By Jim Turner ©2025 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Former Rep. Joel Rudman became the third appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis to resign this month from a Northwest Florida college or university board of trustees while awaiting Senate confirmation.
Meanwhile, the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday refused to back another DeSantis appointee, University of West Florida trustee Adam Kissel.
Rudman was set to appear before the committee for a confirmation hearing on his appointment to the Pensacola State College board, but he texted committee Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, a resignation letter before the meeting.
Gaetz described Rudman, R-Navarre, as an “aggressive nominee,” adding the former legislator claimed to have a list of state lawmakers who violated drug laws that he’d release “depending upon how this committee behaved.”
Gaetz said officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were on hand to take down names and evidence, but “Dr. Rudman has not favored us with his appearance.”
Gaetz said Rudman could not attend the meeting because he was out of the country. Rudman’s online posts showed he was in Spain during the past week.
On April 15, Rudman did not get support for his confirmation from the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee, after making similar allegations against lawmakers.
Rudman left his House seat to run unsuccessfully this year in a special election for a Northwest Florida congressional seat. After losing a special primary election to now-Congressman Jimmy Patronis, Rudman was appointed in February to the college board by DeSantis.
Rudman also appeared April 15 with DeSantis in Pensacola, where he said he decided to run in the special election because state House leaders were “running away from conservative ideals” and planned to act in opposition to DeSantis.
The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday voted 5-4 to oppose the confirmation of Kissel, a West Virginia resident who is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Kissel, who also didn’t get support from the Higher Education Appropriations Committee, faced questions over past statements related to defunding public education and the GI Bill, which he said, “put veterans in college instead of the workforce.”
Questioned by Gaetz about privatizing public universities, Kissel said that is a “long-term goal” while he supports additional resources for a growing school like the University of West Florida.
“I don’t see those views in conflict,” Kissel said. “In the short-term, the right political choice is different from the right political choice in the long-term.”
Kissel also said he has access to national donors that other trustees might not have.
Sen. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, said Kissel offers “something different.”
“The fact that Mr. Kissel has been open about his opinions and writes about them openly, I think gives the ability to challenge those opinions,” Grall said.
Former University of West Florida President Judith Bense said she had trouble trusting Kissel because of his comments that the university needs to “buckle up” for ideological changes.
“We are worried that we can’t trust him in terms of funding, in terms of getting to know us in terms of being a trustee from the ground up,” Bense told the committee.
Rudman’s resignation from the Pensacola State College board came after Gates Garcia, CEO of a private equity firm based in Tampa, and Boise State University political science professor Scott Yenor, stepped down from the University of West Florida board.
Yenor’s appointment faced the most pushback, in part because of issues such as a 2021 comment calling working women “more medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome than women need to be.”
Garcia resigned last week after he had not been scheduled for a confirmation hearing, Previously, he expressed strong support for Yenor when the UWF Board of Trustees elected the Idaho professor as chairman, calling Yenor one of the “greatest leaders” in education reform and saying he has “as decorated a resume as anyone in this space.”
Garcia disputed criticism from university supporters about Yenor lacking ties to the Northwest Florida community.
Yenor stepped down on April 9.
The Senate Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday backed five other UWF trustee appointees. The appointees still need confirmation from the full Senate.
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