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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will fill Marco Rubio's Senate seat

[January 17, 2025] By KATE PAYNE and STEPHANY MATAT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will take Marco Rubio ’s seat in the U.S. Senate, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday, making Moody only the second woman to represent Florida in the chamber.

Elected as the state’s top law enforcement officer in 2018, Moody campaigned on a pledge to voters that she’d be a prosecutor, not a politician. But along with DeSantis, she boosted her political profile during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling on the federal government to “hold China responsible” for the outbreak.

In elevating her to the post, DeSantis praised Moody as a key player in his political battles, a law and order prosecutor who's prepared to help President-elect Donald Trump “secure and shut the border," rein in inflation, and overhaul what he described as a federal bureaucracy "run amok."

“I’m ready to show up and fight for this nation and fight for President Trump to deliver the America First agenda on Day 1,” Moody said during Thursday's announcement at a hotel in Orlando.

“The only way to return this country to the people, the people who govern it, is to make sure we have a strong Congress doing its job, passing laws and actually approving the regulations that these unelected bureaucrats are trying to cram down on the American people,” she added.

Before running for statewide office, Moody worked as a federal prosecutor. In 2006, she was elected to the post of circuit judge in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. A fifth generation native of Plant City, Florida, Moody was once named queen of the city's famed strawberry festival. She's a three-time graduate of the University of Florida and she and her husband, a law enforcement officer, have two sons.

As the state’s attorney general, Moody has been instrumental in defending DeSantis’ conservative agenda in court and has joined other Republican-led states in challenging the Biden administration’s policies, suing over changes to immigration enforcement, student loan forgiveness and vaccine mandates for federal contractors.

“I’m happy to say we’ve had an Attorney General that is somebody that has acted time and time again to support the values that we all share,” DeSantis said. “We in Florida established our state as a beachhead of liberty, as the free state of Florida. And she was with us every step of the way.”

Moody isn’t the state’s only AG to use the office as a stepping stone to a national post. Her predecessor, Pam Bondi, is Trump’s pick to lead the Justice Department and is testifying Thursday in the Senate.

Moody will be the second woman to represent the state in the Senate, and the first in nearly 40 years; Republican Paula Hawkins served in the chamber from 1981-1987.

With the appointment announced, Moody is poised to take office once the vacancy occurs. Rubio is expected to have broad support from Republicans as well as Democrats, and his confirmation vote could come as soon as Monday evening.

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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody speaks at a news conference, Jan. 26, 2023, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier, File)

Under Florida law, it was up to the Republican governor to choose Rubio’s replacement after Trump picked the three-term senator to be his next secretary of state. Moody will serve in the Senate until the next general election in 2026, when the seat will be back on the ballot.

Moody has used her office to come to Trump's defense, pursuing a criminal case against a man accused of trying to assassinate Trump at his West Palm Beach country club in September. She was also among the state attorneys general to sign on to the lawsuit backed by Trump aimed at overturning Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020.

The attorney general also fought unsuccessfully to keep an abortion rights measure off the ballot in Florida in 2024, saying proponents were waging “a war” to protect the procedure. The measure did go before voters but ultimately failed to get the 60% approval needed to pass.

Moody could play a key role in the hearings for Trump’s Cabinet nominees, some of whom are expected to face a tough path to confirmation.

Republicans narrowly hold a majority in the Senate, 53-47, but they are down to 52 after Vice President-elect JD Vance resigned his seat last week ahead of taking office. That means Trump’s nominees need support from almost every GOP senator for majority confirmation over objections from Democrats.

Republican state Sen. Joe Gruters, a key Trump ally in the state, was among those who had pushed the president-elect’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump as their top pick for the Senate seat. Lara Trump removed herself from consideration in December.

Still, Gruters praised Moody, calling her “a winner here in Florida.”

“She’s very popular. And I think people see the job that she does and they appreciate her work and her effort at trying to ... keep Florida safe,” Gruters said ahead of the announcement.

Moody’s appointment opens up a key vacancy in Florida’s Cabinet, giving DeSantis another shot at expanding his influence in the state. Speaking to reporters Thursday, DeSantis said he plans to tap his chief of staff, James Uthmeier, for the job.

DeSantis will also get to pick a replacement for outgoing Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, who’s leaving his post to run for former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s open seat in Congress.

___ Matat reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writer Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report. Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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