A lawsuit to kick Carlos Gimenez off the ballot for Congress continues — for now

A one-letter typo led to a two-month legal fight between Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and firefighter Omar Blanco, and the dispute that began with a misspelled check now has Blanco accusing Gimenez of using illegal funds to qualify for the ballot in Florida’s 26th Congressional District.

The back-and-forth will continue, at least for now, after a Florida judge denied Gimenez’s motion to dismiss Blanco’s lawsuit last week. Blanco is competing with Gimenez in the Republican primary in August. The winner will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat, who represents a district that includes western Miami-Dade County, Homestead and the Florida Keys.

An attorney for Blanco said Gimenez’s candidacy is illegal if his $10,400 check, written in April to qualify for the primary ballot, was paid for with funds from a political action committee instead of Gimenez’s campaign account. The bank that issued Gimenez’s check said in a court documents that it did not have any records of a campaign account bearing Gimenez’s name, or the misspelled version — “Giminez” — that appeared on his qualifying check.

“We filed a subpoena against the bank and asked them to turn over information from Gimenez and the response we got back is that account does not exist,” Blanco’s attorney, Luis Navarro, said. “We suspect that the check came from a PAC that might be associated with the campaign but absolutely cannot pay for qualifying fees.”

The motion to dismiss denial was first reported by the blog Political Cortadito.

Florida election law states that a qualifying fee must be paid with “a properly executed check drawn upon the candidate’s campaign account.” Federal election law says congressional candidates must meet age, citizenship and residency requirements but lets each state impose its own qualifying rules for ballot access.

But Gimenez’s campaign says the qualifying funds came from the campaign’s account, not a separate PAC, and that his check complies with state and federal election law. A spokesperson said the campaign planned to submit paperwork to the court to demonstrate that.

“The account is associated with Carlos Gimenez for Congress. What our attorney is doing is putting together a summary,” Gimenez spokesperson Nicole Rapanos said. “All that’s needed are those records to tie up those loose ends. I’m confident that there was not a check taken from a PAC account and I’m confident that’s what our records will show.”

The bank’s records that were included as an exhibit in the Gimenez campaign’s motion to dismiss the case does call the campaign’s account a “political action committee” but the Gimenez campaign says the designation was an internal classification by the bank and does not mean the account in question was operating as a PAC instead of a campaign account.

Many members of Congress establish PACs to donate money to political allies, but in Florida, they are not allowed to use PAC money to pay a qualifying fee.

Gimenez does have a PAC, called Residents First PAC, that is registered with the same treasurer who signed his campaign qualifying check and uses the same bank that issued the check. The PAC, which was registered in February, raised $19,164 and spent $7,000 through May 31 according to federal campaign finance reports, which is less than the amount of Gimenez’s $10,400 qualifying check that the Blanco campaign says is invalid.

“This lawsuit has no merit the day it was filed and today it still has no merit,” Gimenez campaign attorney Robert Fernandez said in a text message. “Nothing has changed and it will be dismissed shortly.”

National Republicans think Gimenez, who has a massive fundraising advantage over Blanco and a high-profile position running Miami-Dade County, will pose a formidable general election challenge if he wins the August primary.

Navarro said he filed motions to speed up the amount of time the Gimenez campaign has to produce relevant documents so Republican primary voters can be assured both candidates are qualified to run.

He also said if the lawsuit against Gimenez is successful but not until after the August primary, it could ensure another term in Congress for Mucarsel-Powell without Republican opposition. He cited the 2015 Sweetwater mayoral election where voters were told three weeks before Election Day that votes for a candidate who violated Florida’s “resign to run” law would be considered invalid.

“From day one, I only asked that this information be clarified so the validity of this race wasn’t in question at a later point,” Blanco said. “Obviously, as you can see from the reports, there are some questions that need to be answered.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 5:43 PM.