Gov. Ron DeSantis has nominated Palm Beach County Commissioner Dave Kerner to a statewide position and appointed county Republican Party Chairman Michael Barnett to replace him, the governor’s office announced Thursday.
Kerner, a District 3 commissioner and former county mayor, will become the executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Kerner, 39, will be the interim executive director until the nomination is brought before the Florida Cabinet for approval on Jan. 17, DeSantis’ office said in a news release.
DeSantis appointed Barnett, 45, to serve the rest of Kerner’s term on the county commission. The term will end in November 2024. The district includes parts of Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach.
The new commissioner lives in Boca Raton, which isn’t in the district. He doesn’t have to live in the district as an appointed commissioner, but if he runs for election to the post in 2024, he would have to live in what is his new district. Barnett said he thinks he will run for the job.
Kerner did not respond to a voicemail and text message seeking comment Thursday night.
If confirmed, Kerner will replace Terry L. Rhodes, who was appointed in 2014. DeSantis announced Rhodes’ departure in a tweet on Dec. 5.
With Barnett’s appointment to the commission, Republicans hold four of the seven seats after flipping two of the three up for election in 2022. Barnett, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, was re-elected as the chairman of the county Republican Party in December with 56% of the vote to lead the party through the 2024 presidential election.It is his fifth term, which he had long planned as his final one.
Barnett said he would remain as chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. There isn’t a conflict of interest with the government job and the political job; commissioners and other elected officials have served as county party leaders in Palm Beach County and elsewhere.
Barnett said he received a call from DeSantis on Thursday afternoon offering him the job, which he considers “a huge weight that I want to carry with the utmost respect.”
“I’m very grateful to Gov. DeSantis,” Barnett said Thursday evening. “It’s exciting, overwhelming, humbling. I just want to do the very best job I can in this role.”
In a letter dated Nov. 12, 2022, Trump wrote in favor of Barnett’s re-election to the party leadership, calling him a “friend” who was a delegate for him in 2016 and 2020 and a member of the Florida Electoral College in 2016 who cast his vote for Trump.
“Michael has been a true supporter of mine since 2013 and a warrior in the MAGA movement,” Trump wrote in the letter.
Barnett was in attendance at Mar-a-Lago in November when Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
He is an attorney for Shiner Law Group and has served as committeeman, secretary and vice chairman of the county Republican Executive Committee. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and a juris doctor from the University of Miami School of Law, the governor’s office said.
Barnett said he expects to maintain at least some of his private law practice but still hadn’t worked out details. He didn’t yet know when a swearing-in ceremony would happen and plans to meet soon with county government officials.
Barnett, who moved to Boca Raton from New York in 1987, led outreach to Black, Hispanic and other minority voters as head of the Republican Party of Florida’s Minority Engagement Committee and “has brought a number of new people into the Republican Party,” his biography on the Shiner Law Group’s website says.
Kerner, a Democrat who served two terms as a state representative and is a former City of Alachua police officer, shocked Democrats and party leaders by endorsing DeSantis for governor over Democrat gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist in September 2022, honing in on what he claimed was Crist’s support for defunding the police.
“It is our hope that Mr. Barnett is taking the job to work for all the people of Palm Beach County,” Mindy Koch, newly elected Palm Beach County Democratic Party chairwoman, said in a statement. “As for Dave Kerner, we’re not surprised. I guess Dave got his 30 pieces of silver.”
During a rally at the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association with DeSantis, held specifically for Kerner to announce his endorsement, Kerner lauded the governor’s actions during the pandemic.
Former Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried said in a tweet Dec. 5 that Rhodes resigned as the department’s executive director. She wrote to “be on the lookout” for Kerner “to be rewarded for his DeSantis endorsement.”
Kerner is a Palm Beach County native who received a bachelor’s degree and juris doctor from the University of Florida. He was elected to the commission in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.
While serving as mayor during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kerner and other commissioners listened to backlash from droves of residents at commission meetings as they criticized the county’s mask mandate. Kerner made masking a priority and cracked down on restaurants that weren’t following orders in summer of 2020 when they were required to close at 11 p.m. in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
