A Palm Beach official is fined for accepting illegal contributions in her bid to remove Florida Supreme Court justices during the 2000 recount.
By JULIE HAUSERMAN
Published August 14, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - In the heat of the 2000 presidential election, Republican Palm Beach County Commissioner Mary McCarty led a political push to oust three Florida Supreme Court justices who ruled for Vice President Al Gore.
In a letter mailed to 350,000 people, McCarty urged her fellow Republicans to "beat these liberals and have them removed from the court, making way for more conservative jurists." The effort fizzled.
But on Wednesday, one ghost of the 2000 presidential election came home to roost.
The Florida Elections Commission, meeting in a tiny room tucked away in the state Department of Education building, fined McCarty $2,000 for accepting illegal contributions and failing to accurately report donations and expenditures.
The commission also fined her defunct political action committee, Take Back Our Judiciary, $11,000. The committee is still technically an active organization, though it only has $11.63 "in a drawer somewhere in Miami," said McCarty's Tallahassee attorney, Mark Herron. It's not clear who is responsible for paying the $11,000 fine.
McCarty's case drew attention because Elections Commission staff recommended a $451,000 fine. The election commissioners Wednesday decided that was too much.
In a 3-2 vote, with commissioner David Rancourt abstaining, McCarty was fined $1,000 for signing an incomplete financial report and $1,000 for accepting excessive contributions, including a $150,000 loan that "no one knows where it came from," said Eric Lipman, Elections Commission assistant general counsel. The $150,000 was far above Florida's $500 contribution limit to political committees.
"This is about the integrity of our elections process," Lipman said. "You need to decide what Florida's going to stand for. ... This was not some small municipal election. This was not for the dog catcher of Podunk, Florida. This race involved the president of the United States."
McCarty offered a defense in a letter her attorney read to the commission. In it, she said she had no knowledge of the $150,000 loan, and signed a state-required contributions report when she became chairman on a "temporary basis."
"I did not commit any of the offenses," McCarty wrote. "I only attested to the fact that certain transactions occurred, as reported to me."
McCarty testified earlier that she took over Take Back Our Judiciary at the request of Roger Stone, a longtime GOP consultant in Washington. Stone did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The state hasn't determined the source of the $150,000 that paid for letters urging voters to remove Florida Supreme Court Justices Charles T. Wells, Harry Lee Anstead and Leander Shaw.
Under Florida's merit retention system, voters decide every six years whether to keep each justice on the court. Voters retained Wells and Anstead in the 2002 election, and Shaw retired in January 2003.
Herron said McCarty hasn't decided whether to appeal the commission's ruling.
McCarty is a longtime Republican activist. She was once mentioned as a potential running mate for Gov. Jeb Bush, and her brother, lobbyist Brian Ballard, was former Gov. Bob Martinez's chief of staff.
