Ashley Moody will soon move from the Florida Cabinet to the U.S. Senate.
Moody, the state’s attorney general, is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is poised to be the next Secretary of State for President-elect Donald J. Trump.
DeSantis made the announcement in a Thursday news conference in Orlando.
The moves are the latest in a carousel of seat hopping among Florida Republicans as Trump leaned heavily on Sunshine State hires to staff his incoming administration.
Moody, 49, who in 2019 became the second woman to be Florida Attorney General when she succeeded Pam Bondi, also will be the second woman to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate. Paula Hawkins, a Republican, served one term, from 1981 to 1987, but lost her reelection bid to Democrat Bob Graham.
A former federal prosecutor and state circuit court judge, Moody has roots in the Florida legal firmament. She graduated from University of Florida School of Law in 2001. Her father, James Moody Jr., is a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida who was nominated by former President Bill Clinton.
After graduating from law school, Moody joined the Holland & Knight firm before running and winning a judgeship on the 13th Circuit Court based in Hillsborough in 2006. Her brother, James Moody III, was appointed as a judge to the same court by DeSantis in 2022.
In 2018 she resigned to run for Attorney General, defeating former state Rep. Frank White, a Pensacola Republican, in the primary and another former state representative, Democrat Sean Shaw of Tampa, in the general election.
Moody has been a staunch ally of Trump, backing his legal challenges to the certification of election results in a handful of states in 2020 when he lost the election to Biden, for instance. The challenges were rejected by the courts.
That record suggests she’ll be a reliable vote for Trump’s agenda in the Senate, taking a hardline on immigration enforcement – one of DeSantis’ requirements in a Senate appointee.
When presented with the upcoming Senate vacancy shortly after the election in November, DeSantis posted on X:
“Florida deserves a Senator who will help President Trump deliver on his election mandate, be strong on immigration and border security, take on the entrenched bureaucracy and administrative state, reverse the nation’s fiscal decline, be animated by conservative principles, and has a proven record of results.”
This is a developing news story. Check back later for more.
Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: DeSantis names Ashley Moody as Marco Rubio replacement in US Senate
