Snipes’ lawsuit claims, moreover, that Scott was to blame for some of her problems. | Getty Images Racial trouble looms as Snipes sues over suspension

MIAMI — Brenda Snipes, the Broward County election chief whose history of voting controversies and lost lawsuits resulted in her suspension from office, sued Gov. Rick Scott and Florida Senate President Bill Galvano on Tuesday in federal court to get her job back.

In her 27-page lawsuit, Snipes claims her constitutional rights for due process were violated after Scott suspended her from office and says he orchestrated a campaign to “harass” her and level “false allegations” against her.


But for all of Snipes’ accusations — denied by Scott and Galvano — one explosive issue pervades the case even though it’s unmentioned: race.

Snipes is African-American, and there’s an increasing sense among Democrats in the Florida Senate that, if she succeeds in her lawsuit and then faces a trial in that legislative chamber over whether to reinstate her or remove her from office, the case could stoke intense racial division.

“That is going to happen,” said state Sen. Oscar Braynon (D-Miami Gardens), echoing other Democrats and African-American lawmakers.

“If I start pointing out people who did the same types of things and they didn’t get removed, well, why didn’t they get removed?” Braynon asked rhetorically. “Let me tell you something: In this Trump era, I’m going to say that I’m black all the time. I’m not going to hide it.”

If the Florida Senate takes up the case — which could only happen if Snipes prevails in her lawsuit — Braynon acknowledges that she would likely be removed from office because of a partisan divide in the chamber where the GOP holds a 23-17 advantage. A trial in the Florida Senate would likely consume the Florida Senate’s attention and grab national attention after the divisive elections in Florida, the country’s biggest swing state heading into the 2020 presidential elections.

Scott and Galvano deny having any partisan or racial motives in the case and say the suspension was lawful. They say Snipes gave up her rights to a trial in the Florida Senate when she decided to resign. Snipes later rescinded her resignation.

Asked about the issue of race in Snipes’ suspension, Scott’s office said it played no role in his order suspending Snipes for “misfeasance, incompetence [and/or] neglect of duty.”

“This lawsuit is a desperate move from someone who has already officially submitted her resignation,” said John Tupps, Scott’s spokesperson. “This is simply an attempt by Ms. Snipes to rewrite the history of her failed leadership.”

Under Florida’s constitution, Scott can suspend an elected official such as Snipes for a variety of transgressions, from alleged crimes to incompetence to “drunkenness.” However, it’s up to the Florida Senate to decide whether to reinstate the official or remove him or her from office.

In his Nov. 30 order suspending Snipes — which came 12 days after she announced she’d quit on Jan. 4, two years before her term expired in 2020 — Scott cited a host of reasons: unlawfully destroying ballots in 2017, failing to send out some absentee ballots with a constitutional amendment item, posting primary results online before the statutorily designated time and improperly opening absentee ballots in 2016. Unmentioned in the order: the office’s failure to deliver 58,000 absentee ballots in a timely fashion in 2004 and its failure to count about 1,000 ballots that were discovered about a week after the election.

Leading up to the suspension, the state had just completed a contentious recount in which Broward’s elections office played a central role in its failure to regularly post updated results or provide basic public information concerning the votes that remained to be counted immediately after Election Day Nov. 6. Three Florida statewide races — for governor, U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner — were too close to call for days.

Scott at one point successfully sued Snipes to gain access to the information — the first time a sitting governor running for U.S. Senate had to take an elections official to court to gain access to public records. In filing his suit, Scott mentioned the specter of “rampant fraud” but provided no evidence for the wild charge, and it has not been found by investigators.

Snipes’ lawsuit claims, moreover, that Scott was to blame for some of her problems.

“Through lawsuits and various requests from Scott’s attorney, Governor Scott successfully tied up critical technology election staff with public records requests that were strategically designed to slow down the voting process in Broward County,” the suit says, failing to mention that much of the information Scott was seeking should have been available publicly anyway.

The suit also argues that “Scott orchestrated a campaign strategy where he filed numerous baseless lawsuits against Snipes“ and “unsuccessfully attempted to send in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement citing untrue claims of election fraud on the part of Snipes and the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections.“

While Snipes’ suit spends much of its time hitting back at Scott and praising Snipes for her leadership, its core argument is that her suspension from office violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. It says Snipes should be afforded a timely hearing and that “the suspended public official’s loss of pay or the orchestrated shattering of her reputation was without due process of law.”

But the leader of the Florida Senate, Galvano, said there is due process for Snipes: a trial in the Florida Senate. And, he said, Snipes decided to resign her office before Scott suspended her, so there’s no time to have a hearing for the supervisor now because she’s supposed to quit Jan. 4 under her initial letter of resignation.

In a new controversy, Broward poll workers had their paychecks rejected, and others are still awaiting the checks, because of a problem with the payment system, the Sun Sentinel reported Monday.

Snipes has never explained her decision on Dec. 6 to rescind her resignation. It came three days after her replacement, Pete Antonacci, informed Snipes’ attorney Burnadette Norris-Weeks that she would no longer represent the office. Norris-Weeks, a confidante of Snipes who is representing her in this lawsuit via her private practice, has earned at least $1.2 million in fees from the office since 2004, about $352,000 of which was in the last two years. That’s according to a public records request filed by POLITICO and fulfilled by Antonacci two minutes after notifying Norris-Weeks by email at 11:21 a.m. on Dec. 3 that her contract with the office had been terminated.

Broward County, which has discussed suing over Antonacci’s appointment, is not paying attorney’s fees for Snipes using Norris-Weeks, who lost two of the most controversial cases facing Snipes concerning the early destruction of ballots from a 2016 race and the improper handling of absentee ballots.

Snipes’ lawsuit does not mention race. But Snipes brought up race during the Senate recount when the man who initially appointed her to the office, former Gov. Jeb Bush, said she should be removed like her predecessor was.

“Jeb Bush did put me in this position, and that was following the removal of another black woman,” Snipes told reporters, who did not ask about race or gender. Asked to explain more, Snipes said: "I try to look at all factors, and it’s sort of hard to rule out race. But I won’t say, ‘Oh, I’m a black woman and that’s why.’ I’m not saying that.”

There’s precedent for racial division in the Florida Senate when it comes to removing a black Broward County election supervisor.

In 2003, following the botched 2002 Democratic primary, Bush suspended the election supervisor in the county at the time, Miriam Oliphant — also an African-American woman — and replaced her with Snipes. When the Florida Senate officially removed Oliphant from office, she only had support from the black caucus, seven members of the 40-member chamber.