Suspended prosecutor Andrew Warren now says he will run for re-election in Hillsborough County

Ousted Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren announced Tuesday morning that he will run for re-election to his former job, where he will likely face off against sitting State Attorney Susan Lopez, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in August 2022 to replace him.

DeSantis suspended Warren, a Democrat, for alleged “neglect of duty” and “incompetence” after he signed a pledge not to prosecute alleged crimes arising from abortion or transgender care.

Warren challenged his suspension in federal court. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled that DeSantis had violated the First Amendment in removing Warren because of political differences and anticipated “political benefit” to the governor — but said he lacked power to reinstate him. However, a federal appeals court ruled in January that Hinkle should reconsider that decision.

“In 2020, you reelected me to serve as your state attorney, because you believed in my vision, and it worked,” Warren says in a video his campaign released Tuesday morning announcing that he will run again.

“Crime went down 30%. We kept dangerous criminals off the street and together with law enforcement and community partners we made Hillsborough the safest large county in Florida. But on Aug. 4, 2022, Ron DeSantis threw out your vote. He illegally forced me from office under armed guard.”

DeSantis’ removal of Warren was stunning at the time, but it was followed nearly a year later with a suspension of another progressively minded Florida state attorney in Democrat Monique Worrell from Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, representing Orange and Osceola Counties.  Worrell has also filed a reinstatement lawsuit with the Florida Supreme Court, claiming her suspension was unconstitutional. She has also announced that she is running for reelection.

Reversal

Although Warren has fought to win his job back through the courts, in January of this year he seemingly dropped plans of running again for the seat, saying he didn’t trust DeSantis not to suspend him again if he were successful.

But two days after he made that announcement, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ordered Judge Hinkle to reconsider his decision that he could not reinstate Warren.

“We conclude that the district court erred in two ways: first, in concluding that the First Amendment did not protect Warren’s support of a sentence in the advocacy statement about prosecuting abortion cases, and second, in concluding that the First Amendment did not preclude DeSantis from suspending Warren to gain political benefit from bringing down a reform prosecutor,” wrote Judge Jill Pryor, one of the judges on the panel.

Warren, a native of Gainesville, had been a federal prosecutor working in Washington, D.C., before he came to Tampa to run against 16-year Republican incumbent Mark Ober in Hillsborough County in 2016. He defeated Ober by less than one percentage point. He then came back and defeated Republican challenger Mike Perotti by more than six points in 2020.

But that was when Hillsborough had many more Democratic Party registered voters than it now has. As the Phoenix reported last week, Republicans are now within a percentage point of parity with the Democrats in terms of voter registration in county.

Lopez has raised more than $470,000 in her combined campaign accounts, while Warren has yet to do any fundraising (he did set up a campaign account last fall but had not been raising any money).

The Lopez campaign came out swinging after hearing about Warren’s entry back into the race.

“Andrew Warren is an ultra-liberal ideologue who cares more about pleasing the far-left activists and donors that have powered his political career than he does about victims of crimes in Hillsborough County,” said Ryan Smith, a senior strategist with the Lopez campaign. “State Attorney Suzy Lopez is a career prosecutor with a proven track-record of getting violent criminals off our streets and delivering justice for victims and their families. Sheriff Chad Chronister and law enforcement across Tampa Bay endorsed her because they know that Hillsborough is Safer with Suzy.”

‘A fighter’

As of now, there is one other candidate in the race: Democrat Elizabeth Martinez Strauss.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried hailed Warren’s decision to run in a press release.

“Andrew Warren is a fighter, and Hillsborough’s only duly elected State Attorney. We welcome his decision to run for re-election and stay in the fight to return as Hillsborough State Attorney. That decision is now rightfully in the hands of voters, not Ron DeSantis,” she said.

“For years, Andrew has challenged Ron DeSantis’s illegal and unconstitutional suspension and joins former State Attorney Monique Worrell, who was also unjustly removed by Ron DeSantis in seeking re-election. State Attorney Worrell was targeted and removed by Ron DeSantis in 2023 in a politically motivated stunt to score points on the debate stage during his failed presidential campaign,” Fried said.

Update: This story has been changed to add comment from the Suzy Lopez campaign.