Florida’s Supreme Court, already considered one of the most conservative in the nation, could solidify its rightward tilt if voters retain Gov. Ron DeSantis’ two latest appointees this November.
Justices Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso, both members of the conservative Federalist Society, have consistently ruled in favor of restricting abortion access, setting a higher bar for citizen-proposed constitutional amendments and limiting challenges to executive power during their short tenures.
Voters will have a chance to vote to retain or reject Francis and Sasso in an up-or-down vote on Nov. 5.
New justices are voted on in the general election that occurs more than a year after their appointment; after that, justices face merit retention elections every six years. Florida voters have never denied a justice’s retention.
“They are willing to embrace more extreme or fringe legal theories than their colleagues are,” said Quinn Yeargain, a Michigan State University law professor and Florida native whose expertise includes state constitutions and supreme courts.
DeSantis has appointed five of the state’s seven Supreme Court justices. He also appointed another two who have since gone on to the federal courts.
Francis’ and Sasso’s opinions have already pushed the conservative court to go even further in its rulings.
- Abortion: Francis and Sasso have consistently supported restrictions on abortion access. They voted to uphold Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, paving the way for the current six-week ban. They also dissented against allowing a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights to appear on the ballot.
- Ballot initiatives: Francis and Sasso have taken narrow views on what should be allowed on ballots. They were the lone dissenters in decisions allowing both recreational marijuana legalization and abortion rights protection amendments on the ballot.
- Executive power: Both justices have shown strong deference to executive power. Francis has argued for limiting citizens’ ability to challenge gubernatorial actions in court, potentially expanding executive reach. Francis argued the courts should have no role in reviewing DeSantis’ suspension of two elected state attorneys.
- Precedent: They have shown a willingness to revisit and overturn previous court decisions.
Francis and Sasso, through the Supreme Court’s public information director, declined to comment for this article to avoid ambiguity around campaigning and because justices are barred by ethics codes from speaking about cases that are in front of the court or could be in the future.
“They do stand on the record of their authored opinions and votes,” court spokesman Paul Flemming wrote.
DeSantis’ office did not respond to requests for comment.
RENATHA FRANCIS
DeSantis first appointed Francis to the Supreme Court in 2020, but the same court unanimously ruled she was not constitutionally eligible because she had not been admitted to the Florida Bar for 10 years at the time of the appointment, as required by the state constitution for all appellate judges.
DeSantis referenced Francis, who grew up in Jamaica and is the court’s first Caribbean American justice, during the Republican presidential debate last year in Miami when he was asked to provide his vision for Republicans’ path forward on the issue of abortion.
DeSantis answered by telling a story of Francis’ mother, who he said was encouraged to abort her pregnancy “because she was poor.” Instead, Francis’ mother gave birth to her.
“And the reason I know that story is because that baby girl ended up immigrating to the state of Florida, becoming a lawyer and a judge, and I appointed her to the Florida Supreme Court in August of 2022,” DeSantis said.
Francis, along with Sasso and fellow DeSantis-appointee Jamie Grosshans, disagreed with the court’s decision to allow on the ballot a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.
While still in Jamaica, Francis obtained degrees in political science and international relations from the University of the West Indies while managing two family businesses. She attended law school at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville.
Previously, DeSantis appointed Francis to the 15th Judicial Circuit Court in Palm Beach County.
MEREDITH SASSO
A Cuban American and Florida native, Sasso graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in political science and public relations. She went on to obtain her law degree from the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law.
Prior to becoming a judge, Sasso spent about two and a half years as a lawyer to then-Gov. Rick Scott, rising to Chief Deputy General Counsel. Sasso advised the governor and defended him in state and federal courts.
In a controversial move, Scott appointed Sasso in 2019 to the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach. Her appointment raised questions because she had only recently met the minimum 10-year-requirement in the Florida Bar and because her father-in-law, Michael C. Sasso, was on the nominating commission, although he recused himself from the vote on her application, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
In January 2023, DeSantis recommissioned Sasso to the newly created Sixth District Court of Appeal in Lakeland. Four months later, DeSantis appointed her to the state’s highest court.
Sasso, whose husband is also a lawyer, reported in her Supreme Court application that she has recused herself from hearing cases that involve him and his relatives who are also lawyers, as well as their firm.
DeSantis has also tapped Sasso’s husband, Michael A. Sasso, for appointed positions. Michael Sasso was previously appointed by DeSantis to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, but he resigned only months into his term. He still sits on the Ninth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission.
Justices’ opinions show conservative approach
Francis and Sasso will appear on the ballot alongside two measures they sought to block from voters.
They were the only justices who opposed allowing a constitutional amendment legalizing recreational marijuana.
Amendment 3 would allow adults 21 years and older to use marijuana recreationally and allow state-licensed entities to sell it.
The Supreme Court’s role in deciding whether a measure is allowed on the ballot is narrow, wrote Justice Grosshans, a fellow DeSantis appointee who disagreed with Francis and Sasso and authored the majority opinion.
Grosshans, writing for the 5-2 majority, explained that the court’s role is limited to three key assessments: ensuring the amendment addresses only one subject as required by the state constitution, verifying that the ballot summary is clear enough to meet legal standards, and checking that the amendment doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution on its face.
Francis and Sasso each published dissents. Sasso argued the ballot summary had ambiguous language that misleads voters about how much the initiative would accomplish.
Francis agreed the language was misleading, and, she argued, the amendment violated the single-subject requirement.
Francis argued that personal marijuana use and its commercial sale are fundamentally different issues that shouldn’t be combined in one amendment. Doing so, she contended, violates the single-subject rule.
Francis and Sasso also tried to keep Amendment 4 from the electorate. Amendment 4, if passed, “would remove abortion restrictions before viability or to protect the health of the patient as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
The Supreme Court allowed the measure to appear on the ballot, but Francis and Sasso – along with Grosshans – dissented.
Sasso wrote that the amendment was “overwhelmingly vague” and argued the terms “health” and “healthcare provider” lacked clear meanings.
In another vote, this time with the majority, Francis and Sasso upheld Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which in effect, also allowed a stricter six-week abortion ban to stand.
Francis has also gone out of her way to write separate opinions multiple times arguing the court should limit the average person’s ability to challenge the government’s actions.
She has argued everyday citizens shouldn’t have standing to challenge the government just because they’re taxpayers. In two challenges to DeSantis’ removal of elected state attorneys, she also argued the court should not review those actions. She pushed for the court to adopt a stricter standard that left certain issues to the political process rather than the courts.
Francis argued in Worrell v. DeSantis, in which former elected State Attorney Monique Worrell of Orlando’s 9th Judicial Circuit challenged DeSantis’ suspension of her, that by reviewing such cases, the court “expands judicial power beyond what the constitution bears.”
The court has shown an unwillingness to check the state government’s actions, according to Yeargain, the law professor.
In another case where Francis dissented, she argued the court shouldn’t second-guess the Public Service Commission’s decision to allow Florida Power & Light to raise its utility rates. While the majority said the commission needed to better explain why the rate increases were legal and in the public interest, Francis disagreed, saying courts lacked authority to demand such justification. The increases let FPL collect an additional $692 million in 2022 and $560 million in 2023, with more increases planned for 2024 and 2025.
Yeargain also pointed to DeSantis’ 2022 request for the court to issue an advisory opinion on whether the state had to keep a congressional district that allowed North Florida’s Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
After the court declined to act, DeSantis vetoed the Legislature’s maps and pushed forward one of his own that reduced Black voters’ electoral power and ultimately netted four seats for Republicans.
A challenge to that map is pending before the Florida Supreme Court.
“I’m not sure that there’s a whole lot that the governor could do that the Florida Supreme Court would have a problem with,” Yeargain said.
Yeargain pointed out, though, that even if voters reject Francis and Sasso, Floridians will not get to elect someone else. If they are not retained, DeSantis will get to pick their replacements.
“One of the things that has been noticeable since DeSantis was elected in 2018 is the direction the Florida Supreme Court has taken. Even past Republican governors did not appoint justices who are as far to the right as the justices that he has appointed,” Yeargain said. There are other courts, like Florida’s, where every justice was appointed by Republicans. But Florida’s is still different, he said. “The Florida Supreme Court is uniquely conservative and very far to the right.”
This article first appeared on The Tributary and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
