State GOP calls for Butterworth to resign

Chairman Al Cardenas reprimands the attorney general for acting on his own reading of state law and staying in office.

By LUCY MORGAN, Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief

© St. Petersburg Times
published August 6, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Republican Party called Monday for Attorney General Bob Butterworth to resign for not following state law when he qualified for a state Senate seat.

Florida GOP chairman Al Cardenas compared Butterworth with Katherine Harris, who abruptly resigned as secretary of state last week because she failed to file a letter of resignation when she qualified to run for Congress.

The resign-to-run law has been on the books since the 1970s, but it has been the subject of confusion and litigation in recent years.

"Unlike Katherine Harris, who has respected the law by resigning from office under very similar circumstances, you have so far refused to resign as is clearly required by the statute," Cardenas wrote to Butterworth. ". . . You have unilaterally proposed a new interpretation of the statute to benefit your campaign."

Butterworth said Cardenas' request made him wonder what cases his office might have against some of Cardenas' clients.

"He might like to have some of them stopped," Butterworth said. "But I don't know which ones; we have a lot of cases."

Butterworth said he had thoroughly researched the law and would not have qualified if he had any doubts.

Different sections of the law apply to Harris and Butterworth. Harris ran afoul of a provision requiring state officials who seek a federal office to file a letter of resignation or face immediate removal from office.

Butterworth jumped into the Senate race after a required resignation deadline because, he says, the law's original purpose -- to give potential opponents time to qualify -- is outdated because term limits made it obvious that he was leaving office.

So Butterworth resigned effective Nov. 5, the day legislators take office.

The original resign-to-run law was passed in 1970, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state could not impose conditions on federal candidates, so lawmakers restricted how elected state officials remain in office while running for a federal office.

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