Disgraced Republican lawmaker planted no-party candidate in key Senate race, sources say

The confession came on election night.

Over drinks at an Irish pub in Seminole County, as television screens began to show the latest election results for key state Senate races, former Miami state Sen. Frank Artiles was getting excited.

Miami Republican Ileana Garcia, a first-time candidate, was leading Democratic incumbent Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez in the race to represent Miami-Dade’s Senate District 37. It was tight, but she was winning. And Artiles wanted to brag.

“That is me, that was all me,” Artiles told a crowd at Liam Fitzpatrick’s restaurant in Lake Mary, where Sen. Jason Brodeur was holding his election night party, according to a person who was there and who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

“He was so loud,” the person said.

Artiles boasted that he planted a no-party candidate in the Miami-Dade Senate race, which Garcia won after a three-day recount by just 32 votes out of more than 215,000 cast. Artiles recruited Alexis (Alex) Rodriguez, a longtime acquaintance and Facebook friend.

Sources with direct knowledge have indicated that Artiles’ involvement in launching Rodriguez’s bid was extensive.

When asked by the Herald about his involvement in the no-party candidate’s race Thursday, Artiles did not respond. Numerous attempts to reach him by phone and text messaging Monday and Thursday were unsuccessful.

The no-party candidate with the same surname as the incumbent Democrat had been a registered Republican until just before his qualifying papers were filed to make him a candidate for the Florida Senate. He received 6,382 votes in the election.

Orchestrating the political play of recruiting no-party or third-party candidates to run in key races is a strategy that has been long used to influence elections. It is both one that Artiles has shared with others in the past and that prominent Florida Republicans have openly acknowledged to be part of their playbook.

Artiles outlined the early stages of his so-called “siphoning strategy” in the summer of 2018 with a friend, who asked not to be named.

The strategy included using no-party candidates to draw votes away from a target.

Artiles told the friend “matter of factly” how his strategy could help sway an election, though he did not disclose his interest in any specific race at the time. He did, however, mention the benefit of using a candidate with the same last name as the target.

The candidate Artiles bragged about planting in Miami-Dade’s Senate District 37 race was an auto-parts dealer who coincidentally shared the same surname as the Democratic incumbent.

As Artiles walked into the state Capitol in Tallahassee on Nov. 17 to witness newly elected lawmakers get sworn into office in mid-November, he declined to comment when asked if he took credit for any Senate election victories.

This is not the first time Artiles has been involved in activity that raises questions about his adherence to state election law.

Artiles resigned from the Senate in disgrace in 2017 amid two parallel scandals. The first involved the hiring of a former Hooters “calendar girl” and a Playboy model with no political experience as “consultants” using funds from his political committee. The second was an alcohol-fueled rant in which he called two Black lawmakers a racist slur in a Tallahassee bar.

He is now a lobbyist and has submitted an application to fill a vacancy on the Miami-Dade County Commission, one of the most powerful elected roles in the state’s most populous county.

Erin Isaac, a spokeswoman for the political committee that ran Republican campaigns in the Senate, was also at Brodeur’s election night party. Isaac said she was not aware of Artiles’ involvement in the race, and that Senate President Wilton Simpson, who heads the political committee, was also unaware Artiles recruited Rodriguez to run in the race.

The making of the candidate

Rodriguez was recruited to run in late spring 2020, according to a source.

With no known political experience, Rodriguez, 55, jumped in the race on the last day he could qualify to be a candidate on the ballot. His $1,187.88 qualifying check was dropped into a secured box outside the Division of Elections building in Tallahassee, and stamped June 12.

But Rodriguez didn’t drop off his check, said a source with direct knowledge who asked not to be named. It’s still a mystery who did.

Once the check cleared and Rodriguez was in the race, he did not campaign. He hid details about his candidacy from people close to him though he told the Herald he wanted to run for state Senate in Miami because as a Miami native “it’s always something I wanted to do.”

According to records, Rodriguez’s campaign finance account was opened with a loan from himself, even though he appeared to be struggling with his personal finances in the months leading up to his bid for the state Senate. His landlord told the Herald his rent was often paid late, with cash or, in one instance, a bounced check.

“Something is really wrong with him,” his landlord said. “He sounds like a nice person, but he is doing stuff that is wrong.”

The money woes have added a layer of curiosity as to how he could afford the $2,000 he loaned to himself to cover the cost of appearing on the ballot.

Rodriguez received no political contributions, reported $15,000 in credit-card debt and had no money in the bank, campaign finance records show. He paid the $1,187.88 qualifying fee with a City National Bank check, but his financial disclosure forms show no bank account or liabilities tied to that bank.

Florida law limits contributions to candidates for legislative office at $1,000. Any person who knowingly makes or accepts two or more contributions to the contrary could face a third-degree felony charge, according to Florida election law.

District is in South Miami-Dade, but candidate lives in Boca Raton

In mid-November, Miami-Dade prosecutors launched an investigation into his candidacy, after multiple media outlets found inconsistencies in sworn candidate documents he filed.

Rodriguez as of mid-November lived in Boca Raton, two counties north of the Miami-Dade Senate district, a fact he later admitted to the Herald. A Palmetto Bay address was falsely listed in a financial disclosure form filed in his name under oath to Florida election officials. The Palmetto Bay address was also used on his voter registration form, allowing him to vote in Senate District 37.

According to Miami-Dade County property records, the four-bedroom house was sold by the Rodriguezes in 2015 for $590,000. Rodriguez has lived in Boca Raton for four years, according to his landlord.

Candidates for the state Legislature do not have to live in the district they are running in, but state law says they must live there once they take office.

When approached by a Herald reporter at his home, Rodriguez declined to comment on the state attorney’s investigation and referred all questions about the investigation to his attorney, William Barzee, who has declined to comment on the details of the case.

Rodriguez was registered as a Republican as recently as June 10, the same day he loaned the $2,000 to his campaign for a qualifying fee.

That same week, Coral Gables attorney Alejandro De Varona notarized Rodriguez’s sworn campaign forms, a requirement for his candidacy. A candidate’s oath must be notarized under law.

De Varona chairs a non-profit organization with longtime Republican operative and election attorney Emmett “Bucky” Mitchell, and chairs five political committees that donate to Republican campaigns, state records show.

De Varona could not be reached by phone or in visits to his Coral Gables offices and West Miami-Dade home Wednesday.

A shadowy boost

A few months after Rodriguez was recruited and his candidacy was made official, a mystery donor popped up in early October and gave his name a boost in the Senate race to represent half a million Floridians.

Rodriguez was not the only one to benefit.

No-party candidates in three key Senate districts who did no independent campaigning were featured in political mail advertisements to woo Democrat voters by advertising progressive ideals. The mailers did not feature photos of any of the candidates and in one case, misled voters using stock images of a Black woman when the no-party candidate was white.

Floridians who would vote for candidates in Senate Districts 9, 37 and 39 were pinpointed for living in “battleground” districts, or seats into which Democrats were pouring extra resources in hopes of keeping or flipping them blue. The seats were important to Democrats who were hoping to erode the narrow GOP majority in the chamber to have more influence over the “redistricting” process that will happen over the next two years.

Republicans won all three Senate races. Sanford Sen. Jason Brodeur and Doral Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez defended Senate Districts 9 and 39, respectively, and Garcia flipped Senate District 37.

The mail campaign, worth $550,000, was paid for by two newly formed political committees — The Truth and Our Florida PC — run by two young women from the Tampa Bay area with no known political experience. Both women are registered as Republicans.

The committees’ sole contributor was a shadowy company registered in Delaware called Proclivity Inc., which had never previously made political contributions in Florida.

Proclivity’s mission statement includes “publicizing the positions of elected officials concerning” policies that benefit the “quality of life for families.”

The year-old company, which has no working phone and lists its address as a UPS store in Atlanta, funded the half-million dollar effort in early October, as first reported by Politico. Because of its tax-exempt status, the company is allowed to engage in a restricted level of political activity but is not required to disclose its donors.

“The corporation appears it was set up to shield donors in this race. The public doesn’t know who the donor is because the donor is a corporation, and the corporation is a straw man,” said Leonard Collins, a Tallahassee-based attorney and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s former general counsel.

Richard Alexander is the only name tied to the company

In Florida, one Richard Alexander with political connections is an attorney and the former president of a Jacksonville-based printing company that has done work for Florida candidates and political committees in the past.

He told the Herald he did not know anything about Proclivity and was “alarmed” that his name was popping up as the company’s registered agent.

“That’s not me,” Alexander said in a message on Facebook, where he is friends with numerous influential Florida Republicans. He did not answer when asked if it was possible someone used his name without his knowledge or permission.

Proclivity was formed in April 2019, but has not filed tax records with the Internal Revenue Service as of early November, according to IRS databases.

Legal questions surround mystery donor in FL Senate races. Answers could take ‘years’

The company’s paper trail ends in Delaware, where it was incorporated.

And the young women operating the political committees that bought the mailers are not talking.

Political déjà vu

For those who have lived and voted in Florida before, the tactic of running a so-called “spoiler” candidate is not a novel idea. Getting third-party or no-party candidates to run in a race is a long-used political strategy to influence elections, and it has been used by both parties.

Former Republican state Rep. Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers Republican seeking to lead the Republican Party of Florida, said “many victories can be attributed to third-party candidates” in Florida, where statewide races are won by razor-thin margins.

“Many of our victories can be attributed to 3rd party candidates dividing the vote and the effect on top of the ticket races cannot be underestimated,” Caldwell wrote to party leaders in a Dec. 1 email provided to the Herald.

One example, he wrote, was his own 6,753-vote loss to Democrat Nikki Fried in the statewide race for Agriculture Commissioner. He complained that in 2018, his race was the only cabinet-level race without a third-party candidate.

“The most glaring difference in the loss for Ag Commissioner was the lack of any 3rd party candidate,” Caldwell wrote in the email.

Caldwell later walked back his comment, telling the Miami Herald he meant to underscore the importance of winning statewide elections by bigger margins in the future.

In 2012, Republican state Rep. David Rivera helped run a shadow campaign meant to undercut his political nemesis, Democrat Joe Garcia, that might have broken federal laws.

A political newcomer named Justin Lamar Sternad campaigned against Garcia in a South Florida congressional race by running a well-heeled mail campaign Rivera helped orchestrate and fund, the Miami Herald reported at the time. His campaign, though unconventional, was effective enough to earn Sternad 11% of the vote.

Sternad confessed to violating election laws and was sent to prison. The woman who secretly funneled more than $81,000 to Sternad — Ana Alliegro, Rivera’s ex-girlfriend — was sent to prison, too. She later testified to a grand jury that it was Rivera who had plotted the scheme.

More recently, state Sen. Keith Perry defeated newcomer Democrat Kayser Enneking by 2,000 votes in 2018. The win was influenced by Charles Goston, a lifelong Democrat, who ran as an independent, earning 4,300 votes.

Goston’s campaign was largely funded by Republicans with ties to Perry, the Gainesville Sun reported at the time.

Simmering Democrats

After bitter losses to Republicans in three key Senate races that helped cement the GOP majority in the chamber, losing Democrats have called foul.

The Democratic incumbent in Senate District 37 expressed alarm at the influence of the third candidate in his race shortly after a three-day recount definitively crowned Garcia as the winner.

“Democracy requires transparency,” Jose Javier Rodríguez said in a video message. “In order to achieve that, I believe this election requires a full investigation so that those who may have violated the law are held to account and so that such tactics are not used in future elections.”

Two weeks later, Juan Carlos Planas, an elections attorney who represented Jose Javier Rodríguez during the recount, filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics that focuses on the inconsistencies on Alex Rodriguez’s forms. He claims that Alex Rodriguez did not present a “full and complete” disclosure required by the Florida Constitution.

Garcia has criticized the timing of the complaints, implying that Rodriguez has been “unable to muster” grace for himself and that he was throwing a “temper tantrum” in the wake of losing his election. She has refused interview requests from the Herald before, during and after the election.

It is unclear why Democrats filed a complaint weeks after the election results were final rather than when they first raised questions about Rodriguez’s candidacy.

A spokesman for Senate Victory, the campaign arm of the Senate Democratic caucus, declined to comment.

After 3-day recount, incumbent Democrat loses Senate seat to Ileana Garcia by 34 votes

The new state senator stayed quiet for most of the campaign, but as the story of the no-party candidate gains national attention, she has grown more vocal on social media. She has pointed out that Rodriguez ran a close race when he flipped the seat in 2016, beating his Republican opponent by more than 6,000 votes in a race in which a no-party candidate received almost 10,000.

“There was no outrage at the time. What is the difference now? The difference is that he lost,” she said in a prepared statement.

In 2016, however, there was no coordinated mail campaign around the no-party candidate with talking points aimed at progressive voters. Prosecutors also did not launch an investigation into the integrity of the no-party contender’s candidacy.

To Garcia’s credit, though, Republicans made significant gains in Miami-Dade County in the 2020 election cycle. President Donald Trump rode a wave of Hispanic support to the best margins a Republican presidential candidate has seen in Florida’s most populous county in 16 years.

Trump cut into his 2016 deficit in the county by 23 points and improved his performance in Senate District 37 by more than 9 points, which likely helped Garcia, the co-founder of Latinas for Trump.

Simpson, who led the committee tasked with running Republican senatorial campaigns, has denied involvement with the no-party candidates.

“We had our candidates in the races, and it was pretty clear which ones we were supporting,” he told reporters in Tallahassee last month.

Garcia was rewarded by Simpson for her victory. On Wednesday, she was named the vice chair of the Senate Rules Committee, the most powerful committee in the Senate.

Samantha J. Gross reported from South Florida and Ana Ceballos reported from Tallahassee.