During a Leon County hearing to decide whether gubernatorial candidate James Fishback should be booted from the ballot, Fishback threatened to imprison the lieutenant governor’s senior adviser, one of his supporters challenged the staffer to a courthouse fight, and Fishback acknowledged voting and buying a home in Washington, D.C.
It was a theatrical, nearly eight-hour hearing before Circuit Judge David Frank to decide first whether Fishback had maintained a primary residence outside Florida during the past seven years — violating the Florida Constitution for a gubernatorial candidate — and whether that should disqualify him from the race.
Following testimony from records and handwriting experts, along with Fishback, his father, and his former employee, Frank said he would rule by Monday.
It was an unusual hearing representative of an odd GOP primary — one that includes accusations that Fishback’s running mate killed a dog and shoved an elderly woman; allegations from the governor’s office that Lt. Gov. Jay Collins’ wife employed social media bots to attack DeSantis for not endorsing her husband; AI ad wars between candidates calling for AI regulations — and still no candidate coming close to the dominating lead held by Trump-endorsed U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.
But that hasn’t stopped the race for second place in the polls.
Collins filed the lawsuit to remove Fishback from the ballot last month. But on Tuesday, he wasn’t present: He was hosting a virtual press conference on hurricanes.
“Where’s your boss? He’s a coward,” Fishback spat at John Cardillo, Collins’ senior adviser, minutes after the attorneys, judge, and bailiff exited the chamber to discuss procedure for the trial.
“You look nervous — you’re shaking,” Cardillo said, sitting on the other side of the courtroom. “Sorry you owe a million and half, kid.”
He referred to a separate federal order requiring Fishback to pay $1.2 million in legal fees amid a dispute with his former employer, investing firm Greenlight Capital.
Fishback accused Collins of wasting taxpayer money — referencing Collins’ accepting $118K in public funds for his campaign — to pay Cardillo, promising to imprison the adviser if he doesn’t return the money.
“John, you’re going to give that money back or go to jail when I’m governor.”
Soon after, a Fishback supporter running the Florida Internet Rights Coalition X page, entered the melee.
“You wanna meet me outside?” he challenged from the public gallery during the break, lobbing several four-letter words at Cardillo, whose proclivity for social media insults rivals only that of Fishback, an investor whose talent for the absurd — including calling the Black frontrunner a “slave” and promising to impose a 50% “sin tax” on OnlyFans models — has succeeded in slating himself into an embattled second in the race.
The Phoenix was unable to ascertain the supporter’s identity. The X page does not identify him.
A month out from the primary, numbers from the Tyson Group, a top Florida Republican pollster, had Donalds with 48% support compared to 9% for Collins, 8% for Fishback, and former House Speaker Paul Renner at 4%, tied with “someone else.” Twenty-six percent of voters remain unsure.
How does Fishback explain D.C.?
Aside from the theatrics, Fishback — in a striking pivot from his past position — acknowledged that he voted in D.C. in 2020 and purchased a home in the nation’s capital the year after.
Although he’d previously theorized that it was a different James Fishback who voted in D.C., on Tuesday he confirmed that it was him — but he didn’t know that that could be a path to establishing residency.
As he tells it, Fishback didn’t read the fine print when establishing a homestead in D.C. or when he “inadvertently” registered and voted in the capital city, insisting that he’d been able to vote with a Florida’s driver’s license. He added that he was only in D.C. to vote because of COVID lockdowns, and purchased the home to occasionally visit his parents.
“My ID was my Florida driver’s license, which I had since high school, and I said, ‘Hey, can I vote for Trump in this national election?’ And [the poll worker] said yeah, gave me a tablet, I signed it, I voted,” he said.
D.C. laws do not allow a person to vote with another state’s license, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation. They require proof of residency, such as a D.C. license or a utility bill.
“If I am criminally prosecuted for telling the truth, I will face that fate soon enough,” Fishback said, referring to any legal consequences for potential election violations. He insisted that Florida has always been his home.
Fishback’s attorney, Anthony Sabatini, repeatedly brought up that Fishback was 26 years old when he signed the mortgage paperwork and voted in D.C., appearing to imply that his age could have had something to do with him not thoroughly reading what he was signing.
Fishback is now 31.
Fishback also said that a Denver accountant he met online has signed off on most of his tax forms since 2018 — noting that this is why he had income tax forms filed with a D.C. address in 2020, 2021, and 2022 and why his nonprofit was incorrectly registered to a Fort Lauderdale address.
The accountant, Taylor McIlvennen, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It was an extremely weak case,” Fishback told reporters after the hearing. “I think I’m probably smarter than all three of their lawyers combined. Anthony Sabatini is an incredible constitutional attorney. We won this case today.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Bluesky | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
