Running With Scissors in the Florida Swamp

Fake voter guides. The swamp has a zip code.

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Two years ago to this date, I was an exhausted campaign manager working on what would eventually become one of Florida’s most expensive legislative primaries. Since then, I’ve been asked to run a few political campaigns. Because no one has stepped up to fund my therapy, I remain with PTSD and the answer has been a firm nein.

If I ever write a book about the State Senate D7 experience, it will be titled Running With Scissors in the Florida Swamp. Two years later, it continues to be the gift that keeps on giving — in such a bad way.

The Fake Voter Guide

One day before early voting began in August 2024, envelopes designed to look exactly like the official St. Johns County Republican Party voter guide appeared in the mailboxes of approximately 20,000 St. Johns County primary voters. Same format, branding, and authoritative presentation. The only difference was the content: instead of the party’s actual endorsed candidates, the phony guides listed their opponents.

Hundreds of voters walked into early voting locations carrying that fraudulent mailer, believing they were doing their civic duty, following their party’s recommendations. They had been deliberately, systematically deceived one day before anyone could do anything about it.

The St. Johns County Republican Party filed a formal complaint. Disturbing allegations from other sources imply that the campaign of Gerry’s opponent, Tom Leek, was involved in funding and distributing these misleading guides. In one of the impacted races, the margin of victory was approximately 844 votes. In a primary where 20,000 voters received fraudulent endorsement information the day before polls opened, 844 votes is a question mark with legal implications.

In my hard-earned opinion, Tom Leek is arguably the most corrupt legislator in the state of Florida. That is not a casual accusation but the conclusion of someone who spent months in the arena watching the tentacles of his operation. I never thought I’d agree with the likes of John Morgan, but his assessment of Leek is unfiltered and on the mark.

The Accountability Gap

Law enforcement investigated. Two years later, no one has been charged or held accountable. State attorneys have continued to recuse themselves from the matter, and the reason, as best as anyone following this can determine, is that the allegations involve powerful political figures whose reach extends into the offices responsible for prosecuting them … or they themselves have received donations from Tom Leek’s PAC.

In the Florida swamp the evidence does not disappear and the investigation does not conclude that nothing happened, it simply never arrives at a consequence. The powerful recuse the powerful, the clock runs, and eventually the story becomes old enough so the casual observer assumes it was resolved.

This investigation is sitting exactly where it was two years ago, with damning evidence, a formal party complaint, a documented pattern of deception and zero accountability. If the allegations are proven and a court determines that election law felonies were committed, the consequences could include criminal penalties and removal from office. Senator Leek currently serves in the Florida Senate. Any conviction on serious election-related charges would carry substantial political implications.

It wasn’t all for naught

Although Gerry’s race was both exhausting and traumatic, the experience would not go to waste.

Running a four-county legislative primary against a well-funded candidate with no ethical guardrails turned out to be the graduate school course I did not know I needed. Every dirty trick and every week of being on the receiving end of attacks that would make a seasoned operative blush — all of it was preparation for something bigger.

Before this race was even over, I was recruited to serve as one of six Liberty Counsel field directors tasked with defeating Amendment 4, the craftily worded ballot initiative that would have enshrined unrestricted abortion into Florida’s constitution. If the Gerry James campaign had not taught me how to execute a coordinated four-county operation, I would not have known how to manage sixteen.

Amendment 4 was defeated. Clearly, God had a plan.

All I want for Christmas is accountability.

"Justice delayed is justice denied." — William Gladstone

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Heavenly Father,

We command your legions of warring angels to bring justice to this betrayal of the democratic process at its most basic level.

We pray for state attorneys who have found it more convenient to recuse themselves than to follow the evidence. Give them the courage their office requires. Remind them that the power they hold was not granted to protect the powerful from accountability but to protect the public from those who abuse power.

We pray for Gerry James, who ran twice with integrity in a system that was not playing by the same rules, and who deserves to know that what was done in his races will not simply be absorbed into the long list of things Florida chose not to prosecute.

And we give thanks for your divine providence, knowing that You use every unwanted lesson for your greater purpose. May we be reminded of this when facing life challenges.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.