Miami’s mayor has raised $4.6 million this year. A mystery donor gave $100K in June
Running for reelection, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez raised about $900,000 in June across multiple political campaign accounts, another mammoth haul that included a six-figure contribution from a mystery donor previously entangled in a Federal Election Commission complaint.
Campaign finance reports posted last week show Tread Standard LLC gave a committee backing Suarez $100,000 on June 30. An April 2016 report from the FEC’s general counsel suggested the company may have incorporated in 2015 to conceal the “true source” of its $150,000 contribution that year to the political committee supporting Jeb Bush’s ill-fated presidential campaign.
FEC attorneys also found multiple connections between Tread Standard and Miami-based homebuilding giant Lennar — the report states that the former was incorporated in Delaware, but company documents listed a Lennar employee and the company’s address in west Miami-Dade. A 2015 response to the complaint filed with the FEC shows Tread Standard was represented by Miami-based law firm Bilzin Sumberg, and Tread Standard’s mailing address was the same address as Lennar’s corporate headquarters. Partner Brian Bilzin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Suarez’s campaign — which has shattered city of Miami fundraising records — said Tread Standard is a “real estate holding company based in Washington, D.C.,” and offered no other specifics.
According to Delaware corporation records available online, the registered agent for Tread Standard is The Corporation Trust Company. A representative from Corporation Trust told the Miami Herald on Monday evening that they did not have contact information for Tread Standard’s principals.
In a statement Tuesday morning, Lennar denied knowing anything about Tread Standard.
“Tread Standard is not a Lennar subsidiary. A list of all our subsidiaries is filed every year with our annual report on Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K,” reads the statement. “Lennar is not familiar with the activities of this entity.”
The company recently provided the same statement to Politico for an article about Tread Standard contributing $110,000 to a committee supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is fundraising for a 2022 reelection bid and considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate
The FEC did not investigate the 2016 matter further, and the commission’s Republican majority did not deem the contribution a violation of federal campaign finance law. One commissioner who dissented, Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, wrote in an official statement that the commission should have done more.
“The Super PAC reported the contribution as coming from the LLC, defeating the public’s interest in knowing who seeks to influence our elections,” she wrote in June 2018. “For some of these transactions, we still do not know the true source of the money. We may never know.”
Millions raised months before vote
Four months before the Nov. 2 election, the mayor’s political fundraising has soared past his previous campaigns with a war chest of about $4.6 million.
He’s broken the record-setting pace of fundraising he set in his 2017 bid for mayor, when he’d raised $3 million by the qualifying period in September. This year he’s raised gobs of money even though he has yet to draw an established opponent. Three political novices have filed to challenged him: Maxwell Martinez, Anthony Melvin Dutrow and Mayra Joli.
Suarez’s political committee, Miami for Everyone, received a total of 80 donations in June, including another $100,000 check from Clean-Rite Maintenance LLC, which is listed as a commercial cleaning company with a New York address. Todd Boehly, CEO of holding company Eldridge and part owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Sparks, contributed $90,000.
Miami-based real estate and property management firm Atlantic Pacific Communities, former Pfizer chairman Ian Read, and Andrew Perlman, managing partner of North Equity, gave $25,000. North Equity, publisher of several magazines such as Popular Science, recently announced it was opening a hub in Brickell.
Jay Schottenstein, chairman and CEO of American Eagle Outfitters, and one of his sons combined to give $40,000. Venture capitalist David Blumberg, who recently bought a house in Golden Beach, contributed $20,000. Dozens of real estate interests and investors contributed hundreds of thousands more to Miami For Everyone.
Another committee backing Suarez, Miami Good Government Initiative, received $25,000 from venture capitalist James Goetz, whose firm invested in WhatsApp. Suarez has received hefty donations from many in the tech investment world while promoting Miami as a burgeoning tech hub.
Neither political committee supporting Suarez is obligated to spend on his reelection campaign, and in the past, the mayor has used leftover funds to back other candidates and a failed ballot initiative to make himself the city’s chief administrator.
The committees have paid Suarez’s fundraising consultant, Brian Goldmeier, about $370,000 so far. Goldmeier’s company is called BYG Strategies.
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 11:35 AM.
