Alarmed by the looming lack of diversity on the State’s highest court, all seventeen members of the Florida Senate Democratic Caucus signed letters today urging outgoing Governor Rick Scott and incoming Governor-elect Ron DeSantis to request the Judicial Nominating Commission put forward more names for the three expected vacancies on the Florida Supreme Court.
Among the 11 finalists out of an allowable 18 candidate names submitted by the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission to the governor, not one African American applicant was among them, even though six had originally applied. This means that unless the search is broadened, for the first time in almost forty years, the Supreme Court will no longer have a single African American seated among its seven justices, ending a legacy of integration and equal justice that has endured for decades.
Copies of the letters delivered earlier today are attached here and here.
