TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Arguing that elections officials overstepped their authority, state Rep. Debbie Mayfield on Thursday filed an emergency petition at the Florida Supreme Court after being blocked from running in a special election for a Senate seat.
Mayfield, R-Melbourne, filed the petition a day after the state Division of Elections said she could not appear on the special-election ballot in Brevard County’s Senate District 19 because of a term-limits law.
Mayfield’s attorneys disputed the division’s interpretation of the term-limits law while also arguing that Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews have only a “ministerial” role in determining whether candidates properly qualify to run.
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“Mayfield has duly and timely submitted to the secretary the applicable qualifying fee and all documents necessary to qualify as a Republican candidate for the SD 19 special election,” the petition said. “Accordingly, because the qualifying paperwork is complete on its face and was properly filed, the secretary is legally bound to accept it and recognize Mayfield as a qualified candidate for the SD 19 special election. This is because it is well-settled that the secretary serves a purely ministerial role in processing the qualifying paperwork, and has no authority to determine whether the qualifying paperwork is accurate, or whether there are grounds to challenge Mayfield’s eligibility to run in the special election for SD 19.”
The petition said eligibility questions, such as the term-limits issue, could only be resolved in lawsuits.
“In short, if the secretary wishes to challenge a candidate’s eligibility to run for office, he must do so in court,” the petition said.
The qualifying period for candidates in Senate District 19 ended at noon Tuesday. A special primary election is scheduled April 1, with a special general election on June 10.
Mayfield’s attorneys argued for emergency action by the Supreme Court because vote-by-mail ballots for the primary election are required to start going to military and overseas voters by Feb. 14, according to the petition.
Mayfield was elected to the House in November after serving eight years in the Senate. She could not run again in November for the Senate because of eight-year term limits included in the Florida Constitution.
Brevard County Republican Randy Fine, a former state House member, was elected in November to succeed Mayfield in Senate District 19. But Fine subsequently submitted his resignation to run in a special election for a congressional seat that opened when former U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., was named as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser.
Mayfield decided to run to return to the Senate and submitted her resignation from the House, effective June 9.
But after the qualifying period for the Senate special election ended, Matthews on Wednesday wrote a memo to Mayfield that said, “Upon review and consultation with counsel regarding your candidacy for state Senate District 19, the Division of Elections has determined that your name cannot appear on the special election ballot, as it violates article VI, section 4 of the Florida Constitution.”
That part of the Constitution says, “No person may appear on the ballot for re-election” to offices such as senator “if, by the end of the current term of office, the person will have served (or, but for resignation, would have served) in that office for eight consecutive years.”
While Mayfield left the Senate in November after eight consecutive years, Thursday’s petition contended that she can run in the special election because she is not seeking “re-election.”
“Simply stated … Mayfield is not seeking to appear on the special election ballot ‘for re-election’ to an office she has held for eight consecutive years,” the petition said. “Indeed, Mayfield was already elected, in 2024, to a different office (i.e., the Florida House), and Senator Fine was elected, in 2024, to SD 19, prior to his resignation from that office. As such, based on the plain wording of Section 4 (of the Constitution), Mayfield is not precluded from running anew for SD 19.”
The petition also pointed to other circumstances of lawmakers returning to run for their former seats. As an example, it said, former Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, served in the Senate from 2006 to 2016 and then returned after getting elected in November. (In some instances, senators can serve 10 years because of redistricting.)
“Section 4 was always meant to limit solely incumbents of an office who had held that office for the ‘preceding’ eight years from seeking ‘re-election’ to that same office,” the petition said. “It has never been intended, interpreted, or understood to limit someone like Mayfield, or Sen. Gaetz, from seeking to be elected anew to an office that they are not the incumbent of, but had held sometime previously for eight consecutive years. To hold otherwise would be novel and wrong.”
The petition asks the Supreme Court to determine that elections officials exceeded their authority and to ensure that Mayfield appears on the special-election ballot. The Supreme Court set a Monday deadline for the state to file a response to the petition.
Three other Republicans — Marcie Adkins, Mark Lightner III and Tim Thomas — and Democrat Vance Ahrens qualified to run in the Senate special election, according to the state Division of Elections website. Candidates also qualified this week for a special election to succeed Mayfield in House District 32.
Mayfield on Wednesday accused Gov. Ron DeSantis of orchestrating the decision to keep her off the ballot. The Department of State and its Division of Elections are part of DeSantis’ administration. Mayfield supported Trump over DeSantis in last year’s Republican presidential primary election.
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