In Florida, newly appointed Secretary of State Michael Ertel resigned Thursday, just hours after photos emerged showing him in blackface while wearing a shirt reading “Katrina victim.” The photos were taken at a Halloween party in 2005 just two months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing over 1,800 people and leaving much of New Orleans underwater. Ertel was appointed by Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who narrowly defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum in November. Gillum is African-American, and during the campaign he faced a string of racist attacks from outside groups—and from DeSantis, who told Florida voters ahead of the election not to “monkey this up.”