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© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2003
TALLAHASSEE -- Republican Mike Haridopolos is considered one of the most conservative members of the Florida House, but in his race for a state Senate seat he is being painted as a big-spending liberal.
"It's tabloid politics at its very worst," Haridopolos said Tuesday as he reviewed flashy campaign brochures mailed to thousands of voters near Melbourne earlier this month.
A mysterious organization in Virginia is spending thousands of dollars to attack Haridopolos, the latest in a series of shadowy organizations to influence elections in Florida.
In this case, Taxpayers for Conservative Government formed on Jan. 31, the same day Haridopolos announced that he would run for the seat left vacant by the death of state Sen. Howard Futch. A special election is March 11.
Such groups are not required to file campaign finance reports in Florida and can can collect and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence an election. They must report the source of contributions to the Internal Revenue Service, but not until six months after the expenditure, a factor that leaves voters unable to determine who is paying for campaign advertising until long after an election is over.
The state law requiring political groups to report where they got their money and how they spend it was overturned by a federal judge in 1999. Efforts to fix the law have repeatedly run into trouble with lawmakers, who cannot agree on a compromise.
A new bill requiring political groups to file campaign reports was approved last month in a Senate committee, and similar measures are pending in the House.
Some groups have used post office box numbers and the name of a person who generally claims not to know anything about the ads, said Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs.
"We want to put a face on the groups of people who have been hiding behind anonymous committees," Constantine said.
Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, said Florida needs a law to "stop drive-by character assassination."
The ads attacking Haridopolos, mailed to thousands of likely voters in the Central Florida district, describe him as a liberal who "spent our tax money on a lavish trip to New York City." They also call him "Big Tax Mike" -- much to the amusement of legislative observers who view him as one of the more conservative lawmakers in Tallahassee.
Haridopolos is a member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of House members that has generally taken a conservative position on taxes. He did make a trip to New York, as the House representative at a national legislative conference sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group favored by Republican lawmakers around the country.
"Mike Haridopolos is more liberal than you think," notes one of the brochures.
Haridopolos, who teaches history at Brevard Community College, says he has been called a lot of things, but liberal isn't one of them.
He faces Republican Mary Beth Fitzgibbons of Kissimmee in the Republican primary next month. The winner will square off against Democrat Donna Hart of Kissimmee on March 21. Haridopolos said he doesn't think either candidate is involved in the attacks. Neither candidate could be reached for comment.
-- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.