DeSantis Continues To Push The Florida Supreme Court To The Right; Names New Member Of Nominating Panel

By Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix

July 29, 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis has named another member of the conservative legal movement to a panel that screens potential justices of the Florida Supreme Court, continuing the governor’s efforts to move the state’s judiciary to the right.

Timothy Cerio — general counsel to the Citizen Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed property insurance provider of last resort, and a former general counsel to then-Gov. Rick Scott — will serve on the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission through July 1, 2024.

The Phoenix lodged a request for an interview through Citizens’ media office but has not yet heard back.

Cerio is aligned with the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, a network that identifies young, conservative-leaning lawyers and trains them for roles in the broader legal establishment, including the judiciary.

The society defines itself as comprising “conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the current legal order,” according to its website.

“We are committed to the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be,” the site says.

In practice, that means members are skeptical of economic regulation, affirmative action, and marriage equality and to support states’ rights.

Further cementing Cerio’s conservative credentials, he serves on the board of the James Madison Institute, a free-enterprise think tank based in Tallahassee.

Florida uses a “merit selection” process to pick appellate judges, a system adopted following Supreme Court corruption scandals during the 1970s. The idea is for legal experts to screen bench candidates and then let the voters decide at the end of their terms whether to retain them.

The Legislature voted under Gov. Jeb Bush to give governors more authority in the process, and Govs. Scott and DeSantis took advantage of that power to politicize the process, as a Phoenix commentary explained last year.

DeSantis, a Republican also connected to the Federalist Society, has selected members for places on the Florida Supreme Court and other judgeships, including the First District Court of Appeal, an intermediate state appellate court that gets firsts crack at many disputes implicating state policy. Cerio served on the nominating commission for the First District between 2013 and 2015.

The governor also has salted the state’s six judicial nominating commissions with Federalists. These are the panels that screen candidates for appointments to the Supreme Court and the courts of appeal. Each commission comprises nine members, including four proposed by the Florida Bar.

The system broke down last year, after the JNC nominated and DeSantis attempted to appoint Federalist-affiliated Judge Renatha Francis to the Supreme Court. However, she hadn’t been a member of the Bar long enough to qualify, and the sitting justices refused to seat her. He appointed a white woman instead.

Francis would have been the only Black member of the court — meaning the court has no sitting Black justices. Now serving are six men, including three Hispanics, and one white woman.

As for the Supreme Court JNC, the governor’s office hasn’t updated its list of members since July last year, but at the time the eight people serving were evenly split between men and women but none was Black.

It was the Bar that nominated Cerio for the screening panel, although governors may reject Bar nominees and ask the organization to submit three new names for each vacancy.

Cerio served on the Florida Constitution Revision Commission during 2017 and 2018, which proposed eight amendments to the state Constitution, none of which the voters approved. The commission is empaneled every 20 years to review the state’s basic charter.

Cerio sits on the Board of Governors of the State University System and has served as general counsel and chief of staff to the Florida Department of Health. He also has engaged in the private practice of law through his own firm and with GrayRobinson. He holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida.

This story was originally published by the Florida Phoenix. For more stories from the Florida Phoenix, visit FloridaPhoenix.com.