Candidate wants to give most adults $1,000 a month

By Anthony Man

Congressional candidate Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick wants to give most adults monthly $1,000 checks from the government.

She’s launching a media campaign, starting Friday, to promote the proposal. If she’s elected to represent the BrowardPalm Beach County 20th district, she’d introduce legislation to provide what her campaign described as “permanent $1,000 economic recovery checks for anyone over 18 who makes less than $75,000 a year.”

Cherfilus-McCormick would pay for the proposal with a “comprehensive taxation plan that will force Big Business and the ultra-wealthy to finally pay their fair share.” Her campaign statement cited the recent report that some of the wealthiest Americans have paid little or no personal income taxes for years.

She’s promoting the plan online at PeoplesProsperityPlan.com and through advertising.

The campaign said she’ll spend $100,000 during the next three weeks to run an advertisement on cable channels — including news outlets MSNBC and CNN, plus BET and OWN, which have programming that draws large Black audiences — and on local TV news programs.

“For too long, workers have been bankrolling the lifestyles of the powerful few,” Cherfilus-McCormick says in the ad. “As your congresswoman, I will fight the special interests so you can start receiving $1,000 a month.”

The campaign said it is also spending $50,000 on digital ads, plus billboards, radio and direct mail.

If the idea sounds familiar, it may be because a “universal basic income” of $1,000 a month was the signature issue from Andrew Yang, an unsuccessful candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. (Yang is currently running for mayor of New York.)

One big difference: Yang wanted to give it to every adult, regardless of income. To help pay the cost, he proposed a 10% value added tax on goods and services.

Who is Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick?: A large field of candidates — including six current or former elected officials — is seeking the Democratic nomination to fill the vacancy created by the April 6 death of U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings.

Cherfilus-McCormick, a lawyer and CEO of a home healthcare company, hasn’t held elective office before.

She ran against Hastings in the

2018 primary and received 26% of the vote and in the 2020 primary and received 31% percent of the vote. Before Hastings died on April

6, she had decided to run again.

Major donor picks candidate: Mitchell Berger, one of the biggest players in Democratic Party fundraising in Florida, is helping congressional candidate Omari Hardy raise money.

Berger and his wife Sharon are hosting a fundraising event next week for Hardy at the Berger Singerman law offices in Fort Lauderdale.

The Bergers’ support is a signal to other Democratic donors and people in Broward County.

That’s important for two reasons:

Hardy is a state representative from West Palm Beach. Though he was born and raised in Broward County, he’s had more exposure in the northern part of the 20th Congressional District. The other four currently elected officials elected officials who are seeking the Democratic nomination to run to fill the vacancy created by death of Congressman Alcee Hastings are from Broward, which is home to about seven in 10 of the district’s registered voters.

Hardy is the most progressive of the elected officials seeking the nomination, and backing from Berger — who epitomizes establishment, mainstream Democrats — is a sign to establishment Democrats that Hardy is OK.

Berger, the founder and co-chairman of the Berger Singerman, has a long political and government resume, including appointments by former President Bill Clinton and former Gov. Lawton Chiles.

He is a longtime close associate of former Vice President Al Gore and was among the attorneys who represented Gore in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election in which Gore lost Florida, and consequently the election, to George W. Bush.

Last year, he was one of the top Florida fundraisers for President Joe Biden’s campaign.

“I am proud to support Omari Hardy for Congress. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to elect a bold, progressive leader who will prioritize the lives of Americans,” Berger wrote in an email that accompanied the fundraising invitation. “Omari Hardy is a fierce and reliable advocate for working-class and marginalized folks who is running for Congress to fill the seat of the late Congressman Alcee Hastings. He has what it takes to win this special election and fight for healthcare, housing, good jobs, and a Green New Deal in Washington, D.C.”

Colleagues, other elected officials help raise money: A slew of current and former elected officials are helping Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief raise money for her congressional campaign.

The committee for a June 16 fundraising event includes Broward County Commissioners Mark Bogen, Lamar Fisher and Tim Ryan; Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay; and state Rep. Christine Hunschofsky of Parkland.

City leaders on the list include mayors Felicia Brunson of West Park, Frank Ortis of Pembroke Pines, and Fred Pinto of Royal Palm Beach, plus city commissioners Tracy Callari of Hollywood, Anthony Dorsett and Melvin Price of West Park, Sandy Johnson of Lighthouse Point, Jay Schwartz and Iris Siple of Pembroke Pines.

The lobbying-legal world is represented by host committee members John Milledge, George Platt, Seth Platt and Keith Poliakoff.

Fundraising is a top priority for all the candidates, because June 30 is the end of the quarter, and in July they’ll have to publicly report their totals, giving an indication of their viability.

Hardy leads censure of School Board members: Outraged over the Palm Beach County School Board’s retreat from the use “white advantage” in its statement on racial equity and diversity, congressional candidate Omari Hardy organized a Democratic Party censure.

Hardy, a state representative from Palm Beach County, authored the resolution, adopted June 3 by Palm Beach County’s Democratic committeemen and committeewomen.

It censures the four Democratic members of the county School Board who voted last month to alter a statement in its new policy.

The original statement said the school district “is committed to dismantling structures rooted in white advantage and transforming our system by hearing and elevating underrepresented voices, sharing power, recognizing and eliminating bias and redistributing resources to provide equitable outcomes.”

After a public outcry, Marcia Andrews, Frank Barbieri, Karen Brill and Barbara McQuinn voted to take out the words “dismantling structures rooted in white advantage” and change “redistributing resources” to “distributing resources.”

Hardy wrote on Twitter that the four “betrayed our party’s values by quailing to the racist mob & watering down the equity statement.” He said the censure shows Democrats “can’t betray the Black community and show up the annual [party fundraising dinner] like it’s all good. Nopity-nope-nope!”

In response to the censure, the Palm Beach Post reported Barbieri and McQuinn said they were quitting the Democratic Party.

Final field set in August: So far, 18 people have declared themselves candidates for the vacancy created by the April death of Congressman Alcee Hastings.

The official field of candidates — which could be winnowed or enlarged — for the Broward-Palm Beach County 20th Congressional District will be finalized on Aug. 10.

That’s the deadline to qualify for candidates who want to get on the ballot for the Nov. 2 special primary election and Jan. 11 special general election.

To get on the ballot, a candidate will have to submit 1,168 valid petition signatures by 5 p.m. Aug. 3 or pay a qualifying fee by noon Aug. 10. Candidates running as Democrats, Republicans or Libertarians must pay a $10,440 qualifying fee. Someone who wants to run in the general election as a no party affiliation/independent candidate must pay $6,960.

The deadlines were set in a notice from Secretary of State Laurel Lee, dated May 26, and posted on her agency’s website.

The Democratic primary will decide who succeeds Hastings, who died April 6, after more than 28 years in Congress. The 20th District is so overwhelmingly Democratic that the party nominee is virtually certain to win the general election.

So far, 13 Democrats, five Republicans, one Libertarian and one no party candidate have said they’re running.

Resign to run: There’s an earlier, significant deadline for the top-tier candidates for the job.

Under Florida’s resign-to-run law, people who are currently in elected office must submit irrevocable resignations from their current jobs to qualify to get on the ballot for a new elected office. The deadline for those resignations is July 30. The effective date of the resignations can be in January, when the new member of Congress’ term would start — but the resignations are irrevocable.

The resign to run law applies to five announced candidates: Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief, state Reps. Bobby DuBose and Omari Hardy, and state Sen. Perry Thurston.

A May 14 memorandum to Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott from Nathaniel Klitsberg, an assistant county attorney who serves as general counsel to the elections office, cited a court opinion that makes the intent of the law clear: “To prevent persons who are running for a position to have the ‘safe haven’ of a current position to which the candidate can retreat in the event the candidate is unsuccessful.”

Florida law allows the governor to pick special election dates, and Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to keep the seat vacant for more than nine months after Hastings’ death — far longer than Florida congressional vacancies are normally unfilled.

Many Democrats believe the Republican governor set the timetable for political reasons. He’s positioning himself for a 2024 presidential candidacy and Democrats said he wants to prevent a new Democratic member of Congress from going to Washington, D.C., and supporting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.