GOP political leader Robin Lumb is suing the Republican Party of Florida and its chairman over his ouster from an elected position in the party, which was engineered by the local chairman of the party.

The suit filed in Circuit Court seeks a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.

In essence, the suit is asking the court to declare that the Republican Party does not “own” the word “republican,” which was used by the ancient Romans.

Lumb has been a member of the Republican Executive Committee since 2004 and was re-elected in August as a precinct committeeman.

Meanwhile, Lumb and other Republicans had formed a group separate from the REC and named it the Duval County Republican Assembly.

However, Dean Black, chairman of the REC and a member of the Florida House, filed a grievance in July claiming that Lumb had violated the state party’s rules, which purport to prohibit the use of the word “Republican.”

The rule states: “No person or group of persons may use the name, abbreviations, or symbols of the Republican Party in connection with any club, group, association, or organization of any kind unless approval and permission have been given by the Republican Party of Florida in the form of a written charter issued under this Rule.”

Lumbs alleges that Evan Power, state party chairman, was incapable of acting as a fair and impartial arbiter in the grievance process, because he had referred to the assembly as a “grifter organization.”

Nevertheless, Lumb was notified in September that the state party had voted to remove him from his position in the REC.

Not only was that in violation of its own rule that no grievance shall be considered within 90 days of an election, it also was a claim that the party owned a common word, Lumb said. “This is an intolerable infringement on the free speech rights of every Florida Republican and cannot be allowed to stand,” Lumb told Eye.

Lumb said the word republican dates to the First Roman Republic in 509 B.C. It was used repeatedly by James Madison in the Federalist Papers in reference to a specific form of government and was in common use in the United States well before the Republican Party was founded in 1854.

Lumb wants to be reinstated and also is asking the court to declare that the Republican Party does not control the word republican, citing a 1999 Duval Circuit Court ruling that the use of the term “Republican” to identify individuals does not infringe on RPOF’s name.