Patricia Rumph, a retired state corrections department employee, is running for Orange County Commission’s District 7 in August.

“I am running for County Commission because service is not something I talk about, it is something I have lived every day of my life,” Rumph said.

Rumph’s campaign priorities are public safety, investing in strong infrastructure, affordability, and environmental stewardship, she said in a statement to announce her candidacy.

Rumph is joining a crowded field for a two-year term representing District 7 in the nonpartisan race. The other candidates are Selina Carter, Eatonville Mayor Angie Gardner, Stacey Gordon-Ali, Framily Support Network co-founder Aaron Lewis, Sonya Shakespeare, and former Orlando City Commissioner Vicki Vargo.

A County Commissioner’s current annual salary is $130,262.

District 7, which covers Maitland, Eatonville, Pine Hills, Orlovista and Fairview Shores in the northern part of Orange County, is one of the two new County Commission seats added after last year’s redistricting. 

“As District 7 is formed, this is a moment to build something new and to do it the right way,” Rumph said. “Our residents deserve a commissioner who is present, accountable, and deeply invested in the people who call this district home.”

Rumph’s 30-year career in the Florida Department of Corrections included jobs as Correctional Probation Senior Officer, Human Resources Specialist, and Fiscal Assistant. She retired in 2017.

She received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Central Florida.

“In 2020, Rumph was appointed Orange County’s Inaugural Community Ambassador, a role created to build trust between law enforcement and residents and to lead initiatives focused on reducing gun violence and violent crime,” she said in a press release.

“Prior to that appointment, she served for three years as President of the Pine Hills Community Council and has held leadership roles on numerous county boards and advisory committees.”

She was also named the League of Women Voters of Orange County Grassroots Champion of the Year, noted a press release highlighting her public service.

“From Pine Hills to neighborhoods across District 7, I have worked side by side with residents to make our communities safer, stronger, and more connected,” Rumph said in a statement. “This new district deserves leadership that knows our neighborhoods, listens to our families, and fights for opportunity in every zip code. I am ready to bring proven, community-rooted leadership to the County Commission.”

Did Christina Pushaw break the law by asking gubernatorial candidate James Fishback to delete text messages the two exchanged in recent months?

Maybe.

Pushaw, who earns a $179,000 tax-funded salary as a senior management analyst for Gov. Ron DeSantis, all but confirmed the authenticity of texts between her and Fishback in which she appears to have written, “I need you to confirm that you deleted everything with my name on it.”

The exchange has raised questions about whether she solicited the destruction of public records, which would be illegal if the messages involved her government duties, but likely not if they were strictly campaign-related, as she says.

What happened

Fishback posted a screenshot of the exchange following a public blowup between the two after they, according to Pushaw, spoke “frequently” since October about Fishback’s campaign.

On X, Pushaw accused Fishback of deception, writing: “Thanks for proving my point that you have no qualms about lying and revealing private messages. I truly believed that we were friends, and I feel sickened and violated by this betrayal.”

Pushaw, who has worked for DeSantis as both a campaign and government staffer, says she was never paid for advising Fishback and never told the Governor about her communications with Fishback.

In a brief phone interview Monday, she said none of her messages with Fishback touched her state job.

“I never talked to him about government business,” she said. She declined to explicitly confirm the authenticity of Fishback’s screenshots, one of which referenced her government position.

What the law says

Under Florida law, public records include any physical or digital communication made or received “in connection with the transaction of official business by an agency,” a definition courts have applied to texts, emails and other modern forms of correspondence.

Destroying public records is a third-degree felony for a government employee or official, punishable by up to five years in prison and a an up-to-$5,000 fine. Soliciting someone else to do so — a form of conspiracy — is typically punished one level below, making it a first-degree misdemeanor carrying up to one year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine.

Does this apply here?

It depends on what was in the messages Pushaw asked Fishback to delete.

If they contained only “advice on his gubernatorial campaign,” as Pushaw claims, and nothing related to her official duties, then they likely were not public records. Campaign-only communications — including strategy, fundraising and political messaging — generally fall outside the Sunshine Law.

If, however, the texts included discussion of government business, policy, the scheduling of public meetings or actions Pushaw took in her official capacity, they would likely qualify as public records. In that case, if Fishback deleted material at Pushaw’s request, he could also face a first-degree misdemeanor charge.

It’s impossible to determine whether any law was broken without seeing more of the messages. Florida Politics has requested texts and other communications between Pushaw and Fishback from the Governor’s Office.

Still, it is notable that Pushaw asked Fishback to delete “everything with my name on it,” a phrasing that suggests she believed some of the material might be subject to Sunshine Law requirements.

Political fallout

Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, a lawyer who previously led a House inquiry into First Lady Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida charity that has since sprouted a grand jury probe, flagged the issue in a widely viewed X post Monday morning, calling Fishback a “weird little creep.”

Kyle Lamb, a longtime state employee now with the Department of Commerce who briefly worked on DeSantis’ presidential campaign, also weighed in.

“Absolutely nowhere in state laws are state employees expected to maintain private conversations with people who are not state officials discussing things that are not state business, especially who we support in political elections,” he wrote.

Lamb later asked Fishback, “So you didn’t delete everything like you told her? And you posted it here?”

Andrade pointed out that in at least one screenshot Fishback posted, Pushaw mentioned resigning from her job — a reference to her official position that would fall under public records rules.

He told Florida Politics that he views the episode as incompetence rather than malice.

“We have a state employee getting paid $180,000 a year thinking she can just demand that some private individual she’s been texting with for months delete texts and get another state employee to pressure that same person to delete those texts,” he said.

“I have no idea what the content is, but no one is stopping to think, ‘Should these be destroyed? Is it appropriate for us to tell a private citizen that they should be deleting public records?’”

Attorney General James Uthmeier has published an opinion stating that Florida laws requiring state institutions to engage in affirmative action measures while hiring are unconstitutional.

Uthmeier issued his opinion that the state is violating the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and elements of Florida’s Constitution. “Florida maintains several laws on its books that promote and require discrimination on its face,” Uthmeier’s opinion says.

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution stipulates, “(N)o state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” He added that Article 1, Section 2, of the Florida Constitution states: “No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability.”

Uthmeier specifically cited an “egregious” Florida statute that mandates statewide participation in “programs of affirmative and positive action” and stipulates that every executive agency “develop and implement an affirmative action plan” that includes goals for race-based hires.

“Because enforcing and obeying these discriminatory laws would violate those bedrock legal guarantees, those laws are unconstitutional,” Uthmeier said in his conclusion. “My office, therefore, will not defend or enforce any of these discriminatory provisions.”

He also said his opinion covers “race-based preferences in government contracting.”

“Florida’s discriminatory contracting provisions earmark certain opportunities for minority contractors without providing any ‘strong basis in evidence’ to support this race-based action,” Uthmeier said.

The 14-page opinion also criticizes race-based quotas in Florida hiring practices and stipulations for minority representation on different boards, councils and other panels.

“The (U.S.) Supreme Court has addressed race-based quotas in the past and held that such quotas cannot satisfy strict scrutiny review,” Uthmeier said.

Uthmeier’s opinion is only a stated position from the Attorney General and is not binding on any other office in the state of Florida.

It’s the second opinion issued from Uthmeier’s Office in the past week. On Wednesday, Uthmeier published an opinion saying Nassau County can’t hike impact fees beyond Florida limits just because its population growth has increased substantially in the past half decade.

Uthmeier issued the opinion at the behest of Rep. Richard Gentry, a DeBary Republican, who worried Nassau County’s interpretation of impact fee increases approved in December would undermine the authority of the Legislature, which sets impact fee laws.