DeSantis appoints prosecutor to investigate Florida Keys Republican Party
Gov. Ron DeSantis this month assigned a prosecutor to investigate a complaint of election fraud and unlawful disbursement of funds by both the chair and treasurer of the Florida Keys Republican Party.
The issue stems from a vote in April by the Republican Executive Committee of Monroe County to endorse Sherri Hodies, who is the treasurer of the committee, over former Key West City Commissioner Margaret Romero in the GOP primary for supervisor of elections.
With the endorsement came a $20,000 contribution to Hodies’ campaign, according to the July 26 complaint filed by Phyllis May, a Key West Republican. The problem is a simple majority vote out of all of the committee’s 63 members is required before endorsing a candidate, which did not happen, according to May and other Republicans upset about the decision.
According to the complaint — and an email that was obtained by the Miami Herald, written by another member of the committee and first reported about by the Key West Citizen newspaper — 38 of the 63 members were present at the April 20 meeting, and 20 voted to endorse Hodies while 18 opposed the motion.
“When you have a 20 to 18 vote, that should tell you that it’s split. There is no majority,” John Dick, a longtime Monroe County School Board member and an REC member, told the Miami Herald. “That’s not an affirmative vote.”
For the endorsement to be official, however, 32 members would have had to vote for Hodies, who went on to win the primary and faces Democrat Ron Saunders, a former state House representative for the Keys, in November.
“If there was no valid vote which met the requirements to endorse Ms. Hodies and the associated $20,000 contribution, who authorized and/or made the decision to cut the check?” May wrote to Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward in her complaint. “Who signed the check, which was subsequently cashed by the Hodies campaign? It appears that the funds were disbursed without substantiation to the Hodies campaign.”
Monroe State Attorney recuses himself
Ward, who is a member of the committee and supported Romero, recused his office from the investigation and asked DeSantis to appoint another State Attorney’s Office to take the case. On Sept. 20, DeSantis signed an executive order assigning the case to Amira D. Fox, state attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida, which includes Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties.
The Key West Citizen was first to report the story, which also included an email from committee member Patrick Foley to Chair Rhonda Rebman Lopez telling her there weren’t enough votes to back Hodies.
“The motion failed,” Foley wrote.
Foley declined to comment on the controversy when reached Friday, but he confirmed he sent the email.
In DeSantis’ executive order, he states Fox’s office is to assume all duties “regarding the investigation and prosecution of the case and all related matters regarding Rhonda Rebman Lopez and Sherri Hodies.”
Election fraud is a third-degree felony in Florida punishable by up to five years in prison.
Accusations of helping Democrats
Rebman Lopez, who ran unsuccessfully against state Rep. Jim Mooney for the District 120 state House seat in 2020, blamed Ward for the controversy and accused him in a text to the Herald of “doing exactly what the Democrats are doing to Trump. Trying to use the courts to interfere with an election.”
She said Ward was working on behalf of the Democrats, who Rebman Lopez said in the text “are trying to take Sherri Hodies off the ballot the same way they tried to take Trump off the ballot.”
“The frivolous allegations of ‘election fraud’ center around the local party’s endorsement process for Republican candidates which was voted upon by a majority of all members present and subsequently approved by the Republican party of Florida,” Rebman Lopez wrote, adding the complaint is “meritless and will be dismissed in due time.”
Hodies told the Herald on Thursday that she would send a statement from her attorney, but it hadn’t arrived by Friday afternoon. She told the Key West Citizen that she was told by Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power “that the process and vote was approved” and that the state party leadership told Rebman Lopez “to cut the check and endorse me. I followed the process and all of the rules.”
Power, however, on Friday, told the Herald he has “no knowledge of the details of what happened. The only thing our team would do was point them to the rules on endorsements and expenditures.”
Power also distanced himself from the issue in an interview with news website Florida Politics on Thursday.
“I do not get involved in Primaries, nor do I tell any REC how to operate,” he said.
Party infighting
Dick, the School Board member, also noted the decision to endorse Hodies was controversial because the REC had never backed a candidate during primaries.
“We never endorsed anyone in a primary,” he said.
The issue has exposed a rift among Keys Republicans, and several say the situation is embarrassing. REC meetings have become so heated that the committee has hired an off-duty Florida Highway Patrol trooper to act as security, several sources have said.
“We’re civilized people,” Dick said. “To this day, I don’t know why they have that trooper there.”
Online, the mud-slinging was in full force this week, with Rebman Lopez posting a photo of Liz Cheney — who is a former Wyoming congresswoman and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and fell out of favor with many conservatives for her attacks on Trump — with Ward’s face pasted over hers.
When Ward and others took issue with the post in Facebook comments, a defiant Rebman Lopez stood by it.
“People r texting me & emailing me — calling me — telling me they died laughing,” she wrote Thursday.
While some Keys Republicans blasted Rebman Lopez in the comments, asking her to “stop embarrassing our party,” others piled on Ward, accusing him of helping Saunders (Hodies’ Democratic opponent) and in turn somehow helping defeat Trump in November.
“REC members and high ranking elected Republicans voting [and] endorsing to put Democrat Ron Saunders in [Supervisor of Elections] office is very concerning. That’s like sticking a knife in President Trumps back as well as the sovereignty of our country,” wrote Virginia Donaldson, a Keys Republican.
Ward responded to his critics by standing by both his Republican bona fides and his duties as the Keys’ highest elected law-enforcement officer.
“My oath of office is not a get out of jail free card for Republicans,” he commented. “Not a difficult concept.”
This story was originally published September 27, 2024 at 4:32 PM.
