TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ use of state resources to campaign against two constitutional amendments has prompted a flurry of lawsuits, rebukes from politicians on both sides of the aisle and at least one state official’s abrupt resignation.

One of the few people who haven’t weighed in is a key Democrat in Florida’s capital city.

As the state attorney in Leon County, the seat of Florida government where billions in taxpayer dollars are assigned each year, Jack Campbell can prosecute crimes against state officials.

Florida Democratic Party chairperson Nikki Fried filed a criminal complaint with Campbell’s office on Sept. 13, accusing DeSantis officials of breaking a law against state workers using their positions to influence elections.

Campbell has made no public statement about it and didn’t return calls and text messages from the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald over the last week. Any investigation could take months. The statute of limitations expires in two years.

The silence has led some critics to wonder whether Campbell is trying to avoid the political fray — or avoid becoming the third state attorney to be suspended by DeSantis.

The Florida Democratic Party said citizens also filed complaints with state attorneys in Orange and Hillsborough counties, which are both run by DeSantis appointees. A Hillsborough spokesperson said the office hadn’t received a complaint, and a spokesperson for Orange dismissed it as coming from a “politician” and not law enforcement. The sender was a local abortion rights advocate.

“Any state attorney, regardless of political party, should be acting on these criminal complaints,” Fried said in a statement. “Anything less is the same kind of selective prosecution that Ron is allegedly opposed to.”

DeSantis’ top priority this fall is defeating amendments 3 and 4. Amendment 3 would legalize recreational marijuana, and Amendment 4 would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban. Both need 60% of the vote next week to pass.

The state is spending millions in public dollars running ads against the amendments. A state health agency created a website advocating against Amendment 4. And state officials including Florida’s surgeon general and agency spokespeople are actively campaigning against it in state-sponsored news conferences and on social media.

DeSantis and his lawyers have argued that the ads are “public service announcements” warning about dangers to Floridians’ health, but some are questioning whether it’s legal.

Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, who supports Amendment 3, said the state shouldn’t be spending public money on “propaganda.”

“I fully believe that this is undemocratic and a violation of Florida law,” Gruters said Friday.

Florida law makes it a misdemeanor for an employee or officer of the state to use their official position to interfere with an election or influence someone’s vote. The penalty is up to a year in jail.

A Palm Beach County lawyer cited the statute when asking the Supreme Court last month to stop DeSantis’ campaign. Attorney General Ashley Moody came to the state’s defense, arguing that a lower section of the law includes carveouts for “heads or directors of state administrative agencies.” (Justices ruled the lawyer couldn’t bring the case on technical grounds.)

Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Sunny Isles Beach, a former prosecutor, said that lower section refers to officers campaigning on their own time. Moody’s interpretation was “beyond loose,” he said.

“Do I think there was a pretty clear violation of the law? Yes,” Pizzo said.

In 1984, Florida’s House speaker asked the attorney general for an opinion on whether legislators could spend state funds to campaign against a constitutional amendment. The response was yes — if legislators assigned money to that cause.

Whether lawmakers have assigned money to DeSantis’ campaign is questionable. The state last month paid a marketing agency $4 million in opioid settlement money to run a series of ads about the dangers of marijuana. Both Gruters and Pizzo said it was inappropriate.

Ultimately, the question of whether it was illegal lies with Campbell, the son of a longtime former sheriff.

Since taking office in 2016, he’s been known as a pro-business Democrat who has largely stayed out of public corruption cases.

In 2018, Campbell declined to charge former Sen. Jack Latvala, deciding there wasn’t enough evidence that the Clearwater Republican was trading votes for sexual favors. In 2021, Campbell’s prosecutors decided there was no “criminal intent” by Republican state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis’ office after he released an employee’s sexual harassment complaint before it could be completed, an apparent violation of the law.

Tallahassee has also seen a raft of local corruption cases — a former city commissioner, his aide and a developer went to prison and former Mayor Andrew Gillum was acquitted by a jury. But those cases were brought by the FBI and charged by federal prosecutors.

The previous state attorney, Willie Meggs, who endorsed Campbell in 2016, did sometimes pursue state politicians. In 2009, he pursued corruption charges against then-House Speaker Ray Sansom, R-Destin. In 1991, he charged 24 sitting and former legislators for failing to disclose trips they accepted from lobbyists. (Lawmakers responded by cutting Meggs’ budget to less than that of the local public defender.)

Ben Wilcox, the research director for the watchdog group Integrity Florida, said DeSantis’ campaign was an “abuse of state resources” unlike any he had seen before.

Wilcox acknowledged the political pressure on Campbell. DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren and Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell, both Democrats, claiming they were “woke” and not aggressively pursuing crimes.

“I would imagine the state attorney is hesitant to get involved in what might be perceived as political issues,” Wilcox said. “But the question is, if not him, then who?”

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