Navigation DeSantis defends Francis Supreme Court appointment
Gov. Ron DeSantis rallied support for his contested appointment of 15th Circuit Judge Renatha Francis to the Supreme Court at a September 9 press conference that included statements from Francis, former Bar President Eugene Pettis, and several South Florida Black politicians.
It also included pleas for Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Windermere, to drop her pending Supreme Court challenge to Francis’s appointment – something Thompson declined to do.
The press conference, held in Miramar, came before DeSantis’s office filed a response just before midnight yesterday (September 9) to the Supreme Court’s September 8 show cause order on why it should not block Francis’s appointment and order the governor to select someone else. Thompson argued that Francis, who was selected by DeSantis on May 26, was not eligible for the appointment because she will not have been a Florida Bar member for 10 years, as required by the Constitution, until September 24.
