Leon Democratic Party Chair Ryan Ray has filed an elections complaint against a political committee that has launched a negative political campaign against his allies, alleging it failed to report the finances behind those attacks on time.
Grow Tallahassee is a political committee funded mostly by local developers and other businesses. It has put out attack mailers and digital ads against City Commissioner Jack Porter and City Commission Candidate Dot Inman-Johnson.
Those candidates are allies of Commissioner Jeremy Matlow. Aside from being chair of the local democratic party, Ray is also Matlow’s aide.
Ray filed his complaint to the Florida Ethics Commission on Thursday. He pointed out Grow Tallahassee didn’t report the expenses for its attack ads, despite two reporting periods passing from when the first ads went out on July 21st.
“When you have a political committee, you have a responsibility to disclose the amount and sources of the money that you're using to electioneer. Grow Tallahassee hasn't done that. Evidently, 10’s of 1000’s of dollars in negative mail pieces have gone out under the auspices Grow Tallahassee, the public has been illegally deprived of their ability to know about it, and that's why I filed the report,” he said.
WFSU spoke with Bugra Demirel, the chair of Grow Tallahassee, after the complaint was filed. He called Ray’s complaint a “cheap PR stunt”.
“We report our donations and expenditures in a timely matter, and by the time this story is out, our report will be probably online for public to see it. So, I would say that instead of spending time, money and resources on these baseless complaints, Ryan Ray should really focus on low Democratic turnout in this cycle,” he said.
The PC’s report was updated Friday. The PC reported it spent over 60,000 dollars on mailers, but that report still came two reporting cycles behind when the first mailers went out on July 24th. Plus, the PC still hasn’t reported how much it has spent on Facebook digital ads.
Demirel told WFSU the Facebook ads were paid for by Grow Tallahassee Inc., not the PC. He argued they were promoting op-eds and were therefore not electioneering material that needed to be paid for and reported by a PC.
If the Florida Election Commission finds wrongdoing, they can charge the PC $50 for the first three days late and then $500 per day for each day late after.