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A story posted in the Miami New Times today reports that Curbelo has taken more than a dozen contributions from people who he voted to award School Board contracts. Trevor Bach reports the donations came from law firms, construction companies and a vending machine operator as well as MCM, the construction company owned by Jorge Munilla, who gave at least $12,000 in contributions and got millions of dollars in business from the School Board.
Is MCM a client of Capitol Gains also? They often donate to the same political campaigns.
“Frankly, it’s none of your business,” Curbelo told me when I asked him, point blank, who his clients were.
“I am not required to tell you,” said Curbelo, who has been endorsed in the Congressional primary by every important Republican from former Gov. Jeb Bush to, Tuesday’s announcement, House Speaker Will Weatherford.
“Lots of people have their companies in the names of relatives,” he told me. Yeah, but lots of people aren’t elected officials who would have to report their clients on public documents, basically declaring to all who you do business with.
Or is he trying to be like Former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and Gov. Rick Scott?
Robaina also “trusted” his wife and routed his shady business through companies he opened in her name. The couple escaped
conviction on tax evasion charges last month, but there is no question that some of the unreported income — like an $800,000 check for doubling the value of a $30 million property in Hialeah Gardens sold to the School Board and a $300,000 check that nobody can remember what it is for. Robaina didn’t have to disclose those earnings or clients because they were smuggled through his wife’s company.
Similarly, Gov. Scott put Solantic, his health care company, in his wife’s name and creating a blind trust so that nobody can see how much money he has and where it comes from. The issue has become a legal challenge that aims to block the qualification of any candidate that places his or her finances in a blind trust. Because nobody believes that the First Lady of Florida, a very nice lady who wrote a cookbook, is running that empire. And nobody believes that Curbelo’s wife, as nice a lady and doting mom as I’m sure she is, runs Capitol Gains.
It’s all about avoiding disclosure. These reporting requirements exist for a purpose, people. Because how can we know, for example, how many times Curbelo has voted on School Board matters that benefit people or firms that are clients or are connected to clients? We can’t.
But it most certainly is our business. State law requires candidates and elected officers to disclose any clients that provide more than 10% of any business of which said politico owns at least 5%. You don’t have to say how much money they paid you — 
and Ladra might argue that you should — but you have to at least say who they are.
Or you would anyway — if you weren’t skirting reporting laws in your wife’s name.
Curbelo may not be doing anything illegal. But he is certainly violating the spirit of the law. You are an elected official who found a legal way to skirt reporting requirements on your financial disclosure forms for the last four years by “trusting your wife.” You found a way to shield the names of your clients, which the law would require you to disclose if the business were owned by you. On paper.
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Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt added by Ladra on
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