Andrew Warren says Hillsborough State Atty. Suzy Lopez is ‘pretending to be there legitimately’

Speaking a day after he announced that he will run for reelection to the state attorney’s position in Hillsborough County that Gov. Ron DeSantis forcibly removed him from two years ago, Andrew Warren has blasted Suzy Lopez, the former prosecutor and trial judge with whom DeSantis replaced him.

“Voters elected me because of my vision and my values and my record of success in making Hillsborough the safest large county in Florida,” Warren told the Phoenix in a phone interview on Wednesday.

“The governor illegally installed her because of her politics, so that is a clear choice. We’ll have plenty of time to talk through the specifics, but I said that she is an illegal political appointee who is unqualified, who is unelected, and who is unethical. And just to give you an example of that, every day since the court ruling came out saying that the suspension is illegal, that she walks into the office pretending to be there legitimately, is a slap in the face of the voters and an attack on the rule of law.”

Since DeSantis suspended Warren in August 2022 for alleged “neglect of duty” and “incompetence” after the prosecutor signed pledges not to prosecute alleged crimes resulting from abortion or transgender care, Warren has spent considerable time in front of the public, attempting to get his job back through the federal courts. In court, he argued that he never translated those pledges into office policy but DeSantis argued Warren had undermined the rule of law.

But as the calendar turned to 2024, Warren announced in early January that, while he would continue his journey to get reinstated through the courts, he would not seek reelection in the fall, citing the likelihood that DeSantis would suspend him again if he won.

That changed two days after he made that announcement, when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit criticized DeSantis’ action and ordered U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee to reconsider the case. Hinkle had originally concluded that, although the governor had punished Warren to boost his own campaign for president, he lacked authority to reinstate Warren to his office.

“They affirmed that the suspension was illegal, and they explained that I could be reinstated, which makes clear that the governor can’t just overturn an election for whatever bogus reason he wants, and makes clear that the governor is not above the law and the voters decide who serves in office,” Warren said.

Fired up

Sean Shaw, a former state legislator and the Democratic Party’s nominee for attorney general in 2018, said he and other Democrats he knows are fired up over Warren’s decision to reenter the race.

“You get removed from office by losing elections. You don’t get removed from office because the governor disagrees with your positions,” he said.

Shaw added that Warren’s reentry in the race puts the decision of who Hillsborough County wants to lead their state attorney’s office to the voters.

“If [Lopez] wins, she wins. She’s the elected state attorney” Shaw said. “But until then, I can’t wait for the community to get to decide. We elected Andrew for the exact same reasons that the governor doesn’t like him, and that’s what pissed so many of us off when we he was removed.”

Warren predicts the campaign will be different than his two previously successful campaigns for state attorney.

“What makes it a different type of race is because the two races I ran previously were about who is the best state attorney to move our criminal justice system forward and keep our neighborhood safe,” he said.

“And I was elected and reelected because the voters believe I was the best person to do it, and I proved that I was after my first term. What’s changed for this election is now this is not just about those issues about criminal justice, but it’s also about our values and our democracy. And I’m the one who has stood up against the abuse of power by the governor. I’m the one who stood up for a woman’s right to choose. I’m the one who stood up for free speech and the rule of law, and the governor and all the other people of the equation are the ones who were playing political games for our public safety.”

Political shift

The political terrain that Warren goes into this election cycle in Hillsborough County is different than when he was reelected by more than six percentage points in 2020. That’s because there were 75,000 more registered Democrats in the county then, as opposed to the current situation, where the Democratic voter-registration lead over the GOP is now less than 10,000, said Tampa Bay-area based political analyst Barry Edwards.

“He’s also starting with zero dollars in the bank,” Edwards said. “Through her political committee and her campaign accounts, [Lopez] has probably close to half-a-million dollars. So, he’s starting behind the eight-ball with fundraising, and he’s got to gear up for a race in six-and-a-half months away.

Between her two campaign accounts, Lopez had raised more than $470,000 so far.

“We’ve seen the performance of the county in 2022 — all the countywide and statewide Democrat candidates got wiped out,” Edwards added. “They lost two county commissioners. So, the county has registration has changed, he’s behind in fundraising, and the performance of the county has changed to a red-performing county.”

Warren insists he remains he’s unfazed by the county’s political demographics.

“Residents of Hillsborough County — Republican, Democratic, independents — want a safer community and want an improved criminal justice system, and that’s what I promised as a candidate. And I kept those promises once I was in office. That’s why I was elected by a large margin in 2020 and that’s why I’ll be re-elected in 2024,” he said.

Another difference is that the most prominent Republican in the state — Gov. DeSantis — has already made it clear that he doesn’t want Warren to be reelected (although the governor has yet to publicly comment on Warren’s decision to run again).

“I’m in a different position than I was before because the other side has cheated,” Warren said. “They broke the law to unlawfully remove me from office and put someone in that position illegally and illegitimately.”

‘Failed far-left politician’

The Lopez campaign responded to Warren’s comments.

“Andrew Warren is a failed far-left politician who lost his job because he wasn’t doing his job,” said Ryan Smith, a senior strategist with the Lopez campaign.

“The only person Andrew Warren has to blame for that is himself. State Attorney Suzy Lopez is a career prosecutor endorsed by law enforcement who puts criminals behind bars and secures justice for crime victims. Hillsborough County is safer with Suzy Lopez. That’s why Suzy Lopez is state attorney today and will remain state attorney in November,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Martinez Strauss, the Tampa attorney who filed as a Democrat to run in the state attorney’s race in February after Warren said that he would not run for reelection, said she doesn’t intend to drop out.

“I’m going to take the position that Andrew Warren is entitled to run but I’m not going to back out until we get some sort of guidance,” she said, noting that although the Eleventh Circuit ordered the federal trial judge to reconsider his decision that he could not reinstate Warren, that judge has not ruled yet.

“Something would have to be done before the 26th that would leave me to believe it was moving in his favor because otherwise it would just be too risky, and for the same reasons he said he wasn’t going to run are the same reasons I’m going to stay in the race and campaign against him if I have to,” she said, referring to April 26, the last day that candidates can qualify to run in local elections this year.

“There’s no harm in having options and that’s why democracy is a good thing,” she adds.