Drive for weapons ban raises big money
Handful of wealthy donors wants amendment on ballot
A baker’s dozen of big-money contributors, including a couple of billionaires, have provided extensive financial support for the effort to get a proposed assaultweapons ban on the Florida election ballot in 2020.
The contributions from the 13 donors who gave $10,000 or more amount to more than half the $1 million raised by the group Ban Assault Weapons Now, a review of campaign finance filings by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found.
Small-dollar donations also have poured into the political committee, often in response to heart-rending fundraising solicitations from family members of people who were killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.
More than 17,000 contributions of less than $100 have come into the group, which goes by the acronym BAWN. The contributes from all those people add up to $273,000 — half the total from the 13 big contributors.
If BAWN is successful — and it faces major obstacles — voters would see a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution on the November 2020 ballot.
It would prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition either in a fixed or detachable magazine.
It would also force people who legally owned assault weapons before a ban goes into effect to register them with the state.
It would not prohibit possession of handguns.
Expensive effort
Getting a measure on the Florida ballot to change the state Constitution, which is what BAWN is trying to do, is a difficult — and costly — task.
It requires collecting 766,200 petition signatures. As of June 26, the Secretary of State’s Office reported that county elections supervisors had certified 91,211 petition signatures as valid.
As of June 30, the organization’s financial filings showed it has spent $910,000 of the slightly more than $1 million it’s raised.
“The reason these things become expensive is gathering signatures costs a fair amount of money,” said Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University. “Anything that’s going to get on the ballot is going to require a fair amount of resources to do so. Once you get on the ballot, you have to campaign to win. That’s like any other campaign for office. That’s expensive too.”
The unsuccessful 2014 and successful 2016 amendment campaigns that ultimately resulted in legalizing medical marijuana in Florida illustrate the cost, and the importance of major donors to such efforts.
People United for Medical Marijuana, spent $14 million for the two campaigns, with the prominent Central Florida trial lawyer John Morgan’s law firm providing about half the money. The opposition Drug Free Florida Committee spent $9.8 million.
A current referendum effort to increase the minimum wage in Florida to $15 an hour has so far raised and spent slightly more than $3 million. Morgan’s firm is paying the bills of the Florida For A Fair Wage political organization.
So far, BAWN has paid $385,000 to BH-AP Petitioning Partners and its subsidiary AAP Holding Company, both of which are headed by Angelo Paparella, a California resident who has led the largest petition gathering companies in the country.
Paparella’s petition gathering companies worked for the medical marijuana campaign. And they’re helping gather signatures for several current efforts, to would raise the minimum wage, change the state’s primary election system and revamp the way utilities are regulated.
BAWN representatives didn’t respond to emails asking for someone to discuss its fundraising.
Top two
Billionaire hedge fund manager S. Donald Sussman gave $100,000 to Ban Asssault Weapons Now.
Sussman has given millions of dollars over the years to political committees supporting Democrats, including 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He’s also spent money to aid Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Emma Collum, an unsuccessful 2018 Broward County candidate for state House of Representatives.
Although BAWN listed a Rye Brook, N.Y., address for Sussman, he has significant ties to Florida. His home is a $34 million Fort Lauderdale estate surrounded by water on three sides, and Sussman is a Florida registered voter.
Sussman’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The organization Americans for Gun Safety Now!, which has a Jacksonville address, has given $210,000.
Americans for Gun Safety Now! is legally organized in a way that allows it to avoid disclosing its contributors, but the driving force behind it is Al Hoffman, a major figure in Republican politics.
“As a licensed gun owner and staunch Republican, I support BAWN’s mission to bring this critical issue to the voters of Florida,” Hoffman said in a statement. A representative for his organization said a majority of its supporters are Republicans.
Hoffman, who lives in North Palm Beach, spent his career as one of Florida’s biggest developers.
He was a co-chairman of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, chairman of Gov. Jeb Bush’s 2002 re-election campaign and a major financial supporter of his unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign. From 2005 to 2007 he was U.S. ambassador to Portugal.
After the Stoneman Douglas massacre, Hoffman — who was a major developer of Parkland — said he would no longer financially support candidates or organizations that did not work to ban sales of military-style assault weapons.
$10,000 and up
Barbara Stiefel of Coral Gables has given $65,000 to the effort to advance the assault weapons effort. She’s a major donor to Democrats and was one of the top contributors to the 2014 and 2016 medical marijuana campaigns, contributing $1.75 million to the efforts.
Norman Braman, owner of South Florida automobile dealers and a billionaire philanthropist, contributed $25,000 to BAWN. He has been a longtime supporter of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and was one of the most prominent financial backers of Rubio’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign.
Monte Friedkin of Boca Raton, a former chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, former chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, and prominent supporter of former President Bill Clinton, also gave $25,000.
Mary Peace Sullivan of Miami Beach gave $40,000, Henry Laufer of Manalapan, gave $25,000, and Michael Singer of Alachua gave $20,000.
And contributions of $10,000 each came from attorneys Robert Rubenstein of Miami, Robert Kelley of Fort Lauderdale and Wayne Hogan of Jacksonville; Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart & Shipley, the West Palm Beachbased personal injury law firm; and David G. Booth of Jamestown, Rhode Island, the only major non-Florida contributor.
Smaller donations
The organization has also used emotional appeals from people like Fred Guttenberg and Debbi Hixon.
Guttenberg’s daughter Jaime, a student, and Hixon’s husband Chris, the athletic director and wrestling coach, were among the 17 people killed in the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at the Parkland high school.
“Not a day goes by when we don’t miss him — not just our family, but the entire Parkland community. Even now, I sometimes still feel like he’s going to come walking through the door,” Hixon wrote in a July 11 fundraising email from BAWN.
Six days later, a fundraising email from Guttenberg described “the day my 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was murdered running down the hallway at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, trying to escape a gunman with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.”
The 17,192 contributions of $100 or less added up to $273,405 of the money BAWN raised through June 30. About $191,000 came from contributions of $100 to $5,000.
Prospects
The assault weapons proposal now faces state Supreme Court scrutiny.
Attorney General Ashley Moody told the state’s high court on July 26 that it should not allow the amendment on the ballot. She said the title “prohibits possession of defined assault weapons” and summary don’t adequately explain the proposal’s effects.
Moody argued that the amendment would ban “virtually every semi-automatic long gun” or that “virtually every lawful owner of a semi-automatic long-gun will be forced to register” with the state.
State Rep. James Grant, RTampa, praised Moody’s actions on Twitter and called the BAWN language “disingenuous and misleading proposals intended for a purpose the proponents won’t own.”
Hoffman said he was “saddened” by Moody’s position. “Her action not only negatively impacts the future safety of Florida’s communities, but also hinders the opportunity for Florida voters to have a say in the larger conversation on gun safety,” Hoffman said.
The state Supreme Court has a conservative majority after Gov. Ron DeSantis was appointed three new justices earlier this year, and it’s unclear how the seven justices will decide.
If the court approves the amendment language, and BAWN can raise the money to get the rest of the signatures, it’s also uncertain how Florida voters will respond.
Passage requires 60%, which Wagner said is a difficult threshold. “You really have to get something that’s going to have broad support.”
A June Quinnipiac Poll found the level of support among Florida voters for banning sale of assault weapons in the state was 59%.