Miami Beach millionaire candidate Philip Levine and his campaign people have repeatedly tried to silence any criticism of his platform and hush legitimate questions about his motives or agenda.
Levine’s attorney and former State Rep. JC Planas — who told Ladra his principal job is to ensure that laws are adhered to by both his clients and his clients’ opponents — says he was just defending against illegal attacks on his client when he filed four ethics or election law violation complaints and one lawsuit in the last three months of the campaign.
But his other candidate clients must also get “illegally attacked” since this is a campaign tactic Planas uses in other races, too.
Hey, I’ll admit: It’s a good campaign tactic. Works on so many levels: Increases your opponent’s negatives, creates doubt, misdirection, deflection. It’s not new or specific to the 305. The lawsuits also happen in California and other states. It has become so commonplace there is a term to describe it: “SLAPPs,” or “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.”
It’s always easier when the person doing the SLAPPin’ has loads of money to spend on burdensome and frivolous lawsuits that are only there for the sake of misdirection and distraction. In Levine’s campaign — where the man has spent over $1 million for a job that pays $10,000 a year — it’s probably a budgeted item under legal expenses.
Levine and/or his handlers also have issues with the local media. Or at least they started to as soon as the local media started asking questions about his questionable business practices in Alaska, his spending habits with elderly voters that he wined and dined and allegations that his campaign slate is running on an anti-Hispanic bent.
Planas filed an ethics complaint, a state elections complaint and a lawsit against Beach blogger J.P. Morgan (all of which were obviously frivolous and dismissed immediately), threatened to file one against me (but he knows better) and has sent cease and desist letters to local TV stations he says aired ads without the legally-required disclaimers.
Levine’s campaign manager, Alex Miranda, who simply sicked consultant creep David Custin on Ladra when he said he would get back to her, has taken to respond to the Miami Herald’s questions in writing (of course Levine is not allowed to respond himself), going so far as to instruct reporter Christina Veiga on how to do her job.
I am not making this up.
“You can reference the responses as, ‘Philip Levine’s campaign responded in writing for the record citing concern that The Miami Herald’s bias in this election would result in a distortion of his answers,'” Miranda told her to say. Ladra is soooo glad the Herald decided to print his email verbatim. He actually asked for it. Verbatim.
“You are only authorized to write the answers below, verbatim. You are NOT allowed to edit or paraphrase these on the record answers,” he wrote her, because, you know, as Levine’s campaign manager it is totally appropriate for Miranda to tell a reporter what she is “allowed” and not “allowed” to do.
Really? Really?!? How can he possibly even think that’s appropriate?
This blatant refusal of a candidate to be transparent and answer legitimate questions — on his own — in this very important election should be enough to raise voters’ eyebrows. This tendency of a candidate to speak only through his handlers or written statements or his website is something to be wary of. This practice of deciding who is a real journalist and who is not is almost communist.
But the back-to-back litigation created by the Levine campaign seems like something worse: a concerted effort to muzzle protected political speech — and now more people are taking notice.
- Alex Fernandez
“They just want to silence anybody whose opinion they do not want heard,” said Alex Fernandez, who took a leave of absence as aide to Commissioner Dee Dee Weithorn Tuesday after receiving yet another one of Planas’ specialty legal products, from the “Creative Campaigns” line: A complaint, this time filed with the Florida Elections Commission.
Fernandez will participate in a press conference for today to denounce what he says is political harassment and censorship. He asked Ladra to join him and make a statement about what I believe could be the abuse of the system for the benefit of a political agenda or campaign, or several. This won’t stop until the Ethics Commission and the SAO get serious about false claims, which are illegal, and turn the tables on these serial complainants.
Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower, who is running for commissioner and supporting Commissioner Michael Gongora‘s bid for mayor, is also expected to be at the 3 p.m. press conference at the Miami Beach Golf Club, 2301 Alton Rd. So is Ladra’s favorite mayoral candidate, Steve Berke, who should really be spending all his time at early voting.
But maybe Gongora’s people should tell him to join us. There is power in a united outrage against this political bullying. And it won’t hurt for him to be seen standing next to Berke, an opponent, on a common issue.
Planas insists that he is just doing his job because laws are being broken — but he is the only one who says so, since neither the Ethics Commission nor the courts have agreed, so far, with the complaints brought about by this campaign.
And this one against Fernandez is likely to be dismissed as quickly as the ethics complaint on blogger J.P. Morgan — who is obviously not a PAC and, thus, does not have to adhere to the same disclaimer rules. As a citizen, he sent a letter endorsing his choice of candidates which include Gongora, and he included a little postcard-sized slate card in the envelope. He calls it a “voting guide.”
Doesn’t make Fernandez a PAC, either.
“I am not working for any campaign,” Fernandez told Ladra. “But I have the right as a private citizen to choose to support who I want and to let people know about it. It is my First Amendment right.”
Ladra has known Planas since we were both puppies and I know he is a really good attorney who knows his amendments.
In the complaint about the missive from the one-time commission candidate (Fernandez was actually Gongora’s opponent in 2009), Planas suggests that Fernandez needed to file a campaign finance report, which is required for expenditures of over $5,000 — but Fernandez has receipts that show it cost just over $3,800 to print and mail his personal endorsement.
Planas implies that the slate card is the product of one of the campaigns. But Fernandez said he produced and paid for it himself, as an active Miami Beach citizen — something Levine, who has voted twice in his 18 years at the city, might not be able to identify with.
Planas admits that it is unknown if Fernandez was reimbursed by the candidates or their campaigns, but apparently suspects so because he says, “however, each of the candidates provided him with their official campaign photograph.”
Um, no. Alex got those online. That’s where I get mine, too, by the way. Facebook can be a blogger’s best friend. Maybe you should just ask before you file these flimsy complaints that cost taxpayer money on wasted investigative time that could be better spent on real corruption, of which there is plenty.
Levine’s camp also sued two PACs and a Nevada company with ties to those PACs, which are obviously supporting Gongora despite the commissioner’s silly claims earlier that they had nothing to do with him.
Attorney Joseph Geller, who represented Gongora’s interests in the lawsuit, also represented former Homestead Councilman Jeff Porter in another complaint brought by Planas in the mayoral race in that southern city, where Porter faces Planas’ client, Mark Bell, husband of Miami-Dade Commission Vice Chair Lynda Bell.
That ethics complaint on an allegedly maliciously false mailer had its probable cause hearing this morning (read: any minute now) before the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, where Planas is a regular customer. Senior Judge Steven D. Robinson ruled there is probable cause that Porter’s mailer violated the county’s Mandatory Fair Campaign Practices Ordinance, which is like the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard and even weirder that I never heard of it before.
Robinson basically found justification to proceed to a hearing before the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust after reviewing the material and listening to presentations from the public advocate and from an attorney representing Bell, who I suspect was Planas.
Eh, don’t put too much weight in that. Remember, these are the same people who came to the conclusion — in ten days and without one sworn statement — that nobody committed a Sunshine Law violation when every council member walked into the mayor’s office at the same time. What do they know?
Geller says that Planas’ tactics are an abuse of the system, and an insult to voters.
“This is constitutionally-protected core political speech. In a democracy, we trust the voters,” Geller told Ladra. “We don’t try to silence people.”
Well, apparently we do — if we are working for Philip Levine’s campaign.
Philip Levine’s campaign of complaints seeks to silence us added by Ladra on
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