Florida GOP strips chair Christian Ziegler of power and pay amid rape allegation, sex scandal

The Republican Party of Florida's executive committee voted unanimously Sunday to strip party chair Christian Ziegler of most of his responsibilities and all but $1 of his $124,000 compensation after he refused to step down amid a rape allegation and the acknowledged extramarital sexual activity it uncovered. The executive committee censured Ziegler for engaging in "conduct that renders him unfit for the office," and scheduled a Jan. 8 meeting in Tallahassee to decide his fate. 

Ziegler "cannot morally lead the Republican Party forward," vice chair Evan Power said after Sunday's tense emergency meeting in Orlando. Power, who will temporarily assume most of the chair's duties, said if Ziegler doesn't resign before the Jan. 8 meeting, the party will remove him then. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other top Florida Republicans have called for Ziegler to step aside for the good of the GOP.

Police in Sarasota are investigating an allegation that Ziegler raped an unidentified woman on Oct. 2. Ziegler, 40, maintains that the sex — originally proposed to include his wife, Bridget Ziegler, according to court documents — was consensual. Ziegler, his wife and the woman all acknowledged they had a three-way sexual encounter a year ago. The rape investigation is ongoing and Ziegler has not been charged with a crime.

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Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty and a member of the Sarasota County School Board and the DeSantis-appointed Disney World district oversight board, has also faced reputation fallout from the scandal. She was the lone vote last week against a 4-1 school board motion that called for her to resign.

Moms for Liberty said earlier this month that Bridget Ziegler left the group nearly three years ago, though she participated in a media training session for the organization at its national conference last summer, The New York Times reported. "Never apologize. Ever," she told Moms for Liberty members facing public outrage over a local chapter quoting Adolf Hitler in a newsletter. "I think apologizing makes you look weak." The chapter, the Times noted, "eventually apologized."