In what might be the most embarrassing way to lose a legislative seat, Republican State Rep. Paula Stark of St. Cloud, Florida just got booted off the ballot because her boyfriend apparently forgot to turn in a form. A Florida judge has now rejected her lawsuit to reverse the disqualification, which means House District 47 is essentially flipping to Democrats without anyone even needing to win a general election. That's right, the GOP just gifted a seat to the other team like it was a White Elephant party.
Leon County Circuit Judge Joshua Hawkes ruled against Stark after she sued over her failure to qualify for re-election. Her campaign treasurer, Joel Davis, who also happens to be her significant other, claimed he showed up to the Division of Elections roughly 25 minutes before the noon deadline on June 12 and handed over her required Form 6 financial disclosure. According to Davis, a clerk mysteriously handed it right back without actually filing it. The judge was not buying that story for one single second.
Hawkes wrote that what probably happened was Davis assumed the form wasn't necessary because he had already submitted it the previous day to the Florida Commission on Ethics. Basically, the judge thinks Davis confused himself and then blamed a clerk for his own mix up. Ouch.
Five Division of Elections employees all testified that they never received Stark's Form 6. They also described a streamlined last minute process where clerks simply accepted and time stamped everything without reviewing any of it. The judge pointed out that during those final 30 minutes, the clerks would have stamped paperwork to run for Governor of Alabama if someone handed it over. And yet, no stamped copy of Stark's form exists anywhere.
Davis also tried arguing that some kind of commotion in the office distracted everyone and prevented proper filing. But multiple clerks testified that the disturbance actually happened earlier that morning, nowhere near the deadline. The judge noted this timing problem "severely undermines Mr. Davis' credibility." When a judge writes that about your boyfriend in an official court order, things are going poorly.
To make matters even spicier, Davis had actually visited the elections office twice that day. On his first trip that morning, officials told him the qualifying check wasn't drawn from a campaign account as required. So he had to come back. Two trips and he still couldn't get the paperwork right.
The judge acknowledged that Stark has a colorful history with campaign finance compliance, including losing control of her political committee after racking up around $16,000 in unpaid fines. However, Hawkes stated those past issues did not influence his decision.
With zero Republicans remaining in the contest, the race now goes to an August 18 Democratic primary between Jorge Figueroa and Anthony Nieves, which will be open to voters of all parties. So every registered voter in the Orange and Osceola County district gets to pick between two Democrats, and Republicans can only watch and wonder why nobody double checked the paperwork.
As of late Wednesday, neither Stark nor the Florida Democratic Party had offered any public comment. Honestly, if you're the Democrats, what would you even say? Sometimes the best victories are the ones where you just sit back and let the other side defeat themselves.
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