TALLAHASSEE – The state’s Chief Money Officer Jimmy Patronis is urging a Leon County circuit choose to dismiss statements from him in a lawsuit that worries Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial selection to fly migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
Sen. Jason Pizzo submitted the lawsuit final thirty day period, alleging violations of the condition Constitution and a different regulation.
The circumstance named Patronis as a defendant, along with DeSantis, the Florida Office of Transportation, and Division of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue. But in a movement filed Monday, Patronis’ attorney, D. Ty Jackson, argued that the main financial officer need to not be a defendant in the scenario.
The lawsuit stems from DeSantis’ decision to fly about 50 migrants, typically from Venezuela, to Martha’s Winery. Two flights with the migrants began in San Antonio, stopped at an airport in the northwest Florida community of Crestview, and then headed north to Massachusetts.
A segment of the condition finances directed $12 million to the Department of Transportation “for applying a software to aid the transportation of unauthorized aliens from this state constant with federal legislation.” The segment also explained the “office may possibly, upon the receipt of at least two rates, negotiate and enter into contracts with non-public events, together with common carriers, to put into action the system.”
Pizzo’s lawsuit cited component of the Florida Structure and explained “substantive” policies are demanded to be permitted in separate legislation, rather than through the price range. But in the motion to dismiss, Patronis’ lawyer wrote that the chief economical officer “is not the formal or agency of authorities billed with enforcement or implementation” of the aspect of the funds included in the lawsuit.
