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Florida Weekly Roundup: Return of the Mack
July 26, 2026
Florida Weekly Roundup is a look back at last week in a Florida politics and government.
Florida landed a new education commissioner this week and the wife of the Republican gubernatorial frontrunner approved.
And political viewers also watched as two others on the GOP gubernatorial ballot took their bickering to court over one’s residency.
TEACH TO THE WORKFORCE
The Florida Board of Education unanimously approved Henry Mack as the state’s new education commissioner Wednesday.
Mack, a former senior chancellor at the Department of Education and most recently the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor, was recommended for the position by Gov. Ron DeSantis last week.
“It is an honor beyond words to be entrusted with stewarding Florida schools at this pivotal moment,” Mack told the Board.
Mack replaces Anastasios Kamoutsas, who recently became president of Polk State College, and interim commissioner Paul Burns, a senior chancellor at DOE. The position pays approximately $330,000 a year.
Among those applauding the board action was Erika Donalds, wife of Congressman Bryon Donalds, who described the appointment as a win for Florida’s students.
“Dr. Mack believes in academic excellence and education freedom for all, and he understands better than most what Florida’s workforce demands. I am confident he will help lead all of our students to achieve the Florida Dream,” Erika Donalds posted on X.
Erika Donalds is a former Collier County School Board member who advocates for school choice programs.
Mack worked for DOE from 2019-2023, led the state’s career and technical education initiatives and heavily supported DeSantis’ parental rights policies.
During his time with DOE, Mack was critical of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a proponent of “classical” education, a teaching approach backed by conservatives.
“Florida is restoring the classical aims of public education — starting by confining woke ideology to ‘the dustbin of history,’” he posted on social media in 2023.
THAT D.C. VOTE
GOP gubernatorial candidate James Fishback told a Leon County Circuit Court judge he’s always lived in Florida and only stayed in a Washington, D.C. residence “seasonally,” defending himself from an attempt to knock him from the ballot.
Lt. Gov. Jay Collins challenged his eligibility, alleging Fishback lived in the nation’s capital in 2020 and 2021, violating the Florida Constitution’s requirement that a governor must have lived in the state for seven straight years prior to taking office.
Judge David Frank indicated he plans to issue a ruling on Fishback’s eligibility on Monday.
Before the hearing, as Fishback and his retinue of about 20 supporters waited for the judge to begin, he condemned Collins for bringing the case and called him a “coward” for not being there in person.
During the hearing Fishback aimed more barbs at Collins, a former Green Beret in the U.S. Army who didn’t move to Florida until 2019 himself.
“Jay Collins, a man from Montana, hired a California lawyer … to sue a fourth-generation Floridian to illegally and illegitimately remove me from the ballot,” Fishback said. “He’s in third place. I’m in second.”
Both candidates trail Donalds, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump and leads in most public polling for the primary.
Collins’ attorneys pointed to a series of documents indicating Fishback voted in Washington D.C. in 2020, bought a property in D.C. in 2021, and used that address to set up businesses and nonprofits and when filing tax returns.
Fishback, 31, said his parents moved to D.C. in 2019 and he initially was living with his grandmother in Broward County. In 2020 he ended up getting “stuck” in D.C. during the Covid-19 pandemic and didn’t want to return to his grandmother’s house because she was immunocompromised and he didn’t want to transmit the disease that was more deadly among the elderly than other populations.
That led him to live in his parents’ apartment for much of that year. Fishback said he wanted to vote for Trump in 2020, but looked into voting by mail too late. So instead he walked into a voting booth in D.C. and asked if he could use his Florida driver’s license identification card to vote.
He said he didn’t review the details of the electronic tablet he signed, which registered him to vote in D.C., which requires at least a 30-day residence in the city to vote there.
In Washington D.C. there is same-day registration, unlike in Florida where a voter must register nearly one month before an election.
ACROSS THE POND
Gov. Ron DeSantis led a trip to the United Kingdom this week with education, insurance and aerospace leaders.
DeSantis’ participation in the trip was announced after the team was already on the ground. He attended the opening of the Florida Pavilion at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Other deals, such as Relativity Space’s plan to expand its Space Coast operations, and a memorandum of understanding signed between Space Florida and the UK Space Agency that called for each to spend $200,000 toward joint research projects were announced as well.
Another deal announced at Farnborough involved the Department of Transportation and Eve Air Mobility. This deal is intended to continue the state’s effort to make Florida more friendly to battery-powered aircraft, with the goal of creating “vertiports” serving as hubs for short aerial commutes by eVTOL craft that have characteristics of airplanes and helicopters.
And later, DeSantis and Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky, after participating in a series of meetings with leaders in Britain’s insurance and reinsurance industry, held a discussion on insurance with Dame Susan Langley the Lady Mayor of London.
STORY OF THE WEEK:
Henry Mack was approved as the state’s new education commissioner.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“I am here with a proven record of trying to break down silos between education and labor, a record that evidences a deep philosophical commitment to forming both skilled talent and virtuous citizens in pursuit of the common good.” — Henry Mack, incoming Florida Commissioner of Education.
by Jine Turner, The News Service of Florida
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