What’s DeSantis waiting for? He should act quickly to fill Rubio’s seat | Opinion

Little Havana isn’t the only locale with lots of domino activity nowadays. When President-elect Trump picked several of Florida’s federal, state and local officials to serve in his administration, he created vacancies that’ll need to be filled.

This has triggered a domino effect as other incumbents prepared to resign from the offices they’ve held so they can run in the upcoming special elections for the offices that’ll be vacated by Trump’s nominees.

Meanwhile, assuming that Sen. Marco Rubio will be confirmed as the U.S. secretary of state, it will fall to Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint a successor. This scenario is playing out amid speculation that Trump is considering DeSantis for secretary of defense if Pete Hegseth withdraws.

The last time a Florida governor was called upon to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy occurred in 2009, when Sen. Mel Martinez abruptly resigned. Then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist appointed his friend George LeMieux “to keep the seat warm” until 2010, when Crist’s first term as governor was drawing to a close.

This arrangement worked up to a point. As expected, LeMieux did not run for the seat. Crist did, but he lost in the GOP primary to former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, who was twice re-elected while Crist eventually announced he was a Democrat.

DeSantis has said he’ll be vetting potential appointees for Rubio’s seat in January. The names being bandied about have included President Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, among others. Most are well known, as are their views on issues likely to arise in the U.S. Senate.

So, unless extensive vetting is needed for some obscure potential nominee who could do for DeSantis what George LeMieux did for Crist — that is, be a placeholder till DeSantis can run for the seat in 2026 — there’s no reason to wait.

DeSantis’ term as governor will be drawing to a close in 2026. That’s also when the person appointed to fill Rubio’s seat will have a decision to make: run for the remaining two years of Rubio’s six-year term or stand aside for DeSantis if the governor wants to seek that seat instead of leaving public office and focusing on a 2028 campaign for the White House.

What DeSantis would be well advised to do now is announce his choice for Rubio’s replacement as soon as possible so there will be no delay when the seat is open. Then, if the appointee envisions a long-term stay in the Senate, he or she will have as much seniority as possible in a legislative body where seniority reigns higher than at an AARP convention.

With regard to the importance of seniority, DeSantis could learn from the example set by the late Gov. Bob Graham, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, when his second term as governor was about to end.

Graham resigned as governor effective Jan. 3, 1987, so he could be sworn in along with the other senators elected in November instead of waiting until his term as governor ended on Jan. 6. Waiting would have meant lagging in seniority.

Graham’s resignation left the governorship to Lt. Gov. Wayne Mixon. Graham had picked Mixson to balance his ticket in the Democrats’ primary in 1978, an era when Miamians running for statewide office were sometimes eyed with suspicion in parts of North Florida for being “big city liberals.”

Mixson was a conservative Democrat and proud “Florida Cracker” from the Panhandle town of Marianna. Graham quipped that he was offering Florida a “Graham-Cracker ticket” that could appeal to voters in the general election.

Mixson’s three-day tenure as the state’s governor was one of the briefest in history, but forever thereafter around Tallahassee he was always referred to as “Gov. Mixson,” an accurate title that nonetheless comes with a footnote.

This bit of history offers a lesson for Gov. DeSantis: Don’t dawdle with the appointment to succeed Marco Rubio because, as Bob Graham’s timely resignation reminds us, the U.S. Senate has a way of making even a little bit of seniority count a lot.

Robert F. Sanchez, of Tallahassee, is a former member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. He writes for the Herald’s conservative opinion newsletter, Right to the Point. It’s weekly, and it’s free. To subscribe, go to miamiherald.com/righttothepoint.

This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 3:00 PM.