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Politics

Justice wants Berfield's TV ads stopped

The rivals for District 16 state senator say each falsely portrays the other's insurance views.

By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published October 7, 2006

Democratic state Senate candidate Charlie Justice Friday asked three Tampa Bay television stations to stop running "false and misleading" commercials for Republican Kim Berfield.

Berfield spokeswoman Sarah Bascom called Justice's demand absurd and said he has made misleading statements in his own ads.

Letters complaining about the commercials went to the local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News affiliates. Sam Rosenwasser, general manager of WTSP-Ch. 10, said he had not yet seen the letter. Molly Pauker, an attorney for WTVT-Ch.13, said she had asked the Florida Republican Party, which paid for the ad, "for substantiation for the contested statements in the spot."

Later Friday, an attorney representing the Florida GOP responded in a letter that the commercial was "factually correct and entitled to protection as free speech."

In a race that has been called the biggest state Senate battle in Florida, the back-and-forth likely will continue until the Nov. 7 election. The two want to represent District 16, which includes portions of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

The Justice campaign complains that Berfield says in a TV ad that "Charlie Justice sided with big insurance companies" by voting against a major insurance bill passed by the Florida Legislature this year. The bill actually was heavily backed by the insurance industry, said Mitch Kates, Justice's campaign manager.

The bill includes some provisions that benefit insurers, such as giving companies authority to raise property insurance premiums up to 5 percent without regulatory review.

But Bascom said the bill was not supported by the insurance industry, and had provision making it harder for insurers to drop customers. So voting against the bill, she said, was a vote to make it easier for customers to lose coverage.

Bascom also complained about a mailing in which Justice called Berfield the "darling of the insurance industry" and attributed the quote to the St. Petersburg Times.

The full quote from the newspaper was: "To her foes, Kim Berfield is the darling of the insurance industry."

[Last modified October 7, 2006, 05:51:04]