Nicole Lafond has stolen a bit of my thunder here. But I feel obliged to let you know that Christian Ziegler, threesomer and erstwhile chairman of the Florida Republican Party, was finally given the boot today by the state party. The state party executive committee named Evan Power as his successor. No word was available as we went to press on whether Power and his wife will be inviting anyone else to play. I had explained in one of my earlier posts that the state party was in a jam because the state party bylaws provided no mechanism for firing a state party chairman. What happened? As near as I can tell the state party committee decided that that didn’t matter. They all wanted him to go. So they fired him. Bada bing bada boom.
Power was the vice chair. So he not only succeeded Ziegler but also orchestrated his formal defenestration. Power called the late December meeting which laid the groundwork for today’s expulsion. At that meeting in Orlando, Ziegler claimed that Power had no authority to call the meeting and brought a legal opinion backing him up. This suggests that Ziegler might contest his firing in court. But as a friend and I were commenting today, really?
I have to imagine that a judge would try pretty hard to defer to a political party organization about what its constitution and bylaws mean. After all, this isn’t a property interest Ziegler is being deprived of. He doesn’t own the state party. And in any case, is he really going to foot the bill for a lengthy litigation to regain control of a party that doesn’t want him? Can he find a lawyer to represent him? What lawyer would take the case and permanently piss off the entire institutional Republican Party which runs the whole state? Unless it’s someone from the Lifestyle Legal Association, I bet not many.
So this seems to be the final chapter of the Zieglers, or at least Christian Ziegler. Bridget Ziegler is still hanging on as a member of the Sarasota County School. That’s an elected position. So they can’t fire you. Or at least not as easily.
