Florida Democrats demand crackdown on third-party election candidates

(The Center Square) – The Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office continues to investigate whether third-party candidates funded by dark money affected November outcomes in one south Florida state Senate race and, perhaps, several other Florida Legislature elections.

Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding state campaign regulations regarding nonparty affiliated candidates be reassessed and have filed companion bills that would require nonparty affiliated candidates to genuinely be unaffiliated with a political party.

Senate Bill 830, filed by Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, and House Bill 457, introduced by Rep. Kristen Arrington, D-Kissimmee, would require nonparty affiliated candidates candidates to sign an oath stating they are not members of a political party.

The four-page proposal states “any person seeking to qualify for office as a candidate with no party affiliation shall, at the time of subscribing to the oath or affirmation, state in writing that he or she is registered without any party affiliation and that he or she has not been a registered member of any political party for 365 days before the beginning of qualifying preceding the general election for which the person seeks to qualify.”

“There is a reason you must be a member of a political party for a year prior to running and likewise, [a nonparty affiliated candidate] should be held to the same strict standard. It’s past time that we even the playing field and eliminate fraudulent candidates,” Polsky said.

The bill is the first filed by Arrington, elected to her first term in November.

“This legislation will create more transparency in the election process and provide a more even playing field for all future candidates,” she said.

The genesis of the measure is allegations of chicanery in the Miami-area Senate District 37 race won by 32 votes in a runoff by Sen. Ileana Garcia, who unseated incumbent Democratic Sen. José Javier Rodríguez.

A no-name, no-campaign candidate received more than 6,400 votes out of 215,000 cast in the Nov. 3 election, forcing the runoff.

The nonparty affiliated candidate was Alex Rodriguez, who didn’t live in SD 37 and ran a shadow campaign – no website, no candidate forums and no fundraising – while sharing his Democratic opponent’s surname and the exact name as the baseball Hall of Famer and Miami celebrity.

Before the vote, mailers from a group called Proclivity touting Alex Rodriguez flooded the district without any coordination from him, Rodriguez said after the election and before hiring an attorney and going silent.

Nonparty affiliated candidate Celso Alfonso also benefitted from Proclivity mailers in the Senate District 39 race won by Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez, R-Doral, who defeated Rep. Javier Fernandez, D-South Miami.

Between those races and several others, Proclivity spent $550,000 on mailer campaigns backing nonparty affiliated candidates.

The Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office is investigating Alex Rodriguez’s candidacy, specifically in reference to candidate oath and financial disclosure forms he filed with the Florida Division of Elections.

Under state law, proving anything illegal occurred is unlikely. Polsky and Arrington’s legislation merely installs an oath to clarify how genuinely unaffiliated nonparty affiliated candidates are.

Running nonparty affiliated candidates is, apparently, a Florida Republican Party standard, implied former state representative and current Lee County Property Appraiser Matt Caldwell in a post-election email sent to GOP committee members.

Caldwell ripped GOP leadership for not supplying a third-party candidate in his 2018 state agricultural commissioner election loss to Democrat Nikki Fried by 6,753 votes.

“The most glaring difference in the loss for Ag. Commissioner was the lack of any 3rd party candidate,” Caldwell wrote, claiming the party ran third-party candidates in four other 2018 races, including in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ half-percent victory over Democrat Andrew Gillum.

In fact, he wrote, “many of our victories can be attributed to 3rd Party candidates dividing the vote.”

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