TALLAHASSEE, Fla. State Rep. Dane Eagle was appointed as executive director of the state's employment agency on Wednesday, a little more than two weeks after barely losing a Republican primary for Congress in a heavily GOP district. The agency was widely criticized for long delays in paying out unemployment benefits after the economy tanked during the coronavirus pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people waited weeks and sometimes months for benefits from the glitch-ridden unemployment system after suddenly losing work amid the outbreak. But Crist dropped out of the Republican primary, ran as an independent and lost to Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Lawson remained as director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, but management of the unemployment system was given to Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter.

Lawson remained as director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, but management of the unemployment system was given to Department of Management Services Secretary Jonathan Satter. Florida's unemployment system became fodder for state and national Democrats, who pushed for investigations into the failures, including an explanation of why the state could not deliver timely benefits. DeSantis has acknowledged that his states unemployment system is broken and ordered his own investigators to look into the systems failures. The outbreak had caused the states unemployment rate to spike to 13.8% in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 4.4% the month before. According to state Senate Democrats, 1.7 million Floridians are waiting for benefits.

After Florida’s botched response to the flood of unemployment claims due to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. The governor revealed he appointed Satter to oversee the COVID-19 unemployment response. “I was disappointed in the initial response in terms to the website,” DeSantis said. In the past three weeks, more than 472,000 unemployment claims were filed by Floridians, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. “The unemployment claims process is taking too long: Floridians are struggling and need to receive their money.