{"id":45005,"date":"2025-07-20T01:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=45005"},"modified":"2025-07-20T05:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T10:04:50","slug":"florida-rep-joe-casello-dies-while-in-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=45005","title":{"rendered":"Florida Rep. Joe Casello dies while in office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. &#8212;&nbsp;Florida Democratic lawmaker Joe Casello has died while in office following a heart attack, according to state House officials. He was 73.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Casello, who was first elected to the Florida House in 2018 from a district in Boynton Beach, was surrounded by his girlfriend and family when he died Friday, the Florida House Democratic Caucus said in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe family extends their heartfelt gratitude to all who have offered their love and support during this difficult time,\u201d the caucus said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Casello was a firefighter in Worcester, Massachusetts, for three decades before entering politics in Florida. He served as a Boynton Beach city commissioner before becoming a state lawmaker. He had announced plans to run for a seat on the Palm Beach County Commission in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis is required to call a special election or special primary election when a vacancy occurs for a legislative seat because of a death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/florida-rep-joe-casello-dies-office-123892529\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. &#8212;&nbsp;Florida Democratic lawmaker Joe Casello has died while in office following a heart attack, according to state House officials. He was 73. Casello, who was first elected to the Florida House in 2018 from a district in Boynton Beach, was surrounded by his girlfriend and family when he died Friday, the Florida [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":45006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[34020,1437,1441],"class_list":["post-45005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-casello","tag-florida","tag-was"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45007,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45005\/revisions\/45007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}