DeSantis Used a Cannabis Vote to Lock In Florida’s CFO

Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Sen. Blaise Ingoglia as Florida’s chief financial officer on July 16, 2025, citing Joe Gruters’s cannabis record. The seat had sat empty since Jimmy Patronis left on March 31, 2025, for Congress.

Ingoglia is the Republican nominee for a full term on November 3, 2026. The adult-use marijuana amendment that helped keep Gruters off the Tampa stage is not on that ballot.

DeSantis Put a Cannabis Vote Between Gruters and the Job

DeSantis called Ingoglia, a Spring Hill homebuilder and Hernando-area senator, “the most conservative senator in the state of Florida.” He wanted someone “dedicated to the mission” on immigration, voting rules, and trafficking cases, and he said the appointment would go on the record, not on endorsements. President Donald Trump had already backed Gruters, the Sarasota Republican who chaired the state party from 2019 to 2023, and had said Gruters “was on the ‘Trump Train’ before it even left the station.”

Asked why he would not tap that Trump favorite, DeSantis said political backing mattered less than votes. He said that if George Washington rose from the dead and asked him to appoint Gruters, his answer would be no, because he could not do it without betraying the voters who elected him. He also said that if Ingoglia had supported the Perez/Gruters immigration bill, the new CFO “would not be standing on this stage today.” House Speaker Daniel Perez had worked that immigration package with Gruters; DeSantis called it amnesty and said it would have undercut state removal work, including coastal interdiction.

Cannabis was on the same list. Gruters had campaigned for Amendment 3 in 2024, the adult-use measure DeSantis fought. The governor passed over the pro-marijuana Republican in a Cabinet job that does not issue marijuana licenses, and he said so in public.

Gruters sided with the mega-weed company Trulieve and was joining with liberal Democrats to try to do it, so his record is contrary to what we told the voters we’d do.

Ron DeSantis, Florida governor, Tampa news conference, July 16, 2025

Trulieve, Florida’s largest medical marijuana company, put tens of millions of dollars behind Smart & Safe Florida, the committee that ran Amendment 3. Trump had said the measure would be “very good” for the state. DeSantis treated that split as a loyalty problem inside his own party, not as a disagreement among Republicans.

THE RECORD DESANTIS CITED

• Cannabis: Gruters backed Amendment 3 in 2024 and later filed medical home-grow and patient-access bills in the Senate.
• Guns: Gruters voted for the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which raised the long-gun purchase age to 21, added a three-day wait, and created a red-flag process; Ingoglia voted no.
• Unions: Gruters opposed a 2023 bill that cut power from many public-sector unions, a fight DeSantis called a Republican achievement.
• Immigration: Gruters’s Senate bill passed 21-16 over DeSantis’s objection; Ingoglia was one of six Republicans who voted no.

Ingoglia told the same Tampa room he would be “the conservative pit bull when it comes to spending.” He resigned Senate District 11 and took the oath on July 21, 2025, from Florida Supreme Court Justice John Couriel, with his wife, Julie, holding the Bible.

Governor DeSantis Attends Swearing-In Ceremony for Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia https://t.co/tCHBCZqhoK

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 21, 2025

55.90 Percent Was Short of the Supermajority

Amendment 3 asked voters on November 5, 2024, to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and older and to allow possession of up to three ounces. It needed 60 percent to change the Florida Constitution. It won a majority and still failed, which is the number DeSantis now uses as proof that Gruters picked the wrong side.

AMENDMENT 3 CERTIFIED TALLY

• Yes: 5,950,589 votes, 55.90 percent of ballots on the measure.
• No: 4,693,524 votes, 44.10 percent.
• Ballots on the measure: 10,644,113.
• Bar to pass: 60 percent, which the yes side did not clear.

DeSantis had told voters the text was written to protect existing medical companies, that streets would smell like smoke, and that Florida would drift toward California, Colorado, or New York. State-funded ads carried that case. A Democratic senator sued over the use of tax money; a judge dismissed the suit. After the vote, Ingoglia was among Republicans who backed new limits on citizen initiatives, and DeSantis signed a restriction package in May 2025, while a second adult-use drive was already gathering petitions.

Gruters kept filing cannabis bills from the Senate after the loss. SB 546 would have let a registered medical patient grow up to two plants in a household. SB 552 would have added opioid prescriptions as a qualifying condition and opened a path for out-of-state patients. Those bills did not become the GOP’s statewide line. The line, as DeSantis drew it in Tampa, was that a Republican who had stood with Trulieve on Amendment 3 would not get a Cabinet appointment from him.

The RNC Chair Florida’s Cabinet Would Not Have

The snub did not end Gruters’s career. It moved him out of the Florida money job and into the national party job, which is the part of this fight the appointment coverage treated as a sideshow.

THE 2025 OFF-RAMP

1. March 31, 2025: Patronis leaves the CFO office after winning a U.S. House seat.
2. July 16, 2025: DeSantis appoints Ingoglia in Tampa and lists Gruters’s cannabis, gun, union, and immigration votes.
3. July 21, 2025: Ingoglia is sworn in and resigns his Senate seat.
4. August 22, 2025: The Republican National Committee elects Gruters chair in Atlanta, a unanimous voice vote for Trump’s pick to replace Michael Whatley, who left to run for U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
5. August 28, 2025: Gruters says he will finish his Florida Senate term and drop the CFO race.

Gruters had been RNC treasurer since January 17, 2025. In Atlanta he joked that the skies were clear and said the moment was not about one person. He also said he would have beaten Ingoglia in a primary because he had the president. That primary never happened. Kevin Steele and Benjamin Horbowy also left the Republican field, and Ingoglia went into 2026 as the appointed incumbent.

Gruters still holds Senate District 22. From that desk he refiled a public smoking and vaping bill (SB 986) that would fold marijuana into Florida’s indoor-air rules and ban use on streets, sidewalks, parks, and beaches, a companion he had promised while backing Amendment 3, arguing Florida should not look like Las Vegas or New York. The Senate Regulated Industries Committee advanced it in January 2026. A senator can still drop a cannabis bill. He cannot sit on the Cabinet DeSantis filled in July 2025.

Ingoglia’s Office Writes Florida’s Insurance Rules

Florida’s CFO heads the Department of Financial Services, sits on the Cabinet, pays the state’s bills, and serves as State Fire Marshal. The office regulates insurance functions and runs criminal investigations into fraud. It does not license medical marijuana shops. The Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use writes those health rules, keeps the patient registry, and licenses medical marijuana treatment centers, the only businesses allowed to cultivate, process, and dispense in the state program.

DeSantis still used a cannabis vote to decide who would hold the insurance job. Ingoglia’s first months followed the script he gave in Tampa: local audits with the governor, unclaimed property, fraud arrests, and pressure on carriers. In a December 23, 2025, recap, his office said it had flagged $1.86 billion in spending it called excessive at city and county governments, and that 17 new insurers had entered Florida, with some auto carriers cutting rates or issuing rebates. He also joined the Office of Insurance Regulation on more than $2.5 million in fines tied to claims handling after Hurricanes Ian and Idalia.

On October 11, 2026, he opened an insurance help hub in Destin 36 hours after Hurricane Isaias made landfall, with 12 carriers on site the first day. A week earlier he had stood with DeSantis and warned storm scammers their “butt is going to be in jail.” That is the public face of the office Gruters wanted: property claims, fraud squads, and local budget fights, not MMTC licenses.

Medical operators still buy coverage in that market, and they still live under OMMU rules DeSantis can shape from the governor’s floor. The Cabinet seat Ingoglia holds is a vote on statewide business and a platform on insurance rates. It is also a signal to every Republican senator that a yes on adult-use cannabis is now part of a file the governor will read aloud.

Why Recreational Marijuana Missed Florida’s 2026 Ballot

Smart & Safe Florida tried again. Initiative 25-01 would have let adults 21 and older possess, buy, or use marijuana for non-medical consumption, set possession limits, banned marketing aimed at children, banned smoking and vaping in public, and allowed medical treatment centers to sell to adults while new non-medical licenses were created. The public-smoke ban was a direct answer to DeSantis’s 2024 ads. The Division of Elections approved petition gathering on January 14, 2025. By June 2, 2025, workers had 377,831 valid signatures, enough to trigger legal and fiscal review.

The campaign needed 880,062 valid signatures, with a verification deadline of February 1, 2026. The Division of Elections listed 783,592 verified signatures by that deadline. Smart & Safe said it had submitted about 1,010,000 raw signatures and fought a directive that threw out large batches, including petitions officials said omitted full amendment text and signatures from “inactive” voters or out-of-state collectors. A Leon County judge upheld the state’s invalidation of roughly 200,000 signatures. The committee waived its appeal.

Secretary of State Cord Byrd sent the text to the attorney general on November 17, 2025. The Florida Supreme Court dismissed the 2026 marijuana initiative on February 4, 2026. The state’s initiative record now lists the election year as 2028. DeSantis had said in February 2025 that the new measure was in “big time trouble” with the court and that marijuana “should not be in our Constitution,” telling supporters to elect legislators instead. Three other statewide amendments did make the November 3, 2026, ballot. Adult-use cannabis did not.

That is the quiet half of the Tampa test. The loud half was a personnel slight. The quiet half is a year with no Cabinet Republican who had fronted Amendment 3, a tighter petition statute, a failed signature fight, and a Supreme Court dismissal. Gruters can still talk about decriminalization from the Senate and from the RNC. He cannot put a statewide CFO’s name on a cannabis bill, and voters will not see a rec question next to Ingoglia’s name.

Ingoglia Faces Taddeo on November 3

Frank Collige, a businessman and Air Force veteran, was the Republican who stayed in. Annette Taddeo, a former state senator, won the Democratic primary over Earle Ford. The Division of Elections posted the official August 18 primary results as certified figures.

AUGUST 18, 2026, PRIMARY RESULTS

The general-election argument has been insurance, local audits, and whether the CFO will investigate the governor’s own contracts. Taddeo has called for a watchdog who will look at no-bid spending and carrier profits. Ingoglia has run as the man DeSantis put in to chase waste. Attack ads on both sides talk taxes and corruption. They do not talk Amendment 3.

That silence is the appointment working as designed. The Republican on the November 3 ballot is the senator DeSantis described as a warrior against the “woke mind virus,” not the senator who cut an ad saying Florida still had “outdated marijuana laws.” Current Ingoglia’s term ends January 5, 2027, if he loses. If he wins, the Cabinet seat that was filled over a cannabis vote becomes a four-year job.

Florida will elect a CFO on November 3, 2026. It will not vote on adult-use marijuana. The Republican on that ballot is the one DeSantis chose after reading Gruters’s weed record out loud.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Florida’s CFO License Medical Marijuana Shops?

No. The Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use licenses treatment centers, keeps the Medical Marijuana Use Registry, and writes the health rules under section 381.986, Florida Statutes. A 2025 budget bill DeSantis signed, SB 2514, also directs that office to cancel patient and caregiver registrations after certain drug convictions on or after July 1, 2025. The CFO’s Department of Financial Services handles insurance, state payments, fraud cases, and the fire marshal’s office.

Can the Legislature Legalize Recreational Marijuana Without a Ballot Measure?

Yes. A statute could legalize adult-use cannabis if the House, Senate, and governor agreed, and DeSantis has told critics to elect legislators instead of writing marijuana into the constitution. Citizen initiatives still need 60 percent, which is why a 55.90 percent yes in 2024 failed. Any bill would also need a governor willing to sign it, and DeSantis has opposed adult-use legalization through two petition cycles.

Is Joe Gruters Still a Florida State Senator?

Yes. After the RNC elected him chair on August 22, 2025, Gruters said he would remain in Senate District 22 through the rest of his term and leave the CFO race, which he did on August 28, 2025. He has kept filing bills from Tallahassee, including the public marijuana smoking limits in SB 986, while running the national party from that dual role.

When Does Blaise Ingoglia’s Current Term as CFO End?

January 5, 2027, which is the end of the term he was appointed to finish after Patronis left for Congress. He is on the November 3, 2026, general election ballot for a full four-year term. The office pays $139,988 a year and is limited to two terms under Florida’s Cabinet rules.