Former lawmaker arrested for backing fake candidate in South Florida senate race

(The Center Square) – A former Florida state senator has been arrested and is facing multiple charges for his involvement in orchestrating a third-party candidate’s “spoiler” campaign that Democrats say skewered November’s results in at least one South Florida senate district.

Former Sen. Frank Artiles was arrested Thursday after electronics were seized during a Wednesday raid by Miami-Dade County corruption task force agents.

According to WPLG Local 10, Artiles was taken to Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center where he awaits arraignment on multiple election-related charges.

Those charges include making excessive campaign contributions, “conspiracy” to make multiple campaign contributions over the limit and a “false swearing in connection with voting or elections.”

While recruiting third-party or no party affiliation (NPA) candidates is not new and, under Florida’s campaign financing rules, not necessarily illegal, the Miami-Dade State Attorney Office has been probing an NPA candidates’ 2020 campaign in Senate District (SD) 37.

In the Miami-Dade County SD 37 race, NPA candidate Alex Rodriguez received 6,300 out of 215,000 ballots cast in a runoff won by 32 votes by Sen. Ileana Garcia, who unseated incumbent Democratic José Javier Rodríguez.

Alex Rodriguez, 55, didn’t live in SD 37 and ran a shadow campaign — no website, candidate forums, fundraising — while sharing his Democratic opponent’s surname and the exact name as the baseball Hall-of-Famer and Miami celebrity.

Before the Nov. 3 vote, mailers from a group called ‘Proclivity’ touting Rodriguez flooded SD 37 without any coordination from the candidate, Rodriguez told numerous media outlets before hiring an attorney and going silent.

NPA candidate Celso Alfonso also benefitted from ‘Proclivity’ mailer-blitzes in the SD 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 mail campaigns backing NPA candidates.

After the election, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into Alex Rodriguez’s candidacy, specifically in reference to candidate oath and financial-disclosure forms he filed with the Florida Division of Elections (DOE).

Garcia has denied involvement in comments to reporters on Wednesday and Thursday.

“I can’t attest, I can’t say, and I can’t answer for someone I don’t know and for something that I haven’t done,” Garcia said. “I am not the focal point of this.”

Artiles served in the Florida House from 2010-16 when he was elected to the Senate.

He was forced to resign in 2017 after using a racial slur and other derogatory language directed at Black lawmakers while at the Governor’s Club in Tallahassee. The former Republican lawmaker is accused of setting up the Proclivity campaign for Rodriguez in SD 37 with no charges relating to SD 39.

Artiles’ involvement comes as no surprise — he bragged about it.

“That is me, that was all me,” Artiles told numerous witnesses while watching TV coverage of Rodríguez losing his seat to Garcia at an Election Night party for Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford.

Nor is it a revelation that Florida Republicans use NPA candidates and third-party campaigns to win elections, a tactic confirmed by former state representative and current Lee County Property Appraiser Matt Caldwell while jostling over leadership of the state’s GOP committee.

In a post-election email to Florida GOP committee members, Caldwell lamented the party didn’t fully back him when he was defeated by Democrat Nikki Fried in their 2018 state agriculture commissioner election by 6,753 votes.

“The most glaring difference in the loss for Ag. Commissioner was the lack of any 3rd party candidate,” he wrote, unlike those the party provided for candidates in four other statewide races, including Gov. Ron DeSantis.

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

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