Key West Attorney David Van Loon Enters County Court Judge Race

The county court judgeship most Monroe County residents are likeliest to care about — the one that handles DUIs, misdemeanor charges, traffic tickets, and small civil disputes — now has its first declared candidate. Key West attorney David Van Loon announced his bid for County Court Judge, Group 2, on March 27, framing his quasi-judicial experience as the central qualification that sets him apart from a purely courtroom-side resume.

Van Loon, a partner at Highsmith & Van Loon P.A. who has lived in Key West since 1996, brings more than 20 years of legal practice across South Florida, with over 1,000 cases logged in county, circuit, federal, and federal bankruptcy court dockets. He has also argued before appellate courts. But it is his time on the bench, not in front of it, that anchors his campaign pitch. He has served for more than a decade as a special magistrate for the Monroe County Value Adjustment Board and more recently as a traffic magistrate for county civil traffic infractions — the precise category of cases that fills a Group 2 docket. "Beyond private practice, I also have extensive quasi-judicial experience," Van Loon said in his announcement.

Before law, Van Loon taught in the Monroe County public school system at Key West High School. That thread runs through his campaign literature, which argues that a county judge in the Keys must understand local realities that courts in Miami or Tampa never confront: tourism-cycle pressures on dockets, housing costs that complicate pretrial conditions, and the logistical challenge of running hearings across a chain of islands. He is a former Rotary Club president, a youth sports coach for nearly 30 years, a recipient of the Florida Bar's pro bono award in 2014, and a former member of the Judicial Nominating Committee. He has also held leadership roles in the Florida Bar's attorney grievance process.

Group 2 is the court where Monroe County intersects with the law most directly. Its judge sets the tone on misdemeanor sentencing and whether first-time offenders get diverted into programs rather than criminal records. The seat also controls the county's traffic calendar, where backlogs have real consequences for residents and tourists alike, and handles civil disputes up to the statutory threshold — the small-claims territory most residents would navigate without a lawyer. What a Group 2 judge cannot do is handle felony cases; those belong to circuit court. The practical scope is narrow but high-volume, and the judicial philosophy behind it shapes daily life in ways that more visible offices rarely do.

Voters evaluating Van Loon — and any candidates who enter the race before the qualifying window closes — should probe where he stands on diversion programs for low-level offenses, how he would manage sentencing consistency across the archipelago's dispersed courtrooms, what tools he supports for clearing traffic calendar backlogs, and how he balances prosecutorial efficiency against victim-rights protections in misdemeanor cases.

Florida county court judicial candidates qualify through the Monroe County Supervisor of Elections. The statewide qualifying window for county races runs from noon April 20 through noon April 24, 2026. If Van Loon draws opposition and no candidate clears 50 percent in the August primary, the race moves to the November general election.