Want to run for public office in Florida? Better bring a checkbook
TALLAHASSEE -- An appeals court Thursday upheld a circuit judge's ruling that rejected five candidates for municipal offices in the Palm Beach County city of Riviera Beach because they used debit cards - instead of checks - to pay qualifying fees.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal issued a one-paragraph opinion that provided little explanation. But in a Dec. 12 ruling that blocked the five candidates, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Reid P. Scott cited a state law that requires qualifying fees to be paid with a "properly executed check drawn upon the candidate's campaign account."
Scott wrote that the law "does not make an exception for the use of a debit card to pay the qualifying fee. The court finds that the plain language of the statute is clear and unambiguous."
Thursday's appeals court opinion shared by Judges Robert Gross, Spencer Levine and Jeffrey Kuntz cited a precedent in another election-qualifying case that said the law must be enforced "as written."
The rulings blocked mayoral candidates Kendrick Wyly and Kendra Wester and city council candidates Joseph J. Bedford, Sr., Madelene Irving-Mills and Douglas Lawson from running in March municipal elections. After a November qualifying period, other candidates challenged a decision by the city clerk that Wyly, Wester, Bedford, Irving-Mills and Lawson had properly qualified to appear on the ballot.
The qualifying fee for the mayor race was $1,212, while the qualifying fee for the council races was $1,140, according to a brief filed in the appeals court by Mark Herron, an attorney for the five blocked candidates.
In appealing Scott's decision, Herron focused, in part, on another state law that allows political candidates to use debit cards to pay campaign expenses. Under that law, he wrote, debit cards are considered bank checks for such expenses. He wrote that the two laws - about paying qualifying fees and campaign expenses - need to be construed together.
"Thus, payment of a candidate's qualifying fees by a debit card linked to the candidate's campaign account is authorized by Florida law," Herron wrote.
But attorney Dedrick Straghn, who represents the other candidates, filed a brief that drew a distinction between the two laws. That brief contended that campaign "expenditures and qualifying fees are not interchangeable."
"The Florida Election Code contains no explicit language allowing the use of debit cards as payment for qualifying fees," Straghn wrote. "If this (appeals) court were to construe the Election Code allowing payment of the qualifying fee with debit cards in the absence of specific language, it would literally be legislating by reinserting the language. This is beyond the court's power. Moreover, allowing such payments would undermine the statutory framework intended to ensure transparency, traceability, and immediate fund verification."
Straghn represents Mayor Ronnie Felder, Councilman Tradrick McCoy and council candidate Fercella Panier.