Forget tourism.  Public corruption has become one of Florida’s major industries.

Each election cycle presents the opportunity to create more wealth for a handful of individuals who profit from campaigns all over the state.  Some of the top income producers for those individuals are the multitude of political committees that seem to be formed daily.

Lesser known, but even more profitable, is the rampant corruption prevalent in the gargantuan municipal insurance industry, in which a majority of cities all over Florida have no choice but to participate.

The unscrupulous activity taking place behind closed doors is nothing short of legal organized crime.  (And yes, that’s an oxymoron if ever there was one.)

Incredibly, one man seems to be at the center of both rackets.

In almost every campaign involving the use of political committees, the name Mark Herron keeps popping up.  This Tallahassee lawyer, who works for the firm Messer Caparello, P.A., specializes in steering elections by funneling vast amounts of money through political committees, as well as shuffling funds back and forth between many of them.  I have already written extensively about his omnipresent role in several local campaigns.

But, Herron’s involvement in manipulating elections goes back to the year 2000, when he wrote the infamous Herron Memo, in which he “sought to disqualify as many overseas ballots as possible,” while working for Al Gore’s campaign, as reported by the New York Times.

“Bush advisers point to the Herron memorandum as evidence of how hard the Democrats were willing to fight to exclude military votes. ”We knew that there was going to be a systematic effort by the Gore folks to not count military absentee ballots despite the claims that they were uttering at the time about count every vote,” said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the Bush campaign’s chief counsel. ”We knew they were important ballots, they knew they were important ballots. We wanted all the ballots to count. They wanted the ballots not to count.”

In some ways, the Gore strategy paid off, as canvassing boards rejected hundreds of military votes that violated the law.

But the Gore camp was caught off guard — and never quite recovered — when the memorandum became public and the Bush organization used it as the centerpiece of a fierce public relations campaign featuring Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and other surrogates who accused Mr. Gore of turning on men and women in the armed forces.”

While Mark Herron’s efforts in the 2000 presidential election failed to help the Gore campaign, electioneering is only one of the many ways in which he has legally gamed the system in order to expand his own powerful empire, and increase his personal wealth.

In a column dated November 11, 2008 in Clean Up City of St. Augustine, Florida,  blogger Ed Slavin posted a copy of a motion in a complaint he filed with the Florida Elections Commission against Randy Brunson, then a candidate for St. Johns County Commission.  In his motion, Mr. Slavin asked the Commission to disqualify Mark Herron, from representing Mr. Brunson, a Republican.  Slavin explained that Herron “is the trusted lawyer for both the Florida and National Democratic Committees,” and who also provided training for the St. Johns County [Democratic Committee] this year on election law.”

Mr. Slavin referenced Florida Bar Rule 4-1.7(2)(b), regarding Conflict of Interest, which states, “A lawyer shall not represent a client if the lawyer’s exercise of independent professional judgment in the representation of that client may be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client or to a third person or by the lawyer’s own interest…”  Mr. Slavin then alleged, “It would violate Rule 4-1.7 for HERRON to represent both Democrats and Republicans before the FEC and in particular for HERRON to St. Johns County Republican RANDY BRUNSON against a Complaint made by an SJCDEC member, after HERRON provided training on election laws for SJCDEC earlier this year.”

The motion further alleged, ‘Contacted by telephone after the notice of the hearing, HERRON refused to disqualify himself, stating, “I can represent anyone I want.”‘

That I-Can-Do-Whatever-I-Want sense of entitlement seems to be a recurring theme in the career of one of the major power brokers in the State of Florida.

There was the time Herron funneled donations through a political committee “to pay off a $209,000 state elections fine” on behalf of Jeff Ryan, “a top fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party,” according to The Fine Print.  The February 15, 2010 article reported:

The Florida Elections Commission in 2007 ruled that the fundraising committee – which was eventually shut down – accept campaign contributions above the legal limits. Instead of fighting the charges, which Democrats said were due to technical mistakes made when the paperwork was filed, Ryan agreed to pay a fine of $209,000.

But state election records show that $209,000 was paid to a trust account maintained by well-known Tallahassee ethics and elections attorney Mark Herron to pay off the fine. The money came out of a committee of continuous existence also run by Herron called Mark-PAC.

Nearly ten million dollars flowed through the treasury of his personal political committee between March 12, 2006 through, September 23, 2013, when the organization was disbanded.  Interestingly, in the final tally, the committee reported spending $3,545.44 more than it had received in contributions.  How that is even possible is anyone’s guess.

Mark-PAC’s final distribution on August 6, 2013 in the amount of $22,250.99 was made to another Herron political committee, Mark PC, which was formed on April 5, 2013 and is still active.  In addition to donating a total of $50,000.00 to the Charlie Crist campaign, Mark PC also distributed a total of $7,000.00 last month to yet another one of Mark Herron’s political committees, Coalition for Responsible Government, although only $6,000.00 of that sum was reported.  (Where did the missing $1,000.00 go?)

Between the money transfers back and forth between his many political committees, not to mention the (deliberate?) shoddy reporting of funds, it’s easy to see how a person like Mark Herron can fly under the radar of accountability.  It would literally take a team of forensic accountants to sort through all the financial records just to follow the money trail.

In fact, the Tallahassee lawyer has a history of bucking any type of reform when it comes to toughening ethics laws.

A January 15, 2010 article in the Tampa Bay Times, described the time Cheryl Forchilli, the then-chair of the Florida Commission on Ethics, lobbied the Capitol “for passage of laws that would give the ethics commission more power.”  One of the items on her list was to give the commission the authority to open its own investigations without the necessity of a formal complaint filed by citizens, using the analogy, “The Florida Highway Patrol doesn’t wait for somebody to drive by and say, ‘Hey! That guy was speeding!'”

As the article so rightly pointed out, “But let’s face it. Politicians are deathly afraid of a powerful ethics commission. They speak in hushed tones about the likelihood of “witch hunts” against guiltless officials.”

Former chair of the ethics commission Mark Herron, was against such reform, claiming that the commission’s only duty was to act on complaints filed by citizens.  His argument?  “They’re not there to throw you in jail.  They’re not the state attorney.  They’re there to resolve petty political agendas.”

Oh, really?

Petty political agendas?

In addition to thinking that ethics violations by public officials are merely “petty political agendas,” Mark Herron also apparently sees no ethical problems enriching his personal coffers with public money.

The Tampa Bay Times reported on December 16, 2015 that the Hillsborough County Commission approved the hiring of Mark Herron and another Tallahassee lawyer to defend two of its commissioners against state ethics complaints – courtesy of the taxpayers – at a rate of “$300 per hour with a cap of $20,000.”

The article stated:

“The complaints arose out of the county’s hiring of engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff to lead the Go Hillsborough transportation initiative. A report by WTSP-TV suggested public relations consultant Beth Leytham, who has close ties to the three politicians, played a part in getting Parsons Brinckerhoff hired. The firm later hired Leytham to handle communications and public outreach for Go Hillsborough.

Leytham has denied playing any part in getting Parsons the contract. Hagan declined to comment. Murman could not be reached.

The complaints accused the commissioners of moving e-mail communication between themselves and Leytham from county government accounts to their private accounts in order avoid public records requests.

The complainants also charge the commissioners with failing to release relevant text messages until they were threatened with a lawsuit.

George Niemann, one of three who filed the ethics complaints, admonished commissioners Wednesday for putting the hiring of the attorneys on the consent agenda, a long list of actions that commissioners usually vote on en masse without discussion.“

Closer to home, Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi hired a bevy of high profile lawyers, including Mark Herron (and Ben Kuehne), to represent him in his criminal trial, then turned around and sued his own city to pay for his legal fees of $3.2 million.

As Political Cortadito reported on November 23, 2015, “Well, one thing might be the fact that everybody and his mother is getting paid. From the original seven on the criminal case, he now has two more on his legal dream team for a total of nine members Clay Reiner, David Reiner, Monica Tirado, Benedict P. Kuehne, Edward Shohat, Michael T. Davis, Ralf Rodriguez, Kent Harrison Robbins, and Mark Herron.”

As profitable as his representation of public officials and shady political committees may be for Mark Herron, it’s most likely small change compared to the money he rakes in from one of the largest municipal insurance companies in the State of Florida.

Plus, if you think corruption is high in down here in South Florida, you can’t imagine how out of control it is up north in Flagler County.

To be continued.

Stephanie