition here.\u201d
\u201cTo effectively discharge his constitutional duty, the governor must be permitted to have access to candid advice in order to explore policy alternatives and reach appropriate decisions,\u201d she wrote, citing rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court and other states. \u201cThe interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the executive is vital to the public, as it fosters informed and sound gubernatorial deliberations and decision making.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But attorneys for J. Doe wrote in a June 29 brief at the appeals court that Dempsey \u201cinvented something previously unknown to Florida law: an \u2018executive privilege\u2019 against the constitutionally mandated disclosure of public records. In doing so, the trial court disregarded the unambiguous text of the Florida Constitution, which creates a right of access to public records in the absence of specified circumstances that are not present here.\u201d
The media organizations and other groups that signed on to briefs in July were the Associated Press; Cable News Network, Inc.; CMG Media Corp., doing business as Cox Media Group; Gannett Co., Inc.; Graham Media Group, Inc.; The McClatchy Company LLC, doing business as the Miami Herald; The New York Times Co.; Nexstar Media Group, Inc.; Orlando Sentinel Media Group; The E.W. Scripps Co.; Sun Sentinel Media Group; Times Publishing Co.; NBC Universal Media, LLC; the First Amendment Foundation; the Florida Center for Government Accountability; Integrity Florida Institute, Inc.; the League of Women Voters of Florida and the League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund; and American Oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jim Saunders News Service of Florida Ron DeSantis during his victory speech at the Tampa Convention Center on Nov. 8, 2022. In a case that has drawn attention from… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}