By Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida <\/p>\n
Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback will remain on the Aug. 18 primary ballot after a Leon Circuit Court judge ruled Monday his opponent, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, didn\u2019t prove he lived outside the state within the last seven years.<\/p>\n
The seven-year residency requirement to be eligible to run for governor is in the state constitution. Collins alleged Fishback voted in Washington D.C. in 2020 and established a homestead there when he bought an apartment in 2021, making him ineligible.<\/p>\n
But Judge David Frank found that the burden of proof was on Collins to show Fishback abandoned his residence in Florida and the presumption in state law is to follow the candidate\u2019s declared statement of residence.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida residency law places great weight on the subjective intent of the person declaring residency,\u201d Frank wrote. \u201cThat law may be imprudent, or it may give too much leeway to a person seeking or maintaining residency. But it is the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ruling means Fishback, who has trailed in polls along with Collins to the frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, will remain on the ballot and any votes for him will count. A fourth major GOP candidate, former state House Speaker Paul Renner, is also in the mix for the primary.<\/p>\n
Mail ballots have already been returned throughout the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t just a victory for our campaign. It\u2019s a victory for the constitution and for every Floridians who believes elections should be decided by voters, not politicians trying to rig the system,\u201d Fishback stated after the ruling was released.<\/p>\n
Before a hearing in the case last week, Fishback declared he\u2019d throw Collins campaign consultant John Cardillo, who attended the hearing, in jail when he became governor for pursuing the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Frank wrote in his ruling, Collins\u2019 attorneys didn\u2019t present enough concrete evidence to refute Fishback\u2019s claim that he ended up being \u201cstuck\u201d in Washington D.C. during the Covid-19 pandemic and he was really living at his grandmother\u2019s house in Broward County during that period.<\/p>\n
The apartment he bought was only for investment purposes, Fishback maintained during the hearing, even though he acknowledged that meant he gave false information on mortgage papers he signed saying it would be his primary residence.<\/p>\n
Frank stated the most compelling piece of evidence against Fishback was a letter regarding his purchase of a home in Madison County, Florida in 2022, which declared, \u201cmy new purchase will serve as my new primary residence. I plan to keep 2325 42nd St NW Washington DC as a second home or as a future investment property.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet that piece of evidence wasn\u2019t enough to overcome Fishback\u2019s defense, which pointed to his background of being born and raised in Florida, along with his \u201cfamily, social, and business ties to Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins \u201chas not brought forth enough substantial and competent evidence to rebut these important presumptions,\u201d Frank wrote. \u201cThis Court will not be deciding the race between the Lieutenant Governor and Mr. Fishback. That will be in the very sound hands of the voters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback will remain on the Aug.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-354820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354820","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=354820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}