Andrew Warren is running for Hillsborough state attorney. Here’s why that’s a good thing.

Tuesday’s announcement from suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren that he would seek reelection revives some unfinished business from an ugly political chapter. It puts the selection of the county’s top law enforcement officer where it belongs — in the hands of local voters, not the governor and his legislative cronies in Tallahassee. It also promises Hillsborough voters a choice this year between two distinctly different visions for criminal justice.

Warren’s surprise announcement ended months of speculation, coming after declaring in January that he would not run against appointed State Attorney Suzy Lopez, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis installed after suspending Warren from office in 2022. But with a favorable ruling pending in his federal lawsuit to reclaim the post, and a deadline to qualify for the ballot only days away, Warren’s move all but ensures the prosecutor’s race will become the most-watched local faceoff this year.

DeSantis suspended Warren for “neglect of duty” and “incompetence,” alleging his actions and statements on abortion, transgender care and low-level crimes amounted to “blanket policies” against prosecuting violations of Florida law. While Florida governors have suspension power, those suspensions then go to the Florida Senate, which under the state constitution has exclusive authority to remove or reinstate the person. The Senate has not acted in Warren’s case.

Warren scored a major victory in 2023, when presiding U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote in a 59-page ruling that the suspension stemmed from “policy differences” between the Republican governor and Democratic state attorney. Hinkle found the governor’s claim that Warren had blanket policies against certain prosecutions was false. “The record includes not a hint of misconduct by Mr. Warren,” Hinkle wrote, finding that DeSantis used the allegations as a “pretext” to oust Warren, which he said violated both the Florida and U.S. constitutions.

Yet Hinkle also concluded he lacked the authority under the U.S. Constitution to restore Warren to office. But in a ruling in January, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed that concern. “The Eleventh Amendment permits federal courts to remedy First Amendment violations,” the appeals court wrote, directing Hinkle to reconsider his restraint in ordering Warren reinstated. Hinkle has yet to make a further ruling.

The federal courts are right: This suspension was driven from the outset by a headline-seeking governor whose “controlling motivation” was “bringing down a reform prosecutor.” But Warren’s case is still stuck in court. With his announcement Tuesday, Warren has put the fate of this office back into the hands of voters who actually live here. (Another Democrat, Elizabeth Martinez Strauss, has also filed paperwork to run.)

Hillsborough voters have been robbed of an elected state attorney serving in that capacity for nearly half the office’s four-year term. The federal courts still need to resolve the jurisdictional fog over reinstating the twice-elected Warren to office. But his entry into the 2024 race gives Warren and Lopez the chance to look forward, not backward. It will force both candidates to defend their records, their leadership of the same office and their ideas for making Hillsborough both safer and more just. This was a long, needless ordeal in the service of a single governor, but it looks to be finally ending on the right legal and political grounds.

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