Florida Follies - Still With Us

Wow.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty


In a case with national political implications, the Florida Elections Commission has ruled that Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty violated state campaign finance rules in working to oust three Florida Supreme Court justices. It will decide next month whether to impose up to $450,000 in fines against her.

On May 21, the FEC voted 7-0 to adopt an administrative law judge’s findings that McCarty violated state election laws in the collection, expenditure and reporting of tens of thousands in political action committee (PAC) funds.

The commission will determine any fine and finalize a final written order in the case at its next meeting Aug. 13-14 in Tallahassee. She has the right to contest the final order before a state appellate court.

But state administrative law judge Harry L. Hooper, who presided over McCarty’s hearing in February on the campaign finance charges, concluded on May 1 that the former Palm Beach County Republican Party chairwoman was little more than a front for a Washington, D.C.-based campaign against the justices, which was organized during the 2000 presidential election recount battle.

That campaign, Judge Hooper found, was orchestrated by Roger J. Stone Jr., a Republican lobbyist and political operative who has said he worked for President Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era re-election committee and served as a campaign strategist for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Stone, who owns a $2.2 million bayfront mansion in Surfside, received $1.8 million from the Miami-Dade County Commission last year for political work he did for the county.