Ken Detzner

Ken Detzner
Florida Secretary of State
Incumbent
In office
2002 - 2003, February 17, 2012 - present
Years in position (current service)	1
Years in position (previous service)	1
Party	Republican
Predecessor	Kurt Browning (R)
Compensation
Base salary	$140,000
Elections and appointments
Appointed	January 18, 2012
Appointed by	Gov. Rick Scott (R)
Term limits	N/A
Education
Bachelor's	Florida State University (1975)
Personal
Birthday	1952
Place of birth	Chicago, Illinois
Websites
Office website

Kenneth W. Detzner (b. 1952 in Chicago, Illinois) is the current Republican Florida Secretary of State. He was appointed on January 18, 2012 by Governor Rick Scott, and confirmed by the Florida State Senate in late February.

Biography

Detzner is native to Chicago, where his father worked for the railroad, but spent his portions of his summers visiting his aunt in Clearwater, Florida. In high school, he excelled in athletics and earned himself a basketball scholarship to college, but eventually quit playing when he realized he couldn’t balance sports and academics. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in political science from Florida State University in 1975.

During the summer of 1973, Detzner, still a college student, landed a job at Congressional Quarterly (then owned by the Times Publishing Company) contemporaneous with the Watergate Committee hearings leading up to Nixon's resignation. The job provided him with significant insight into the field of politics and contributed to his affiliation with the Democratic party, of which he was a member until 1984.

His mentor was current Republican lobbyist and former Attorney General of Florida Jim Smith, who, as attorney general, hired him to be an executive assistant specializing in drug legislation. Detzner was also the director of legislative and policy affairs in the Office of the Attorney General of Florida from 1979 to 1985. Smith then made Detzner finance director for his 1986 Gubernatorial campaign, running as a Democratic candidate.

Detzner served as a governmental affairs and management consultant from 2003 to 2012. During this period, he developed a Hurricane Mediation Program for the Florida Department of Financial Services to resolve issues originating from the brutal 2004-2005 storm season, and successfully advised the state's attorney general’s office on handling losses-claims from victims of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

His professional credits also include 13 years lobbying for the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Florida State University (1975)

Political career

Secretary of State (2002, 2012-present)

Detzner stopped by Governor Scott's office on a routine lobbying mission in early 2012 and was taken by surprise when Scott asked him to replace outgoing secretary Kurt Browning. After a requested 24-hours of consideration, he accepted the offer and was appointed on January 18, 2012. He called the appointment a "high honor" and made three pledges during his Senate confirmation hearing: “Number one, the agency will be run independent and fair to all parties. Number two, it will be transparent in all of the work we do. The third one is, that we run elections in Florida so that every eligible voter in Florida gets a chance to vote, and that their votes are counted.”

Detzner previously occupied the seat for a short period in 2002 under then Gov. Jeb Bush, during the office's transition from an electable cabinet post to a gubernatorial appointed post. Bush named Detzner his chief of staff until appointing him to serve as acting secretary of state--Florida's first appointed secretary. After Bush won re-election in 2002, Detzner served briefly as secretary before turning the office over to former Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood.

Controversies

Voter roll review

Before resigning his post as secretary in early 2012, Kurt Browning (R) had been working for months to gain access to a federal immigration database which would allow Florida's elections division to accurately identify and remove ineligible voters from the state's voter rolls. Browning pursued this goal on the urging of Gov. Rick Scott (R), according to an account Browning gave the Associated Press in May 2012. At the time when Scott made his initial request for Browning to weed out non-citizens from the voter rolls, the only strategy Florida had in place for determining a resident's eligibility was to reference the state's drivers license database, a strategy which yielded inflated numbers, and in which Browning was not sufficiently confident to share search results with elections supervisors. His lack of confidence in the system led Browning to seek access from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to its tracking system for non-citizens. He was ultimately denied access.

When Browning resigned, he was still reluctant to pass on the information generated by the flawed drivers license system to the elections supervisors, for fear that acting on them would incite a "firestorm of press and criticism." When Detzner took over, he continued Browning's work, but did not continue in the same vein of restraint. "Although Mr. Detzner acknowledged the flaws in the database, he forwarded the names to county election supervisors." Detzner instructed the supervisors to send letters to those whose names turned up on the search, requesting they respond within 30 days with verification of their citizenship or else their names would be removed from the rolls.

Detzner's establishment of a 30 day window for suspected non-citizens to come forward with proof of eligibility has drawn accusations of discriminatory voter disenfranchisement by the U.S. Justice Department, and violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act due to the timing of the voter roll review being so close to an election. An article published in the New York Times on June 1, 2012 summarized Florida's recent attempts to prune its voter rolls, including Browning's account of his experience leading the charge as secretary. Though Browning cited the long commute as his reason for resigning, the article suggests that the voter roll review was also a factor: "Lacking confidence in the search, Mr. Browning resigned early this year."

Appointments

2012

Detzner was appointed as Florida Secretary of State in February 2012 by Gov. Rick Scott (R).

2002

Detzner was first appointed Florida Secretary of State by Gov. Jeb Bush (R) in 2002. He served until 2003.

Contact

Office contact

Tel: 850.245.6524
Email: DOS.SecretaryofState@DOS.MyFlorida.com

Recent news

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This section displays the most recent stories in a Google news search for the term "Ken + Detzner + Florida + Secretary"

All stories may not be relevant to this page due to the nature of the search engine.

Ken Detzner News Feed

• State expands advocacy for Florida children in foster care - Daytona Beach News-Journal
• Emancipation Day reading draws crowd - Tallahassee Democrat (blog)
• Scott signs elections package - The Florida Current
• Gov. Scott Signs Florida Budget; Explains Vetoes - WLRN
• Governor Vetoes University Tuition Increase - StateImpact Florida
• Florida PSC Helps You Be Cool and Save Energy - WCTV
• Rick Scott Vetoes Nearly $370 Million of $74.5 Billion Budget - Sunshine State News (blog)
• Three local projects listed on TaxWatch list as 'budget turkeys' - St. Augustine Record
• City's 450th is Miami meeting topic - St. Augustine Record
• Last minute session hopes, and just as many fears - Tampabay.com (blog)

See also

• Florida Secretary of State
• Governor of Florida
• Gov. of Florida Rick Scott
• Former Florida Sec. Kurt Browning

External links

Suggest a link

• Florida Department of State Official Website

References

Political offices
Preceded by Kurt Browning (R)	Florida Secretary of State 2012–present	Succeeded by N/A