According to FLA Politics, Florida Governor Rick Scott has just named the legendary Ken Detzner as his next secretary of state. If you’ve never heard of Detzner, you are hereby forgiven. I hadn’t heard of him myself until this morning. Detzner was a beer lobbyist working for the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association; in fact, he was still actively lobbying in Tallahassee when Scott appointed him head of the State Department. But the appointment of Detzner means more than just the obvious fact that the entire elections process in possibly the most crucial swing state in the country has been handed over to an armchair beer enthusiast. It might be a signal that Scott wants to partially or fully privatize the state department. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I’ll explain.
Detzner has a record of pillaging and burning proverbial villages, a requirement of course for earning gainful employment in Voldemort’s Scott’s cabinet. He did serve as Secretary of State before, for a brief period in 2003 where threw his weight behind Jeb!’s “cost-cutting” proposal to shut down the state library and donate its collection of rare historical documents and pieces of Florida history to Nova Southeastern, a private university. He’s still behind this all the way, and is now once again in a position to cleanse the Dark Lord’s realm of pesky librarians.
Sure, Detzner is now in a position where he and Scott can privatize historical preservation almost at will. He could burn every library in the state to the ground if he wanted to and there aren’t even enough Democrats in Tallahassee to drive a fire engine, let alone actually stop the guy.
But most worryingly, an aggressively conservative Republican who owes his job entirely to the Dark Lord himself is now in charge of Florida’s entire elections process (conveniently) at a time when several voting laws are stalled in court. With Kurt Browning gone there is now one less person who can be forced to testify about these laws in court. Detzner isn’t experienced at managing elections, even though his only political experience has been in the state department. He’s a cost cutter, a hatchet man, and most importantly, just like Browning he has no reason to stick around when the Justice Department subpoenas him.
You think Florida 2000 was bad? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
