One of Florida’s most explosive political scandals in recent memory started with a Facebook message.
Former Republican Sen. Frank Artiles sent a May 2020 message to Alex Rodriguez, an old acquaintance who he knew was in desperate need of money, to call him later that day. There was a proposal, Artiles explained according to an arrest warrant, that could help them both. Later, in Artiles home office, he told Rodriguez he would pay him $50,000 to run as a no-party affiliated candidate in a South Florida Senate seat as part of a coordinated effort to siphon votes from incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez, who ended up losing by just 32 votes to now-Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican.
I really think they should remove Garcia from the Senate and replace with José Javier Rodríguez.
Candidate colluding with a person who never intended to run as an actual candidate. It could be considered election fraud depending on local laws and definitions. Probably marginal in any case.
So if I say, “Hey Running Coach, I really want you to run against me for mayor of Straightdopia and here is $50k for campaign expenses because I believe in you.”, that’s fraud?
But is it illegal? I’m not saying it isn’t unethical but in response to PastTense, should Garcia lose his seat and it be given to the first runner up if it wasn’t an illegal act.
There was once a young woman who wrote a letter to then (former?) US Senator from Illinois, Carol Mosely Braun. She wrote how she admired her, and in her honor had decided to have her name legally changed to Carol Mosely Braun. CMB wrote back that she herself can think of better ways to honor someone, but has no objections to the name change.
Then the newly-minted Carol Mosely Braun ran for some local office in Chicago, based on the very realistic notion that she could win just based on people who thought she was the (former?) Senator. At that point, the “real” Carol Mosely Braun went to court to force her to undo the name change. IIRC, she prevailed.
Although he wasn’t sponsored by the opponent, this is essentially the plot of “The Distinguished Gentleman,” a 1992 Eddie Murphy comedy, which, for increased plausibility, was about a Florida congressional race.
The article addresses this directly: running a “ghost candidate” who has the same or similar name to another candidate is not illegal. The issue is they committed massive campaign finance violations in the process.
I don’t know the rules of the Florida Senate, but I doubt there’s a provision for removing her based on someone else’s malfeasance. Which “high crime or misdemeanor” did she commit?
I don’t know. But I do know that Florida is largely terrible, by the fact that they continually elect absolute trash to state-wide office, so if anywhere were to do something (say a special election) they wouldn’t.
