The word "timely'' was on many people's lips today at the Tower Forum's program about stealth political attack groups, coming one day after the indictment of Republican fundraiser Alan Mendelsohn and one week after the trial bar lobby admitted it paid for a racially inflammatory mailing in a state Senate race.
About 100 people attended the business/civic group's meeting in Fort Lauderdale featuring Mark Herron, one of the best-known election law attorneys in Florida, and Tim Ryan, a former lawmaker from Dania Beach who is suing a political group he says cost him a state Senate seat.
The mailing in the north Florida race won last month by John Thrasher pictured President Barack Obama with the Blank Panthers, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan and ACORN activists and asked, "Is this the change YOU want to believe in? Violence and intimdation at the voting booth." Herron called it "the biggest piece of crap I've ever seen in my life." Ryan said, "That was just overt racism."
A federal judge this summer struck down a state law requiring groups that can raise and spend unlimited money to influence an election to disclose their donors. The judge said the law infringed on free speech, but Herron said it's important for voters to know who is bankrolling campaign attacks.
"The fix is to to roll back the law to make sure it applies only in election cycles,'' Herron said.
Herron also criticized state lawmakers for hitting up special interests to fund political committees they can use as slush funds to help other candidates and travel the state. "I think that's where the potential ticking time bomb is,'' he said.
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