Congress has seen plenty of firebrands and confrontational lawmakers — especially from Florida. But Washington still might be in for a shock when it comes to Randy Fine.
Over his nine years in the Florida Legislature, he gained a reputation for his bare-knuckle style of politics and spats with local officials. Now the former gambling executive will be going national with last week’s special election win in a deep-red district on Florida’s northeast coast.
Three years ago, Fine called a school-board member a “whore” in a text. During Covid, he got sanctioned by Facebook after he wrote a post alerting constituents to a school-board meeting on masking that included the school-board member’s phone number. A judge sent Fine to anger management after pictures surfaced that appeared to show him giving the middle finger during a virtual hearing. (He insisted he was scratching his forehead.)
He recently became irritated with a pro-Palestinian activist who was testifying at a hearing and dismissed the man with, “Enjoy your terrorist rag.” When people began to protest, he threatened to empty the room.
“I’m the chairman, I can say what I want,” he said. “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”
And most eye-popping of all, he’s been a frequent foil of Gov. Ron DeSantis ever since he swapped his 2024 presidential endorsement from the governor to Donald Trump, even topping it with a scathing Washington Times op-ed that accused the governor of not doing enough to fight antisemitism in Florida in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
Though it’s been more than a year since that fallout, DeSantis has made it clear all is not forgiven. “He repels people,” DeSantis said about Fine in the middle of a 10-minute rant after the election. He then dumped on Fine as someone who had underperformed in the race and argued he was only able to pull off a 14-point victory after the president helped “bail him out in the end.”
Fine’s response: To needle DeSantis over how he has less than two years left in office, with no clear path for where his political career is headed next. “A dying star burns hottest before it fades into oblivion,” Fine wrote on X before taking that same message into his first national interview with FOX Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.”
Fine has some enemies. But to his allies, his personal style makes him a good lawmaker. “The guy is destined for stardom,” said Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters, another GOP DeSantis antagonist who was Fine’s roommate when they served in the Legislature and is his closest friend. He praised Fine’s “ability to throw the hardest right hook in the business.”
“Somebody punches him, he throws the biggest haymaker that's around at his opponents,” Gruters said, “and that goes for Republicans and Democrats.”
The ordeal between DeSantis and Fine has been a dramatic U-turn. Fine was once DeSantis’ Jewish outreach chair. He even ...
