Ashley Moody looks for re-election as Aramis Ayala looks to pull the upset

Floridians heading to the polls on Election Day will be picking many statewide offices, including choosing the state’s top cop, the attorney general.

Republican Ashley Moody is looking to get re-elected after her first term, while Democrat Aramis Ayala is looking to pull off an upset.

Who is Aramis Ayala?

Aramis Ayala is an Orlando attorney who rose to notoriety after serving as the state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties – the Ninth Judicial Circuit — from 2017 to 2020. She previously worked as an assistant state attorney and as an assistant public defender.

Ayala has garnered local and national news as Florida’s first Black State Attorney and a staunch opponent of the death sentence.

She got the NAACP Civil Rights Champion of Justice Award in 2017. Recently, Ayala was recently honored as Champion of Justice by Harbor House of Central Florida for her work in combating domestic abuse.

Ayala ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, and she made headlines by refusing to seek the death sentence for Markeith Loyd, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend, her unborn child and an Orlando police lieutenant, Debra Clayton.

In retaliation, then-Gov. Rick Scott moved the Loyd case, as well as other death sentence cases, away from Ayala. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of Scott.

Ayala instead established a death sentence review board to determine if a case warrants the death penalty.

She advocated for civil citations rather than punishment for nonviolent first-time juvenile offenders, formed a partnership to combat domestic and child violence and developed a low-income bail fund. Ayala also established a conviction integrity board to address the issue of erroneous convictions.

Aramis Ayala Platform According to her Website

• Defending women’s, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community’s constitutional rights.
• Investigating unethical nursing home procedures, insurance companies, and “predatory lenders,” as well as discriminatory and deceptive mortgage practices.
• Workers’ rights must be protected.
• Florida’s reliance on fossil fuels has been reduced.
• Domestic and gun violence safety in the community

Who is Attorney General Ashley Moody?

Attorney General (AG) Ashley Moody, a native of Plant City, at age of thirty-one, became the youngest judge in Florida when she was elected Circuit Court Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County.

Moody established the Attorney Ad Litem program, which recruited volunteer attorneys to represent parents who did not appear in court with their children, as well as a mentorship program for at-risk adolescents in the juvenile delinquency system.

In 2018 Moody defeated Democratic lawmaker Sean Shaw for attorney general by 6 percentage points.

She is known for teaming up with DeSantis to pursue cases opposing President Joe Biden’s policies on matters like as the coronavirus pandemic and immigration.

Moody has also undertaken several controversial legal motions, such as signing on to a multi-state case to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections in multiple states, which the US Supreme Court declined.

AG Ashley Moody Platform According to her Website

• Assisting law enforcement
• Fighting human trafficking
• Combating the opioid epidemic
• Combating elderly fraud
• Combating federal overreach
• Promoting mental health
• Ensuring Florida’s future
• Maintaining the rule of law