TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — In a seven-minute hearing, a Leon County Circuit Court judge dismissed a case against Gov. Ron DeSantis Wednesday brought by a state senator over flights funded by Florida that took migrants to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas last year.
Both parties agreed that the Florida Legislature had repealed the portion of the law that was used as a basis for the lawsuit accusing the governor of illegally flying migrants to Massachusetts last September and therefore should be dismissed.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Hollywood Democrat, sued the governor and the Florida Department of Transportation in his capacity as a private citizen, arguing that funding for the controversial flights improperly used an appropriations bill — the 2022-23 state Appropriations Act — to create a substantial new program instead of authorizing it through a separate law.
Florida legislators met in special session this month to repeal the law and replace it with a new measure to allow the governor to move migrants anywhere in the United States, not just from Florida, and take them them to “sanctuary cities” in blue states. The governor’s lawyers argued that the claims were moot and urged the court to dismiss the case.
“By repealing (the section) the Legislature effectively gave plaintiff (Pizzo) precisely what he requested. It eliminated the challenged appropriation, which allegedly amended substantive law, thereby ensuring it cannot be used to transfer unauthorized aliens,’’ the governor’s lawyers argued in the motion to dismiss.
Leon County Circuit Court Judge John C. Cooper agreed. “Each side can take what they wish,” he said.
During the hearing, Pizzo told the court that his goals — to declare the law unconstitutional and stop the practice from happening again — had been achieved.
“For the governor of the third largest state in the country to beat his chest about how great the program is and how wonderful it is, it was probably not easy for him to have to swallow the fact that the Legislature had to go in and clean up and repeal that same thing,’’ Pizzo said. “We got what we asked for.”
Cooper said dismissing the case “should not be taken as a determination whether the appropriations bill was constitutional or not constitutional,’’ but because “the law requires me to do this.”
The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The covert project began with the flight of 49 mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers from San Antonio to Massachusetts on Sept. 14. But after the program generated a criminal investigation in Texas, a federal inquiry and several lawsuits alleging the flights violated state and federal law, additional flights were postponed.
Pizzo, who agreed to dismiss the case, said he had hoped that the lawsuit could “reestablish perhaps some faith in the process of the separation of powers.”
“It’s now more proper for the forum of pubic opinion to decide whether or not this is good,’’ he said. He added that he has told both the White House and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that when it comes to managing the nation’s immigration crisis, they are “not doing a good job either.”
A month before the legislators convened the special session, Cooper rejected a request by the governor’s office to dismiss Pizzo’s lawsuit.
DeSantis had signed the budget on June 8, including the provision that allocated $12 million in interest the state earned from COVID relief funds to pay for “relocation services” run by the Florida Department of Transportation “to facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state.”
The state paid $1.56 million to Vertol Systems Company, Inc., the Destin-based firm whose CEO is a former legal client of the governor’s “public safety czar” Larry Keefe, in advance of the flights. Pizzo argued the contract should have been competitively bid, as is required for any service on which the state spends more than $35,000.
The money included $650,000 for the Martha’s Vineyard flights and $950,000 for flights to Delaware and Illinois, for which there is no record they were ever completed.
Pizzo on Wednesday criticized the language in the new law that states that any previous payments under the original law will be “deemed approved.” He said that eliminates any oversight normally required by law. “It’s complete cronyism,’’ he said. “It’s a horrid stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”
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