Gov. Ron DeSantis elevated the Florida Sixth District Court of Appellate Chief Judge to the Florida Supreme Court last month.
Meredith Sasso, a Cuban-American, is the fourth woman and fourth Hispanic that DeSantis has appointed to the state’s highest court since he entered the office in 2019.
“The judiciary plays a critical and unique role in our constitutional government, and I am resolutely committed to upholding the rule of law for as long as I am privileged to serve,” Sasso said in a statement online.
The Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) had interviewed 15 applicants in the process of filling the vacancy but only six were forwarded to Gov. DeSantis for consideration. The five other finalists were Michael Thomas McHugh, Joshua Aaron Mize, Thomas Nelson Palermo, Jared Edward Smith and John K. Stargel.
The JNC was created by former Gov. Reubin Askew in 1971 to foster fairness and remove politics from the process of nominating judges but Bob Jarvis, professor of constitutional law at the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law, argues that the commission has been hijacked.
“It is now nothing more than a rubber stamp for the governor,” he said. “The JNC simply does what the governor tells the JNC to do. Its independence has been stripped away. Its watchdog level has been neutered.”
Raised in Tallahassee, Sasso received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida. She formerly represented large loss general liability, auto negligence, and complex commercial claim clients in state and federal courts at trial and on appeal.
“As a Cuban-American woman who understands the importance of our constitutional system and the rule of law, Judge Sasso will serve our state well," DeSantis said.
Sasso is also a member of the Federalist Society along with two other recent Supreme Court appointees, Jamie Rutland Grosshans and Renatha Francis.
“All three of them are cut from the same cloth,” Jarvis told the Florida Record. “They're all fairly young women who are going to be on the court for decades and who are very conservative. They ticked off the boxes that DeSantis was looking for and in appointing them, along with earlier appointments, DeSantis has cemented a hard right court for decades.”
Sasso replaced Ricky Polston who retired last year.
"There is no political diversity, which means that for the millions and millions of Floridians who are either Democrat or Independent, they have no representation," Jarvis alleged. "They have no voice on the Florida Supreme Court just like they have no voice in the Florida legislature because of the gerrymandering that the Republicans have been engaging in since the 1980s. The reality is that the Republicans over the past 40 years have simply outflanked the Democrats when it has come to gerrymandering. It is stunning."