Rebekah continues to pursue relevance despite this last-minute decision.
Today is Florida’s primary and in last-minute legal wrangling, disgraced former State Health Department worker, Rebekah Jones has been cleared by an appeals court late yesterday to remain a valid candidate on the ballot in the Democratic Party runoff for District 1. The west Panhandle district is where Matt Gaetz hails from, and Jones had launched her bid for his seat last year – while living out of state.
Jones’ story was brought before the courts by Peggy Schiller (Democratic challenger to Jones) who filed a suit stating that Jones is ineligible due to a Florida law. The state passed a law that required candidates from a party declared to be registered for at least one year in order to stop crossover voting and manipulate primary results. Jones found herself in trouble and, as usual, resorted to manipulations and wild claims to try to get out of her responsibility.
The issue is that in 2021, while living in Maryland, Jones had in fact registered as a Democrat well over a year ago, but for a two-month period she had changed her affiliation to “Unaffiliated”. Jones switched back to Democrat her August 20, 2021. However, this meant that she had not been affiliated for the whole year preceding filing in Florida. Jones won the case against her and Schiller was declared ineligible as a candidate. This would mean that Jones votes would be discarded as Schiller is the nominee today.
At the July Jones hearing, her lawyer tried to convince her that she hadn’t actually changed her party and that it was not her decision. She also claimed that her computer had been hacked. This not only defies common sense, but also suggests that she was the victim of a grand conspiracy to hack into her vote account and run for office in Florida.
Because there were no evidence of voter rolls hacking, the judge dismissed the allegations. Also disqualifying, Jones had filed at that time last year to run for office – registering her campaign as an Independent. After her vote was reversed, she switched to Democrat and began to run for office.
Three-judge appeals panel returned yesterday with their decision on what could only be described as a technicality. Because the law doesn’t allow such a challenge, they ruled that the case brought up by the applicant was unconstitutional. They declared, in the most bizarre of interpretations that the 365-day requirement is not enforceable.
Candidates must affirm that they have met requirements regarding party affiliation in order to be eligible for the law. But the appeals-court ruling said the law “does not require proof of actual party affiliation, nor does it speak at all to disqualification of a candidate if those sworn affirmations turn out to be untrue. It provides no express authority to disqualify a party candidate if she was not in fact a registered party member during the 365-day window.”
“If we were to construe the party affiliation statement in (a section of state law) as a basis for disqualification, we would be reading into the statute what the Legislature chose not to include,” said the ruling, written by Judge Rachel Nordby and joined by Judges Harvey Jay and Scott Makar.
Umm…I’m sorry, but What?! While the law stipulates that one must be candid for at least one year, it doesn’t require evidence. Even though the law requires a year of candidacy, it does not provide proof. It is sufficient that the person writes that they have been a member of the party for at least one year. You aren’t allowed to ask for proof, so no one can dispute the claim.
Jones’ entire existence is rooted in subterfugee and altered facts, this seems quite fitting. The state investigation of Jones’s claims revealed no evidence of manipulation of data. This is contrary to what she claimed she was ordered by authorities from the health board. Jones is neither a doctor nor scientist and she was not able to gain access to the parts of the portal that were claimed to be altered.
Her campaign page, Jones lists herself as a “whistleblower” and a “scientist”. Her claim that a law sets forth stipulations and has no means to enforce it is fitting.