On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he had appointed Rachel Kamoutsas, wife of his Education Commissioner, Anastasios “Stasi” Kamoutsas, to serve as a judge on the Sixth District Court of Appeal.
Who?
Rachel Kamoutsas serves as the Chief of Staff and Corporate Secretary for the Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida. Previously, she served as a Deputy General Counsel for the Florida Office of the Attorney General. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her juris doctor from Regent University School of Law. Kamoutsas fills a judicial post created by the enactment of Senate Bill 2508.
While she worked for Attorney General Pam Bondi, Rachel Kamoutsas represented the state before the Florida Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. State (2017), a post-conviction appeal. The court ultimately denied relief based on procedural and substantive grounds.
Under Attorney General Ashley Moody, she represented the state before the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida in Auerbach v. State and State v. Socarras. The District Court of Appeal reversed both convictions.
Rachel Kamoutsas began working for the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida in 2021.
Stasi Kamoutsas served as Education Commissioner Manny Diaz’s chief of staff before taking over his job when Diaz was selected to be the interim president of the University of West Florida. Rachel and Stasi Kamoutsas attended the same law school as did UWF Trustee Paul Bailey. Stasi and Bailey graduated three years before Rachel Kamoutsas.
When the State Board of Education voted on her husband’s nomination, New College President Richard Corcoran joked that he tried to hire Rachel Kamoutsas when her husband worked for him in the Florida Department of Education. He said, “I tried to hire Rachel and then she ditched me for the Board of Governors.”