A Florida school board is demanding the resignation of Bridget Ziegler after a three-way sex scandal and rape accusations against her husband made national news—and infuriated critics who say her private life is at odds with her anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
Before a public comment period on Tuesday, the Sarasota County School Board voted 4 to 1 to ask the Moms for Liberty co-founder to step down from her position on the panel, which she’d held since 2014. Ziegler was the lone dissenting vote.
Ziegler, 41, spoke briefly at the beginning of the meeting, where a crowd of people waited for their turn to bash her and demand the board take action. The line to get into the proceeding stretched around the building.
“You know, I am disappointed,” Ziegler said in her first public comments since the controversy. “As people may know, I serve on another public board and this issue did not come up and we were able to forge ahead with the business of the board,” she added, referring to her spot on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Disney oversight board.
Ziegler then asked school board lawyer Patrick Duggan: “Just one more time, this does not have any teeth, is that correct?”
“This board has no ability to remove one of the other members,” Duggan answered.
According to the board’s resolution, only the governor can suspend a board member for malfeasance, neglect of duty, and other alleged violations. Once that happens, the state Senate would then need a majority vote to boot them from office.
The board’s action—drafted by board chair Karen Rose—requested that Ziegler “voluntarily resign” in light of the Sarasota police probe and stated that she “would cause an irreparably harmful distraction” to the board’s ability to conduct business.
Ziegler’s husband, Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler, is also fighting for his political life after a local journalism watchdog revealed that Sarasota cops were investigating him for allegedly raping a woman who’d previously had a threesome with him and Bridget.
The woman told police that the Zieglers planned a rendezvous with her on Oct. 2 but she canceled when she learned Bridget couldn’t make it. Christian Ziegler, she claims, showed up to her apartment anyway and raped her.
Christian Ziegler, who hasn’t been charged criminally, denies the accusations and claims the encounter was consensual.
The Republican activist has refused to resign from his post despite calls to do so from DeSantis, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, and many other colleagues. As a result, the state GOP scheduled an emergency meeting to address the scandal. “We have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up,” Ziegler recently wrote to party members.
According to reports, Ziegler has also privately compared his predicament to the sexual misconduct allegations against former President Donald Trump and challenged colleagues for rallying against him. News site The Messenger reported that Ziegler allegedly told Lee County GOP Chair Michael Thompson: “Oh, you’re a big Trump guy. But it’s ok for Trump? You don’t call on him to resign but you want me to step down?”
The Zieglers haven’t spoken publicly about the accusations.
A search warrant affidavit revealed that Bridget Ziegler told detectives that “she knew the victim through her husband” and “confirmed having a sexual encounter with the victim and Christian over a year ago and that it only happened one time.”
Before the board meeting, Support Our Schools and other organizations defending public education and LGBTQ rights held a press conference demanding Bridget Ziegler issue a public apology and relinquish her seat. The protest included signs declaring “Don’t Say 3-Way” and “Ban Bridget Not Books” and chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Bridget Ziegler’s got to go!” Someone also distributed free T-shirts reading “Real Women Aren’t Transphobic Bigots,” a parody of Ziegler’s “Real Women Aren’t Men” shirt, which she posted on X.
“No wonder the Proud Boys and General [Mike] Flynn supported her the last time she ran for office,” said Carol Lerner, a retired public school social worker and co-founder of Support Our Schools. “The Zieglers are pure through and through grifters, making big bucks while they spew bigotry and homophobia.”
“Voters need to pay attention to the players in the field,” added one parent, Tamara Solum. “The Zieglers have made their fame and fortune on the backs of our students. Their greed and desire for power have exploited children and caused damage to our schools.”
The fallout from the threesome controversy led Bridget Ziegler to part ways with her job at the Leadership Institute. Last year, she was hired as the conservative nonprofit’s director of school board programs, helping to train right-leaning school board candidates.
Bridget Ziegler, who helped DeSantis craft the “Don’t Say Gay” law, also sits on the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. DeSantis created the board to oversee Walt Disney World’s property as punishment for the company’s opposition to the legislation.
As The Daily Beast reported, the Zieglers became MAGA royalty for pushing their conservative politics in Sarasota and beyond. Their tactics, however, also made them enemies on both sides of the aisle.
One state Republican operative told The Daily Beast that it’s revealing that the Zieglers have few colleagues defending them. “I’ve never seen that in the world of politics,” they said. “In the world of fake news, and witch hunts, and hoaxes, this is the one instance where everybody is not surprised, and is ready to go in for the kill. And it is not just Democrats.”
Bridget Ziegler co-founded Moms for Liberty—the right-wing group lately making headlines for working to ban books with LGBTQ and race-related themes—in 2021 as an effort to fight COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates in schools.
As a school board member, Bridget also pushed for parents to be notified if students identify as transgender and for the district to hire a consultant with ties to Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts school based in Michigan.
Earlier this year, she refused to shut down one mom who spewed homophobic comments toward Tom Edwards, an openly gay board member, at a meeting.
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