OrlandoSentinel.com

Campaign 2008

Lawson Lamar campaign finds way to skirt donor limits

David Damron

Sentinel Staff Writer

September 30, 2008

Four months ago, Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar sent the Orange County Commission a letter, saying the board "ought to be ashamed of itself" for refusing to put a campaign-finance reform package on this year's ballot.

"The public would vote overwhelmingly for campaign disclosure, limits and openness," Lamar wrote. "The people ought to be able to weigh in."

Now, however, the 20-year prosecutor finds himself in a tough re-election campaign against attorney Mercedes Leon.

So his campaign has found a way to bypass the $500-per-person legal limit on campaign contributions and spend unlimited amounts of money to promote him or attack Leon.

Lamar's campaign has created an "electioneering communication organization," a legal -- if shadowy -- organization that allows his campaign to work around donation and disclosure rules. Typically, these ECOs are formed on behalf of special interests, not individual campaigns.

"It's ironic," said Doug Head, a fellow Democrat and Lamar backer who once led CountyWatch, a local government-monitoring group. "This would seem to be in conflict with what he's been standing for. Everyone knows that ECOs are an end-run around campaign-finance limits."


'Level playing field'

Lamar said he decided to use an ECO -- and also drop a self-imposed $100 limit on contributions to his campaign -- after he learned that Leon is backed by Doug Guetzloe, the no-holds-barred campaign consultant Lamar prosecuted for election-law violations in 2006.

"We had to have a level playing field," Lamar said.

Leon calls Guetzloe one of many supporters, and said she appears on his radio show as she does other media outlets. Guetzloe's Web site promotes Leon, and on his radio show Friday, he railed about Lamar's ECO and the abandoned $100 donation cap.

"It's obviously duplicitous," Guetzloe said. "He'll do anything to cling to power."

Lamar's ECO -- called the Ninth Circuit Legal Alliance -- was created in August by Sarah Rumpf, his campaign manager. So far it has reported contributions of $1,500: $1,000 from retired Orlando advertising executive Pete Barr and $500 from a limited liability corporation connected to the family of Bill Vose, who is Lamar's chief assistant.


Limited activity

Rumpf said the Alliance's only activity so far was a letter to the Orange County Bar Association touting Lamar's credentials. It also may do polling soon. She said she doesn't expect it to raise more than $25,000.

In his own campaign account, Lamar has reported raising $39,720, much of it in $100 donations from lawyers, and $6,000 in loans to himself. Leon's total of $30,350 includes nearly $20,000 in personal loans and $1,000 from two Guetzloe businesses.

ECOs can take in and spend unlimited amounts of money on "issue" ads. The only restriction: they can't use "vote for" or "vote against" in the ad copy.

ECOs have grown rapidly in recent years. Usually given vaguely good-government sounding names, they've enabled interest groups ranging from Big Sugar and casino companies to trial lawyers to spend millions for or against candidates for statewide or legislative office.


Big money

ECOs spent more than $1.2 million on direct-mail and TV ads in the vicious primary battle this year between Maurice "Doc" Woodard and state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando.

And they're now showing up in county races.

Orange County Commission candidate Scott Boyd benefited from a mailer sent out in August by the Freedom First Committee, funded by various business groups.

Boyd acknowledged that a local Realtors group gave the ECO $10,000 -- and his father gave another $3,000 -- to pay for the mailer.

Critics such as the Florida Public Interest Research Group and League of Women Voters say ECOs allow wealthy special interests to pour money into races and make it hard to track campaign money.

"They're toxic," said Brad Ashwell of the Tallahassee-based Florida Public Interest Research Group. "It makes a joke of campaign-finance limits."


'I'm not embarrassed'

Lamar agrees that large ECOs can be abused, but he said his will be smaller, transparent and not engage in dirty politics.

"I would wish to see, in an ideal world, no ECOs," said Lamar. "But I'm not embarrassed at what they have done or what we're doing."

Lamar said he needs to use every legal campaign tool because of Leon's alliance with Guetzloe, the onetime "Ax the Tax" spokesman who is known for aggressive campaign tactics.

In 2006, Lamar's office charged Guetzloe with 14 misdemeanor counts for failing to include that an anonymous four-page flier criticizing Winter Park mayoral candidate David Strong was a "paid electioneering communication," as required by law.


Guetzloe case

Last March, the 5th District Court of Appeal upheld the first count but threw out the 13 additional counts as being essentially the same charge. The judge who wrote the opinion described what Guetzloe did as "the quintessential smear campaign."

Guetzloe is awaiting sentencing.

Lamar's camp also has accused Leon and Guetzloe of violating election law by not listing his Web-site endorsement of her as a contribution.

And Leon said Lamar's campaign manager broke the law by not reporting the expenses for setting up the ECO and sending out the Bar Association letter. The first report filed by the group listed no contributions or expenses.

Both sides have lobbed other attacks as well.

Leon, on Guetzloe's radio show, has second-guessed Lamar's handling of the Caylee Anthony missing-child case, while Lamar's backers point out that Leon took a contribution from the firm of Jose Baez, the attorney representing the child's mother, Casey Anthony.




David Damron can be reached at ddamron@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5311.

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