Rep. Reggie Fullwood drops out of reelection race after guilty plea

Jacksonville state House Rep. Reggie Fullwood has officially dropped out of his race for reelection.

Fullwood announced it on Twitter on Friday afternoon, the day after pleading guilty to federal indictments.

The Duval County Democratic Executive Committee has a matter of days to pick a replacement nominee.

It’s too late to change the ballots; they were printed weeks ago with Fullwood’s name on them.

Duval County supervisor of elections Mike Hogan said instead, there will be a note in every voting booth saying a vote for Fullwood is a vote for whoever replaces him as the Democratic nominee.

Duval County Democratic Executive Committee secretary James Poindexter said Democrat leadership did not know in advance that Fullwood was going to plead guilty in federal court on Thursday.

“Absolutely not. We found out as soon as the news broke,” said Poindexter.

Fullwood pleaded guilty to charges of scheme to defraud and failing to file tax returns.

He was accused of using about $65,000 of campaign donations for personal expenses like jewelry, liquor, florist and restaurant bills.

Poindexter said no one has explicitly told the county party chair he or she would like to be considered to replace Fullwood as the nominee.

“Well, there’s quite a number of people who ran in that race. So I fully expect that we’ll see people like Tracie Davis, who came in a close second,” said Poindexter.

Davis lost to Fullwood in the August primary by about 400 votes -- that’s 2 percent.

The new Democratic nominee will run against Republican Pastor Mark Griffin.

“Obviously, I wanted to win this race and I still want to win this race, but didn’t really want to win it this way,” said Griffin. “I was shocked, quite honestly. We know that [Fullwood] had these issues. But no one expected that to happen when it did. And quite frankly, I was saddened.”

As for Fullwood’s current seat, a House Rules provision said the House Speaker can suspend any representative who pleads guilty to a felony, without pay.

Florida House Speaker Steve Crisafulli’s office sent Action News Jax the following statement:

“While this is a very unfortunate situation Representative Fullwood is now obligated by House Rule to resign from his seat. I am hopeful that he will do what is right and do so immediately.”

Crisafulli has not responded to Action News Jax’s questions on why he is calling for Fullwood’s resignation instead of suspending him.

Fullwood has not responded to calls and tweets asking if he plans to resign from his seat.

Cox Media Group