Scandal Simmers in Florida with Sex and All!
The transgression that Florida Republicans were most eager to discuss around the State Capitol this week was Florida State University getting snubbed by the College Football Playoff. Not many wanted to hold forth — publicly, at least — about the investigation of their state party chairman for sexual assault.
But in private, the fate of the chairman, Christian Ziegler, was the talk of Tallahassee.
“This is the topic of every water-cooler conversation and every lunchroom conversation,” said State Representative Spencer Roach, a North Fort Myers Republican. “People are befuddled and bewildered and frustrated.”
It was not just that Mr. Ziegler, who has not been charged, is under criminal investigation. It was also his refusal to resign once the accusation against him came to light last week.
Not even after the public learned from a search warrant affidavit that he and his wife, a conservative activist who has crusaded for anti-L.G.B.T.Q. policies in schools, confirmed to the police that they once had a consensual sexual encounter with Mr. Ziegler’s accuser.
Not even after Gov. Ron DeSantis, the titular head of the party and a candidate for president, said twice that Mr. Ziegler should step down.
Exasperated, other Republican leaders tried to put pressure on him. The president of the State Senate and the speaker of the State House each called for his resignation. So did Senator Rick Scott, and all three elected members of the Florida Cabinet. The party vice-chairman sought a special meeting of the executive board to consider disciplining, censuring or eventually ousting Mr. Ziegler.
Still, Mr. Ziegler has not yielded.
Perhaps the awkward standoff reflected a natural tension between the party chairman, a behind-the-scenes role, and elected officials who are more public-facing. Or perhaps it was a sign of Mr. DeSantis’s diminished power given his struggling presidential campaign. Maybe Mr. Ziegler was banking on a low outrage factor for a sex scandal.
Whatever the case, a week of committee meetings focused on the upcoming legislative session took place against a backdrop of speculation over the future not only of Mr. Ziegler and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, but also of the Republican Party apparatus in a politically influential state going into a presidential election year.
“The mission has to come first,” Mr. DeSantis said on Tuesday when, after unveiling his budget proposal, he was asked questions about Mr. Ziegler. “It is not helpful to the mission to have this hanging over his head.”
Mr. Ziegler, 40, did not respond to voice or text messages seeking comment on Wednesday.
The longer Mr. Ziegler tries to stay in his post, the longer it will take for the party to elect a new leader ahead of the Florida presidential primary in March and the general election in November. The role of state chair is not as powerful as it once was — a corruption scandal more than a decade ago landed one former chairman in prison — but it remains important for party fund-raising and cheerleading.
“Every day Christian Ziegler stays as chair sends a chilling message to the women of Florida about how the Republican Party views sexual assault,” said State Representative Fentrice Driskell, Democrat of Tampa and the House minority leader.
Regardless of what happens, Republicans will almost certainly maintain clear advantages in the state in voter registration, candidate recruitment and legislative and congressional seats, as Democrats try to rebuild after years of election losses. But even so, the Republican brand could suffer in Florida from the Ziegler scandal.
“These people for years have held themselves as paragons of Christian conservative values,” Mr. Roach said, referring to Mr. Ziegler and his wife. “This is a huge breach of trust.”
Mr. Ziegler, through his lawyer, has denied wrongdoing. He told the police that he had consensual sex on Oct. 2 with the woman who accused him, according to a search warrant affidavit. Her name has been redacted from public records.
The woman told the police that she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Ziegler and Ms. Ziegler more than a year ago, but that she declined to have sex with Mr. Ziegler on Oct. 2 after realizing that his wife would not be joining them.
Mr. Ziegler then went to her apartment uninvited and sexually assaulted her, the woman told the police.
Mr. Ziegler told the police that he had filmed the encounter, though investigators have not been able to locate the video. They obtained search warrants for Mr. Ziegler’s cellphone and his Google account, according to the affidavit.
Ms. Ziegler confirmed to the police that she had taken part in the prior sexual encounter with the woman, a fact that Democrats and Republicans like Mr. Roach have seized on as evidence of hypocrisy, given Ms. Ziegler’s public anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric.
Ms. Ziegler, 41, has not responded to repeated requests for comment since the investigation into her husband came to light last week. She is an elected member of the Sarasota County School Board and a prominent supporter of a parental-rights-in-education law that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay.” The law prohibits classroom instruction on L.G.B.T.Q. subjects; Ms. Ziegler stood behind Mr. DeSantis when he signed the law in 2022.
She also co-founded the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, though she is no longer an officer of the national organization, which noted on Tuesday that she had resigned “nearly three years ago.” Moms for Liberty and Ms. Ziegler campaigned for Mr. DeSantis’s re-election last year; the governor has since appointed her to a state board overseeing Disney World.
The Zieglers have frequently posted on social media against transgender rights in particular. Ms. Ziegler defended a post in April that showed her in a T-shirt that read, “Real Women Aren’t Men.”
Tom Edwards, a Sarasota school board member who is openly gay, said in an interview that Ms. Ziegler should resign from the board. The Zieglers, he argued, “leveraged the culture wars to their personal profit and to their climb within the party — and all the while, it was at the expense of children.”
“When you’re a youngster discovering your identity, your orientation, and you have ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ and we have to remove gay characters, and we can’t talk about gay families, then your self-esteem is damaged,” said Mr. Edwards, a Democrat.
The Zieglers have been influential in Sarasota County, an affluent stretch of the state’s Gulf Coast that over the past few years has emerged as a center of right-wing activism. The area is home to Michael T. Flynn, former President Donald J. Trump’s first national security adviser, who has embraced the pro-Trump conspiracy theory Q-Anon. Rumble, the right-wing video platform, has its headquarters in the area.
Mr. Ziegler is a former Sarasota County commissioner who was an early supporter of Mr. Trump. When he was elected state party chairman in February, he was seen as aligned with Mr. Trump, rather than Mr. DeSantis — which might be a factor in why he has not heeded the governor’s call to resign.
Mr. Trump has not weighed in.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Patricia Mazzei is the Miami bureau chief, covering Florida and Puerto Rico. She writes about breaking news, politics, disasters, and the quirks of life in South Florida. She joined The Times in 2017 after a decade at The Miami Herald. More about Patricia Mazzei
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