Voters to Decide Whether to Keep Majority of Florida Supreme Court Judges

Not only do voters next Tuesday get to decide the Florida governor, Senate, and members of Congress but they also get to approve or reject the majority of the Florida Supreme Court.

Five of the seven judges are on the ballot — an unusually high number historically. They will decide on some very controversial issues in the years ahead.

“The hot issues in Florida seem to be centered around the courts with controversies over abortion policy, guns, immigration, redistricting," said Sean Foreman, a political science professor at Barry University. "All these hot topics have gone through to the Florida Supreme Court."

The system works like this: the governor appoints a justice from a list created by the judicial nomination commission – a group of lawyers and judges. In the first general election after their appointment, the justice will have a merit retention up or down vote by Florida voters. They face the voters again six years after that.

All five of the judges up this year were appointed by Republicans, but there’s a big twist connecting them to this year’s race for governor.

Three of the judges up this year were appointed by Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist back when he was a Republican governor: Charles Canady, Jorge Labarga and Ricky Polston. Then two were appointed by current Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2020: John Couriel and Jamie Grosshans.

If voters reject any of them, whoever wins the race for governor will appoint a replacement. Foreman says that will likely add to the power of DeSantis, who’s expected to win.

“He could actually reappoint the same people or possibly appoint people who are even more conservative than the current justices. So that’s the dilemma who are thinking about removing these justices from office,” Foreman said.

There are several groups providing voters with reliable information on the judges and merit retention. One of them is the Florida Bar on its “Vote is in your Court” website.

“Where else are voters going to get this information? These are nonpartisan races because judges are not politicians," said Gary Lesser, the president of the Florida Bar. "They have to stand for election, or in this case judicial merit retention election, because the power always rests with the people, or at least it should be."

Voters can check their website and see the results of a poll on whether Florida Bar members would keep the justices or not. All five have more than 50%, meaning they’d be retained. The highest retention rate was Jorge Labarga with 87%. The lowest was Jamie Grosshans with 55%, still recommending retention.

However, since only about 6,000 of the 110,000 total members of the Florida Bar voted in the poll, Lesser said voters should not decide solely on that. Instead, he suggests looking at the biographies and resumes of each of the judges on the ballot.

“All information is helpful, but I think actually looking at the judges' qualifications is probably a better way to go," Lesser said. "Merit retention is based on the concept that that justice or judge should remain on the bench based on their merit."

The Florida Bar also has information on the lower court – circuit courts and court of appeals – depending on where the voter lives.