DeSantis appoints Disney district head to a Florida supervisor of elections job. Who is Glen Gilzean?

Gov. Ron DeSantis needed someone to take over as Supervisor of Elections in heavily Democratic Orange County to replace the former one, now-retired Bill Cowles, just before the Presidential Primary on March 19. Rather than any of the eight candidates who filed for the job, mostly Democrats, on Monday the governor appointed fellow Republican Glen Gilzean.

Which is not surprising. When DeSantis needs someone, he often turns to Gilzean, as previous governor Rick Scott did before him. Most recently Gilzean was chosen to be the District Administrator of the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which was put in place to replace Disney's previous district as part of the governor's ongoing feud with the company.

Now he'll be managing the elections for a Democratic voter stronghold, the fifth-largest county in Florida, home of Orlando and Disney World, and one of the few counties in Florida that Democrats carried in the otherwise GOP-dominated 2022 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections.

Here's what you need to know:

Who is Glen Gilzean Jr.?

Glenton “Glen” Gilzean Jr.'s grandparents emigrated from Jamaica. He grew up in the Lauderdale Lakes area of Broward County and graduated from Nova High School, participating in on-the-job training and even spending a semester studying in Israel.

Gilzean holds a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences from the University of South Florida and a master’s degree from the University of South Florida’s Center of Entrepreneurship.

After college Gilzean worked for U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Florida, and then spent over three years working for the Florida Department of Education as a regional field director. He left to form a nonprofit group called Educate Today and grew it into a multimillion-dollar organization but resigned from it in 2012 when then-Gov. Rick Scott appointed him to fill an empty seat on the Pinellas County School Board even though he had only lived in the area for two months at the time.

Gilzean was defeated in the next election, despite an endorsement from former Gov. Jeb Bush, but the next year Scott appointed him to the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees, which was also considered by some to be a controversial choice. He withdrew his nomination in 2014 before he could be confirmed after the Herald/Times reported that per state law, as the vice president of advocacy and outreach for Step Up For Students, a nonprofit organization in Jacksonville that managed Florida's school voucher program, he would have to register as a lobbyist.

In 2016, Scott appointed him to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission to select nominees for judicial vacancies.

In November 2015, Gilzean took over as head of the Central Florida Urban League, an affiliate of the National Urban League, when they were floundering under $1.2 million of debt, and brought them out of it in less than two years. He was made president and CEO in 2016 and was named one of Central Florida’s CEOs of the Year in 2019 by the Orlando Business Journal.

DeSantis appoints Gilzean to multiple Florida committees

DeSantis has relied heavily on Gilzean, placing him wherever the governor needed someone reliable.

• In 2019, DeSantis appointed him to chair the Florida Commission of Ethics and reappointed him in 2022.
• In 2020, Gilzean was appointed to the State of Florida’s 2020 Census Statewide Complete Count Committee and later the Reopen Florida Task Force after the COVID-19 lockdowns. 
• He's also the chair of the state's African American History Task Force, created to make a new curriculum after the state Department of Education decided that the AP African American History course conflicted with DeSantis' new "Stop WOKE Act" which prohibited any teaching that could make students feel bad in discussions or teaching of racial issues. The result — widely condemned for whitewashing American and Florida history, promoting Republican civil rights leaders over others and suggesting that the enslaved people benefited from their enslavement — was unanimously approved by the Board of Education despite protests and criticism from major Black advocate groups, community leaders, Greek-letter fraternities and the state's teachers' union.
• In May he was elected to be the District Administrator of the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which was put in place to replace Disney's previous district as part of the governor's years-long battle with the entertainment giant.

Gilzean came under fire for several of those positions. He defended DeSantis and the African American Task Force for Florida’s new controversial African American history standards against claims that they whitewash history and require instruction that "slaves developed skills" for "personal benefit."

After Gilzean announced that the new district governing Disney World would be abolishing its diversity, equity and inclusion program, his former employer, the Central Florida Urban League, blasted his "betrayal."

And he ran into a conflict of interest when he took the Disney job while staying on the Ethics Commission, which doesn't allow members to hold public employment. Gilzean resigned from the commission last August.

Gilzean criticized for conservative leanings

"Gilzean has been a dedicated public servant to the State of Florida," DeSantis said in the press release announcing the Supervisor of Elections appointment. Gilzean has worked his entire career to further opportunities for Black people.

“Glen was a like a breath of fresh air to the Central Florida Urban League,” Board Chair Paula Hoisington told the Orlando Sentinel. “It was his love for community, his love for children, his love for just wanting to make it an even playing field for all of those that were needing a hand up, not a handout.”

But his conservative political leanings and tireless support of governors Scott and DeSantis have drawn criticism, especially as DeSantis is perceived by many to be consolidating his hold on Florida politics and using the power of the state against businesses that defy him.

The Associated Press reported that a group of Orlando-area federal and state lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, called the elections job the latest example of DeSantis naming unqualified loyalists to elected positions “so he can control every part of our state and local governments and warp our democracy to his will.”

“Glen Gilzean is a Ron DeSantis loyalist who’s top priority seems to be making Ron DeSantis happy, not protecting the integrity of our elections,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “This move signals the Governor’s focus on silencing the voices of Central Florida voters as one of the most northern progressive hubs in our state. We cannot let this happen.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.