Orange County judge denied a motion to dismiss the case<\/a> last week and had been slated to hear arguments this week.<\/p>\nThe Democratic primary on Aug. 18 now will be between two candidates, former Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh and Roberta Walton Johnson, general counsel for the clerk of courts.<\/p>\n
The winner will face Terrell Thomas, who entered the race with no party affiliation, in the November general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I prevailed at that hearing, I do not believe it is in the best interest of the public or the campaign to continue expending taxpayer resources and campaign funds litigating this matter through the trial,\u201d Gomez Cordero wrote in her letter.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, brought by Singh, claims Gomez Cordero\u2019s term as commissioner, which ends Dec. 8, would have a 28-day overlap with her new office should she win the clerk\u2019s contest in November, a violation of state law which stipulates there should be no overlap. The swearing-in to succeed outgoing clerk Tiffany Moore Russell\u00a0is slated for Nov. 10.<\/p>\n
The commissioner, according to the lawsuit, would have needed to have already submitted her resignation effective Nov. 10 or earlier before qualifying to appear on the ballot. The elections office had previously stated it received no such resignation letter from the commissioner.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued Monday, Singh commended Gomez Cordero\u2019s service to the community. He told the Orlando Sentinel that the lawsuit was \u201cnever about personalities, it was never about politics, it was really about following the rule of law and following the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walton Johnson also praised her former opponent. \u201cI\u2019m not a fan of the controversy and all the conflict that\u2019s taking place in this race up to this point, but I\u2019ve always thought highly of Commissioner Gomez Cordero and I wish her well,\u201d she said. \u201cPeace is something that is priceless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moore Russell, who has served as county clerk since 2014, is herself leaving office early to run for Orange County mayor. She has said she filed her resignation in May, effective Aug. 31, specifically to ensure an election would be held this year to succeed her instead of a replacement being appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.<\/p>\n
The winner of the November clerk of courts election will serve out the remaining two years of Moore Russell\u2019s term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faced with a civil trial that could have kicked her off the Democratic primary ballot, Orange County Commissioner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,2811,28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-354338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-election","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}