LAYERS OF COMMITTEES

In Florida, money can be legally concealed by steering it through layers of political committees.

Last year, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez tried to convince voters to make him the powerful individual in the city’s government. Political committees controlled by Democratic and Republican operatives pumped donations into the campaign to make Suarez, a Republican who holds a nonpartisan position, a “strong mayor.”

Suarez and affiliated political groups raised about $3 million. Opponents spent $182,000. Despite the fat campaign chest on the side of the strong mayor, voters roundly rejected the idea.

Progressives for Change, a committee created in the waning days of the campaign, sent mailers touting the strong-mayor proposal. Democratic political consultant Christian Ulvert is listed as chairman of the committee, which received one donation of $50,000 before the vote, on Oct. 19. That sum came from Mark PC, a committee controlled by Tallahassee elections lawyer Mark Herron who represented Democrats.

On Oct. 9, Herron’s group received $25,000 from a Suarez committee, Miami’s Future. Mark PC collected another $65,000 from two other entities that same day, including $30,000 from a South Florida-based committee Democratic Services Network — a group that received hundreds of of thousands throughout the election season from an array of political committees across the state.

So whose money paid for the mailers?

Herron did not respond to a request for comment. Ulvert declined to comment on Herron’s contribution.

“I’m in the process of closing the committee,” he said.

Suarez pointed to publicly available campaign records that show which entities gave and who received while saying the spending in support of his strong-mayor push was transparent.

“My recollection is that there was a progressive group that was advocating for strong mayor, and this other political committee probably acts as a sort of holding committee for the other committee,” he told the Herald.

Money from GOP sources also supported the strongmayor effort. The Responsible Leadership Committee, a statewide Republicanaffiliated committee that has received donations from several others, gave $25,000 directly to one of the pro-strong-mayor groups. That money could not be traced back to the original donor either.

Dollars flowed similarly on the opposition side, although far fewer. Commissioner Joe Carollo used a political communications group he controls called Miami First to fund ads attacking the proposal. Miami First received thousands in contributions from other committees, some linked to other conservative groups locally and across Florida. One local committee is controlled by MiamiDade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Carollo ally and a vocal critic of the strongmayor plan.

In one instance, two Tallahassee-based committees served as conduits for antistrong-mayor money that ended up in Carollo’s organization. But in this case, the donor identified himself.

On Oct. 26, Citizens for Principled Leadership gave Carollo’s group $10,000. Days before, the Principled Leadership committee had received $10,200 from Conservatives for Truth. On Oct. 10, Conservatives for Truth had received $15,886 from Stephen Kneapler, a confidant of former Mayor Tomás Regalado and the former owner of Monty’s Raw Bar.

Earlier this month, Kneapler confirmed to the Herald that he gave the money to Conservatives for Truth to bankroll ads attacking Suarez’s proposal, though he said he couldn’t recall to whom he gave the check. He said he didn’t know where the money ended up and didn’t care, so long as it served its purpose.

“I was so against the concept and the person behind the concept,” he said, adding that he would double his contribution if Suarez ever tried again.

Similarly, Carollo said he did not know why multiple political groups gave him thousands. Besides the Principled Leadership group, Carollo also received $25,000 from nonprofit Miami-Dade Partnership for Prosperity, Inc., a 501(c)(4) entity that is allowed to influence public policy and conceal its donors.

“I don’t know who they are,” he said.

Carollo described fundraising through political committees as a necessary evil — an avenue for wealthy private interests to have an outsized influence on public policy, but essential for any campaign to have a realistic chance of influencing voters, either in candidate elections or on ballot questions.

“If you don’t have a political committee, you can’t compete when you run for office,” he said.

Carollo said he’d rather see committees eliminated. The mayor said he supports reform so long as it does not freeze out potential candidates who are not wealthy and favor self-funded candidates.

“I’m completely in favor of campaign-finance reform,” the mayor said, “as long as it doesn’t create inequities. There should be a playing field that’s equal and level and fair.”

Sometimes, even mystery groups hiding behind layers of committees are difficult to track down. In North Miami Beach, a Fort Lauderdale-based committee raised more than $250,000 to put out a dozen attack mailers against various leading candidates for city council in the 2018 election. The committee was entirely funded by a Tampa-based committee that was entirely funded by a group called “Stand Up For Justice” that lists a Tallahassee P.O. box, no agent name, and does not appear in state committee registries. It shares a name with a D.C.-based nonprofit. It’s unclear if the two groups are related.

No one has come forward to claim responsibility for the fliers.

Ronald Meyer, an elections lawyer whose Tallahassee firm represented one of Suarez’s strong-mayor committees, said political committees are allowed to operate in a way that obscures the answers to two simple questions that are central to transparency in politics.

“I think it clearly undermines what I consider to be the overarching objective of campaign-finance laws,” he said, “which is who gave it, and who got it?”

Joey Flechas: 305-376-3602, @joeflech Kyra Gurney: 305-376-3205, @KyraGurney