Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a ruling that rejected arguments by the university that it should not have to cover the fees. Walker awarded $372,219 in fees to attorneys from two firms, while also tacking on $1,575 in costs.

Political science professors Sharon Austin, Michael McDonald and Daniel Smith filed the lawsuit in 2021 after university officials denied their requests to serve as witnesses for groups fighting a new state elections approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature. In denying the professors’ requests, university officials said going against the executive branch of the state government was “adverse” to the school’s interests.

The case drew widespread attention, and the university walked back the decision on the professors’ testimony. Then-university President Kent Fuchs said they would be allowed to be paid to testify if they did so on their own time and did not use university resources.

Walker based the decision in part on a preliminary injunction that he issued in January 2022, finding that the university had violated the professors’ First Amendment rights. The university appealed, and the case was ultimately dismissed this year after university officials adopted a revised policy about the disputed issues.

“Plaintiffs received enduring relief in the form of their preliminary injunction, followed by a substantial rule change that eliminated the constitutional issue that prompted plaintiffs to bring this case to vindicate their First Amendment rights in the first place,” Walker wrote last week. “In this way, the case undoubtedly served a public purpose.”

The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from the Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Donnelly + Gross LLP law firms.

The U.S. Department of Justice last week filed a 79-page brief at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as part of a decade-long dispute with Florida about care for children in the state Medicaid program.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in July sided with federal officials and issued an injunction that, in part, requires the state to provide more private-duty nursing to help children live with their families or in their communities, rather than in nursing facilities. The state quickly challenged the ruling at the Atlanta-based appeals court.

In the brief filed last week, Justice Department attorneys said Middlebrooks correctly ruled that the Medicaid program has violated part of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“The district court properly concluded that Florida is operating its Medicaid system in a manner that leads to the unnecessary institutionalization of children with medical complexity and a serious risk that other such children will be unnecessarily institutionalized,” the brief said.

The case involves children in the Medicaid program with conditions that often require round-the-clock care, including such things as ventilators, feeding tubes and breathing tubes. About 140 children are in nursing homes, while the case also involves a broader number of children considered at risk of going into nursing homes.

Middlebrooks wrote that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the state to provide services in the most “integrated setting appropriate” to meet the needs of people with disabilities. He also cited a major 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Olmstead v. L.C., that said “undue institutionalization” of people with disabilities is a form of discrimination.

The state is challenging Middlebrooks’ ruling on a series of grounds, but a key issue is part of the injunction that requires the Medicaid program to provide 90% of the private-duty nursing hours that are authorized for the children to help them live in family homes or communities.

In a brief filed in September, attorneys for the state called the injunction a “wildly overbroad and disproportionate response that violates principles of federalism” and called the private-duty nursing requirement “arbitrary and unprecedented.” The brief cited a nursing shortage that the state says would make it impossible to comply with the 90% requirement.

The political committee Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is sponsoring the proposal, filed a brief late Friday at the Florida Supreme Court disputing Moody’s contention that the measure would be misleading to voters.

Moody and other opponents last month raised a series of objections to the proposal’s wording, including contending that the word “viability” can have multiple meanings.

But attorneys for Floridians Protecting Freedom wrote Friday that the meaning of the word “viability” in the context of abortion has long been understood and that voters “can be trusted to know what it would mean to live in a world limiting government interference with abortion before viability.”

“Lacking colorable legal arguments against the proposed amendment’s fitness for the ballot, the attorney general argues the term ‘viability’ has lost its meaning in the abortion context, notwithstanding the countless sources consistently defining it in line with common understanding,” the brief said.

The Florida dispute is playing out after voters in some other states have backed abortion rights, most recently last week in Ohio.

Floridians Protecting Freedom announced its initiative in May after the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved a law that could prevent abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The six-week limit is contingent on the outcome of a legal battle about a 15-week abortion limit that DeSantis and lawmakers passed in 2022.

To get on the November 2024 ballot, Floridians Protecting Freedom needs to submit at least 891,523 valid petition signatures before a Feb. 1 deadline and receive Florida Supreme Court approval of the wording of the ballot summary.

The ballot summary says, in part: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

In an Oct. 31 brief, Moody described the measure as an effort to “hoodwink” voters and said the ballot summary is part of an “overall design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought.”

Under Roe v. Wade, fetal viability was generally understood to mean about 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy. But Moody argued that some voters could interpret viability differently than was understood under Roe v. Wade and another U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

But the Floridians Protecting Freedom brief Friday said that as “it always has in the context of abortion, viability means the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb.”

“Nothing about the meaning of the term ‘viability’ in the phrase ‘abortion before viability’ is ambiguous or misleading here: It has a well-understood, commonly accepted meaning amongst the general public that accords with its legal significance,” the brief said. “Indeed, for more than four decades, Florida law’s understanding of viability has reflected its common meaning. The popular meaning of viability was first adopted in Florida statutes in 1979 … and has remained consistent for the past 40 years.”

The Supreme Court has not scheduled arguments in the case. As of Monday, the state Division of Elections website showed that 491,892 valid petition signatures had been submitted for the proposed amendment.

Several groups on either side of the issue also have filed briefs at the Supreme Court.

A document filed Thursday urged the court to deny a request by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration that would allow the law to be enforced against all venues in the state except for Hamburger Mary’s while a legal battle plays out.

“HM (Hamburger Mary’s) does not operate its restaurant and present its performances in a vacuum,” the filing said. “The artists who perform at HM’s establishments perform in other venues across the state of Florida. If the injunction were limited to HM, other establishments could be subject to penalties under the act for the same performances by the same performers.

“HM’s establishment would become the only business in the state of Florida where performers have the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the First Amendment.”

U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell issued the preliminary injunction in June, finding that the law, approved this spring by DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature, violated the First Amendment. While Hamburger Mary’s is the plaintiff in the challenge to the constitutionality of the law, Presnell applied the injunction statewide.

The state then sought a ruling to apply the injunction only to Hamburger Mary’s. After Presnell and a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the state’s request, lawyers representing Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Melanie Griffin, the named defendant in the case, took the issue to the Supreme Court last month.

“This is not a class action, and there is but one plaintiff: a restaurant in Orlando, Florida, known as Hamburger Mary’s, which claims that the statute unconstitutionally deters it from presenting to children live drag shows that are not sexually explicit,” the state’s attorneys wrote in the Supreme Court filing. “… Extending that relief to others not before the court did nothing to alleviate Hamburger Mary’s asserted injury and exceeded the district court’s remedial authority.”

The law, dubbed by sponsors as the “Protection of Children Act,” would prevent venues from admitting children to adult live performances. It defines adult live performances as “any show, exhibition, or other presentation in front of a live audience, which, in whole or in part, depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or specific sexual activities, … lewd conduct, or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.”

Regulators would be able to suspend or revoke licenses of restaurants, bars and other venues that violate the law. Also, it would prohibit local governments from issuing public permits for events that could expose children to the targeted behavior. In addition, people could face first-degree misdemeanor charges for “knowingly” admitting children to adult live performances.

While the law does not specifically mention drag shows, it came after the DeSantis administration cracked down on venues in South Florida and Central Florida where children attended drag shows. It also passed this spring amid a wave of bills in Florida and other Republican-led states targeting LGBTQ-related issues.

In the document filed Thursday at the Supreme Court, attorneys wrote that Hamburger Mary’s frequently hosts drag-show performances, comedy sketches and dancing.

“HM is and has always marketed itself as a family restaurant,” the document said. “Parents and grandparents often attend shows with their children, and HM leaves it up to parents to determine whether a particular show is appropriate for the age of their own child.”

In arguing that the Supreme Court should keep in place the statewide injunction, the attorneys said Presnell ruled the law is likely overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.

Attorneys for the state and county officials across Florida filed a motion Monday arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed and disputing allegations the state has violated the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

The 2018 state constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 4, was designed to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences. But the lawsuit, filed in July, contends that a “bureaucratic morass” has prevented people from voting or determining whether they are eligible to vote.

Much of the issue stems from a 2019 law (SB 7066) that required felons to pay “legal financial obligations” — fees, fines and other court costs — associated with their convictions before they could be eligible to vote.

In a motion Monday, attorneys for the state and the county officials wrote that the “ultimate complaint is that it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a felon has completed the financial terms of a sentence.” But they said that doesn’t mean the process is unconstitutional.

“Florida’s voting restoration laws are of general application,” the motion said. “They permissively require voters — felons who are best positioned to know their sentences, perhaps in multiple cases and multiple jurisdictions — to comply with those laws through primarily their own efforts. They provide … procedures to challenge ineligibility. Thus, as a matter of law, Florida’s SB 7066 procedures do not infringe upon plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”

But the lawsuit contended that the “record reveals a years’ long campaign of acts and omissions by the defendants that have thwarted the aspirations of the citizens of Florida who enacted Amendment 4, and the aspirations of those whose rights it restored.”

“The defendants’ conduct includes the provision of inaccurate, incomplete and misleading information to such citizens when they try to determine their eligibility to vote, and the perpetuation of a byzantine process in which, among other things, a potential voter’s eligibility is often determined by local practices that vary depending on the county in which they live,” the lawsuit said. “The result is confusion and uncertainty that deters them from registering to vote, as well as an unlawful system that permits or denies the fundamental right to vote based on one’s geographic status within the state.”

The requirement in the 2019 law that felons pay “legal financial obligations” before getting their voting rights restored has fueled years of controversy. In 2020, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a constitutional challenge to the law.

The Orlando-based Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and four individual plaintiffs filed this year’s lawsuit, seeking a ruling that the way Amendment 4 has been carried out violates the Voting Rights Act, violates equal-protection rights and places an unconstitutional “undue burden on the right to vote.”

The lawsuit also seeks an order requiring the establishment of a statewide database “that allows individuals with prior felony convictions to determine if they have outstanding LFOs (legal financial obligations); the amount of any outstanding LFOs; the jurisdiction to which they owe any outstanding LFOs; and where payment may be made to satisfy any outstanding LFOs.”

“We have engaged the courts because the system is broken, and this effort can help ensure real election integrity throughout Florida,” said Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. “If you can’t count on the state to verify voter eligibility, who can you count on?”

News Service senior writer Dara Kam contributed to this report.

Moody filed a brief late Tuesday contending that the proposal should be kept off the 2024 ballot because the wording of the ballot summary would be misleading to voters.

The brief said the ballot summary is part of an “overall design to lay ticking time bombs that will enable abortion proponents later to argue that the amendment has a much broader meaning than voters would ever have thought.”

Moody said last month she would ask the Supreme Court to block the proposed amendment, which the Floridians Protecting Freedom political committee is trying to pass after Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature passed 15- and six-week abortion bans. The brief fully lays out her arguments.

The Supreme Court plays a critical role, as it reviews proposed ballot measures to determine if wording is clear and limited to a single subject. It can reject initiatives that don’t meet legal standards.

The abortion proposal’s ballot summary says, in part: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Moody raised a series of objections to the wording, including contending that the word “viability” can have multiple meanings.

Under Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion-rights decision that was tossed out last year, fetal viability was generally understood to mean about 23 or 24 weeks into pregnancy. But Moody argued that some voters could interpret viability differently than was understood under Roe v. Wade and another U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“Others will understand ‘viability’ in the more traditional clinical sense — as referring to a pregnancy that, but for an abortion or other misfortune, will result in the child’s live birth,” Moody’s brief said. “This ambiguity is no small interpretive quibble; ‘viability’ in the Roe/Casey sense occurs much later than in the traditional clinical sense. And polling shows that the stage of pregnancy at which abortion becomes illegal is crucial to whether voters approve of particular restrictions on abortion.”

But after Moody raised the viability issue last month in an opinion piece published on the Florida’s Voice website, Floridians Protecting Freedom disputed her argument.

“The proposed amendment is clear and precise in limiting government interference with abortion ‘before viability,’” Floridians Protecting Freedom Campaign Director Lauren Brenzel said in an Oct. 10 statement. “Viability in the abortion context has always meant the stage of fetal development when the life of a fetus is sustainable outside the womb through standard medical measures.

“This is how the state of Florida itself defines viability. This is how the United States Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court still define viability. Dictionaries and doctors also define viability this way in the abortion context,” she wrote. “This is a disingenuous argument by a politician desperate to block Floridians from voting on this amendment.”

Among other issues raised in Tuesday’s brief, Moody said the wording about protecting the “patient’s health” does not explain whether it refers to mental health.

“The latter concept of health (mental health), while by no means trivial, is also susceptible to expansive interpretation and could be used to justify a much larger number of abortions,” the brief said. “Here again, voters deserve to be made aware of the possibility that the health exception could be made essentially to swallow the rule.”

In addition, the brief said the ballot summary did not define the term “healthcare provider.” Also, it pointed to the wording that “no law shall” restrict abortions — saying that doesn’t take into account the possibility of federal restrictions.

Groups that oppose the proposal — the National Center for Life and Liberty, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Florida Voters Against Extremism political committee — also filed briefs Tuesday at the Supreme Court.

Floridians Protecting Freedom has until Nov. 10 to file a brief. The Supreme Court has not scheduled arguments in the case.

In addition to needing Supreme Court approval, Floridians Protecting Freedom must submit at least 891,523 valid signatures by a Feb. 1 deadline to get on the November 2024 ballot. The state had received 552,630 valid signatures as of Wednesday, according to the Florida Division of Elections website.

DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature last year passed a law that prevented abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Florida Supreme Court is weighing a constitutional challenge to that law.

Lawmakers this year went further by passing a six-week limit. But that limit is contingent on the 15-week law being upheld by the Supreme Court.

In a 2-1 decision Monday, a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker and ordered that subpoenas for the documents be quashed.

The appeal involved whether what is known as “legislative privilege” should shield lawmakers from having to turn over information to attorneys challenging the constitutionality of the law.

Walker in February ruled that legislative privilege shielded documents such as lawmakers’ communications “with their staff, other members of the Florida Legislature and their staff, and third parties regarding their motivations and mental impressions concerning the formulation” of the law.

But he ordered that the lawmakers should provide certain “factually based information” to the plaintiffs. He wrote that “purely factual documents, including bill drafts, bill analyses, white papers, studies, and news reports provided by or to the legislators and their staff members, do not fall within the scope of this privilege.”

In Monday’s majority opinion, however, appeals-court Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that it was an “erroneous decision” that legislative privilege does not protect factual documents. Pryor, joined by Judge L. Scott Coogler, wrote that the subpoenas were designed to determine whether lawmakers had a discriminatory motives in passing the controversial law.

“By the plaintiffs’ own admission, the subpoenas’ purpose was to uncover the legislators’ motives in passing the law. ‘The privilege applies with full force against requests for information about the motives for legislative votes and legislative enactments,’” the opinion said, partially quoting a legal precedent. “So, the privilege applies with its usual force against the discovery of even the factual documents in the Florida legislators’ possession. The district court abused its discretion when it determined otherwise.”

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But Judge Jill Pryor, in a 30-page dissent, wrote that the subpoenas were issued amid broader arguments that the law violates federal equal-protection rights. She wrote that such cases “may turn on the subjective motivations of legislators. I would not require plaintiffs put to such proof to litigate these important cases with one hand tied behind their backs.”

“Today, the majority opinion places equal protection plaintiffs within our (11th) circuit in a double bind,” Jill Pryor wrote. “Under our existing precedent, they must meet the increasingly difficult task of producing persuasive evidence of legislative intent to discriminate. And they must do so by focusing on the specific chain of events leading to the enactment of the challenged legislation. The majority opinion adds that — no matter the circumstances — they are not entitled to discovery into ‘legislative acts or the motivation for actual performance of legislative acts.’

“In essence, the majority opinion forces a whole category of plaintiffs, tasked with an already difficult standard of proof, to make their cases without the tools ordinarily available to civil litigants.”

The 2022 law, known as the “Stop Wrongs To Our Kids and Employees Act,” or “Stop WOKE Act.” seeks to restrict how race-related issues can be addressed in higher education and in workplace training.

The law lists a series of race-related concepts and says it would constitute discrimination if students are subjected to instruction that “espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates or compels” them to believe the concepts.

As an example, the law labels instruction discriminatory if students are led to believe that they bear “responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.”

As another example, the law seeks to prohibit instruction that would cause students to “feel guilt, anguish or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex.”

The subpoena fight has played out in a lawsuit filed by instructors and a student from six universities. Walker in November issued a preliminary injunction against the law in that case and another challenge, finding that the law violated First Amendment and due-process rights.

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The state has appealed the preliminary injunction to the Atlanta-based appeals court, but parts of the case also have continued before Walker. The preliminary-injunction appeal remains pending.

The subpoenas were issued to 13 co-sponsors of the bill — Rep. Melony Bell, R-Fort Meade; Rep. David Borrero, R-Sweetwater; former Rep. Juan Alfonso Fernandez-Barquin, R-Miami-Dade County; Rep. Randy Fine, R-Brevard County; Rep. Randy Maggard, R-Dade City; Rep. Ralph Massullo, R-Lecanto; Rep. Stan McClain, R-Ocala; Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City; Rep. Bobby Payne, R-Palatka; Rep. Rick Roth, R-West Palm Beach; Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Port St. Joe; Rep. Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island; and Rep. Keith Truenow, R-Tavares — and Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola.

The 1st District Court of Appeal heard arguments in the state’s appeal of a ruling by a Leon County circuit judge that the plan violated a 2010 state constitutional amendment that set standards for redistricting.

It is unclear when the court might rule. Attorneys for both sides have said they would like a decision by Nov. 22. That could leave time for the case to go to the Florida Supreme Court and for lawmakers to pass a new map, if necessary, during the legislative session starting in January.

The case centers on an overhaul of North Florida’s Congressional District 5, which in the past elected Black Democrat Al Lawson. The voting rights groups and other plaintiffs argue that the overhaul violated part of the constitutional amendment that barred drawing districts that would diminish the ability of minorities to elect representatives of their choice.

The overhaul led to white Republicans getting elected in all North Florida congressional districts in the 2022 elections, the GOP gaining four seats in the congressional delegation.

State Solicitor General Henry Whitaker told the appeals court that lawmakers last year drew a “race-neutral map” and that keeping a district that mirrored the old Lawson district would have been an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

“The plaintiffs here seek to invalidate the state’s race-neutral map in North Florida and replace it with one that contains a district guaranteeing that Black-preferred candidates always win,” Whitaker said.

Jyoti Jasrasaria, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the Florida Supreme Court in 2015 approved the Lawson district and that the plan drawn last year by the Legislature and DeSantis does not comply with the state Constitution. She said DeSantis defied the Florida Supreme Court precedent in pushing for the changes.

“The only map that is before this court is the enacted map (approved in 2022), and that map, it’s undisputed, does not comply with the Florida Constitution,” Jasrasaria said.

At one point, Judge Adam Tanenbaum asked why the appeals court shouldn’t question the 2015 Supreme Court decision approving the Lawson district.

“It’s acting in a political capacity when it’s drawing a district, which is the same with what the Legislature typically would do,” Tanenbaum said. “So why isn’t it fair to question what the Supreme Court did when it was enacting, or approving the enactment, of (a) court-drawn set of districts?”

Judge Robert Long said the Florida Supreme Court has not addressed the federal Equal Protection Clause argument and how that should affect the interpretation of the 2010 state constitutional amendment, known as the Fair Districts amendment.

After the 2015 Supreme Court decision, District 5 stretched from Jacksonville to Gadsden County, west of Tallahassee, incorporating areas that had large Black populations. The 2022 plan put the district in the Jacksonville area.

DeSantis cited the equal-protection issue as he effectively took control of the congressional redistricting process last year. He vetoed a plan passed by the Legislature and called a special session that ultimately led to a map.

Voting rights groups, such as the League of Women Voters of Florida and Florida Rising Together, and other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit last year. Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh in September ruled that the redrawn District 5 violated the Fair Districts amendment, prompting a quick appeal by attorneys for Secretary of State Cord Byrd, the House and the Senate.

A separate challenge to the redistricting plan is pending in federal court. That case involves federal constitutional issues.

News Service Assignment Manager Tom Urban contributed to this report.

The court lifted a temporary hold that Chief Justice John Roberts placed Oct. 12 on a ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit about a gambling deal reached in 2021 by the tribe and the state.

The deal, known as a compact, included allowing the tribe to offer online sports betting, but it has drawn two legal challenges from Florida pari-mutuel companies. In one of the cases, the appeals court this summer upheld a decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees gambling on tribal lands, to allow the compact to move forward.

The pari-mutuels then asked the Supreme Court for a stay while they prepare to file a petition seeking review of the appeals-court ruling. Roberts issued an order Oct. 12 that put the ruling on hold.

But on Wednesday, justices vacated Roberts’ order and denied the requested stay, according to a court docket. The docket did not include an explanation.

The Seminoles hailed the Supreme Court’s move.

“The denial of the stay by the U.S. Supreme Court is very good news. The Seminole Tribe of Florida is heartened by this decision,” Gary Bitner, a spokesman for the tribe, said in an email.

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The pari-mutuel companies, West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., also have filed a lawsuit at the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that the sports-betting plan violates a 2018 state constitutional amendment that required voter approval of casino gambling. That case remains pending.

The pari-mutuel companies filed the federal lawsuit in 2021 after Florida lawmakers ratified the gambling deal, which had been signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Seminole Tribe of Florida Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr.

While the compact addresses a series of issues, the lawsuit has centered on part of the deal that would allow gamblers to place mobile sports wagers anywhere in the state, with bets handled by computer servers on tribal property. The deal said bets “using a mobile app or other electronic device, shall be deemed to be exclusively conducted by the tribe.”

The pari-mutuel companies contend the compact violated the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA, because it authorized gambling off tribal lands. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich in November 2021 agreed with the companies, but the appeals court this summer overturned her decision.

In an Oct. 6 request to the Supreme Court for a stay, attorneys for the companies pointed to potentially far-reaching implications of the appeals-court ruling.

“The circuit (appeals court) opinion raises a question of nationwide importance regarding the ability of states and tribes to use IGRA compacts to provide for gaming off Indian lands,” the request said.

But last week, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar filed a 29-page response that urged justices to reject a stay. Prelogar, representing the Department of the Interior, disputed arguments raised by the pari-mutuel companies and said it is unlikely the Supreme Court will ultimately take up a challenge to the appeals-court ruling.

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Bob Jarvis, a professor at the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, said Wednesday’s decision signaled the Supreme Court would not take up a challenge to the appeals-court ruling.

“There is no reason for the Supreme Court to take this case up, and they will not take this case,” Jarvis told The News Service of Florida.

The professor pointed, in part, to a lack of conflicting opinions by appellate circuits on the issue. One reason the Supreme Court decides to hear cases is to clear up legal conflicts.

“Secondly, the Supreme Court is very interested in Native American cases. They’ve taken a lot of Native American cases, simply, and Justice (Neil) Gorsuch is particularly interested in Native American issues. But this case comes out the right way, because if it finds that tribe can do what it wants to do,” Jarvis said.

Jarvis, however, said Wednesday’s decision doesn’t mean gamblers will be able to place sports bets in Florida soon. The Seminoles are trying to fend off the separate challenge to the compact at the Florida Supreme Court, which hasn’t decided whether it will consider the case or refer it to a lower court.

That case could take up to three years to be finalized, according to Jarvis.

The Seminoles in 2021 briefly rolled out the Hard Rock SportsBook mobile app amid the legal wrangling but stopped accepting wagers and deposits after Friedrich’s ruling.

Jarvis said the tribe could risk alienating customers, have workforce issues and rack up costs if it re-launches the sports betting app and is forced to shut it down again. The tribe, which began offering gambling in Florida in 1979, has global operations and deep pockets.

“Yeah, yes, they would like to make more money. Everybody wants to make more money, but they have been very, very patient. They’ve been very, very good throughout their history of playing the long game,” Jarvis said. “And my prediction is they’re going to be patient.”

West Flagler holds three jai alai licenses, while Bonita-Fort Myers Corp. does business as Bonita Springs Poker Room in Southwest Florida. They contend the sports-betting plan would hurt their businesses.

“(Part of the Florida Constitution) authorizes the governor to suspend an official for enumerated grounds and grants the Senate alone the power to remove (from office),” attorneys for DeSantis wrote Tuesday in response to a court petition filed in September by Worrell. “The Senate thus is invested with the sole discretion to decide whether the governor’s suspension order adequately stated grounds for suspension, just as the Constitution entrusts to that body the sole power to try impeachments. This (Supreme) Court should now make clear what it has often implied: the validity of a suspension and removal is a non-justiciable political question.”

The response also said DeSantis had grounds to suspend Worrell, alleging that her office “adopted practices and policies resulting in undercharging, excessively slow case times, and the evasion of certain sentence enhancements required by the Legislature.”

DeSantis on Aug. 9 issued an executive order suspending Worrell, a Democrat who was elected in 2020 in Orange and Osceola counties. Among other things, the order alleged that Worrell’s policies prevented or discouraged assistant state attorneys from seeking minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug trafficking offenses.

Worrell filed the petition at the Supreme Court seeking her job back and arguing that DeSantis did not have a legal basis for the suspension.

“To the extent the governor disagrees with how Ms. Worrell is lawfully exercising her prosecutorial discretion, such a disagreement does not constitute a basis for suspension from elected office,” Worrell’s lawyers wrote. “Ms. Worrell was elected to serve as state attorney, not the governor. Mere disagreement between a governor and a state attorney about where within the lawful range of discretion that discretion should be exercised falls far short of the constitutionally required showing of neglect of duty or incompetence.”

Worrell’s suspension and the resulting legal fight came after DeSantis last year suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren in a highly controversial move.

Warren, a Democrat, challenged his suspension at the Supreme Court, but justices ruled in June that he waited too long to bring the case. Warren also is fighting the suspension in federal court, with the issue pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court is scheduled Dec. 6 to hear arguments in the Worrell case.