TALLAHASSEE — A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January sided with Hillsborough County Andrew Warren in a constitutional challenge to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision in 2022 to suspend him, but the legal dispute rolls on.
In the latest twist, the Atlanta-based court last month ordered lawyers for DeSantis and Warren to file briefs addressing contradictory U.S. Supreme Court opinions, including one that dates back a century.
That 1924 opinion rejected a request by Oklahoma Gov. Jack Walton to stop state lawmakers’ impeachment proceedings against him. Walton had declared martial law in an attempt to quell violence by the Ku Klux Klan, but the court said it lacked the authority to intervene.
“A court of the United States, sitting as a court of equity, is without jurisdiction of a suit to enjoin the prosecution of a proceeding to remove a state official from office,” the opinion said.
The other ruling, in a case known as Bond v. Floyd, centered on the Georgia Legislature’s refusal to seat Julian Bond, a civil-rights leader elected along with 10 other Black men to the state House in 1965. State lawmakers targeted Bond because of statements he made opposing the Vietnam War.
Reaching the opposite conclusion from the 1924 case, the 1966 Supreme Court opinion — which Warren’s team has relied on in the fight with DeSantis — said: “that this court has jurisdiction to review the question of whether the action of the Georgia House of Representatives deprived Bond of federal constitutional rights.”
DeSantis’ lawyers filed a brief Friday that included numerous citations to opinions and comments from the 1800s and argued that federal courts have no power to “intervene in matters concerning the appointment and removal of state officers.”
The concept dates back to the origins of the nation, according to the state’s lawyers.
“The rule that federal courts have no equitable power to interfere with the appointment and removal of state officers has deep historical roots that trace to the founding,” they wrote.
Warren, however, filed a brief Friday that argued the 1924 opinion “is irrelevant.”
The federal court’s jurisdiction was expanded as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which allows people to sue state and federal officials who violate their constitutional rights, Warren’s lawyers said. What is known as Section 1983 of the law is frequently relied upon in civil-rights litigation, such as in the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision that barred segregation in schools.
“The very purpose of (Section) 1983 was to interpose the federal courts between the states and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal rights — to protect the people from unconstitutional action under color of state law, whether that action be executive, legislative, or judicial,” Warren’s lawyers wrote.
Amid the continued legal wrangling, Warren launched a campaign last month to get his job back. Suzy Lopez, a Republican who was appointed by DeSantis to replace Warren, also is running.
