Coral Gables mayor says recall effort is funded by ‘dark money.’ Where did it come from?

A campaign finance report shows that the political committee petitioning to recall the mayor of Coral Gables raised $50,000 in the first quarter of 2024 but does little to answer questions about the recall effort’s financial backers, with the mayor accusing the group of raising “dark money.”

End the Corruption, the political committee that launched March 13 to recall Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, disclosed just three sources of funding in a report that the campaign plans to file Wednesday evening: $17,500 from a political committee controlled by a Tallahassee attorney, $17,500 from a Tallahassee-based group called Florida Consumer Alliance and $15,000 from a Tallahassee-based political committee with the same address called Florida Workers’ Alliance.

Attorney David Winker, who is the registered agent for End the Corruption, said the committee has intentionally obscured the identity of individual donors.

“People are so scared to do anything other than sign a petition,” said Winker, who noted that individual residents have donated to the recall effort but that several worry they could face retribution for openly contributing.

“We do want to protect the residents,” Winker said.

The committee reported spending about $25,000 on canvassing, paid to the consulting group Ven-Vamos Strategies, and about $1,300 on shirts.

While details remain scarce, the campaign finance report provides the most insight to date into the funding behind the recall campaign, which has until Friday to gather signatures from 5% of the approximately 32,000 registered voters in Coral Gables before advancing to the next phase.

The recall petition accuses Lago of “misfeasance and malfeasance” related to the mayor’s business dealings, based partly on his ties to embattled developer Rishi Kapoor.

Lago said in a statement Wednesday night to the Miami Herald that “the people funding this illegal and undemocratic petition are hiding their dark money donors behind committees in Tallahassee.”

“What are they afraid of?” Lago continued. “Why won’t they show who they are? The [residents] of Coral Gables will not stand for this and will not support this attempt at subverting democracy to benefit out of town developers.”

The mayor’s political committee, called Coral Gables First, raised $0 during the first quarter of the year and spent almost $125,000, according to a campaign finance report filed Wednesday. The spending included $50,000 to Berthier Group, a political consulting firm run by Jesse Manzano-Plaza, and over $9,000 in legal fees.

‘Never heard of them’

Reached by phone Wednesday, Tallahassee lawyer Mark Herron, whose political committee Mark PC contributed $17,500 to the recall effort on March 28, initially said he had “never heard of them” when asked about the End the Corruption group. He later said he administers the political committee for several of his clients but did not directly answer a question asking if the $17,500 contribution is composed of multiple individual donations.

“All contributions and expenditures are reported in the committee’s campaign treasurer’s reports,” Herron said in a text message.

Mark PC reported just two contributions in the first quarter of the year: $10,000 from the Latino Alliance political committee and $25,000 from a group called People Over Profits. During that same time period, the political committee made three expenditures in addition to the $17,500 it gave to End the Corruption.

On March 28, Mark PC gave $15,000 to the Florida Workers’ Alliance political committee. That same day, Florida Workers’ Alliance made a $15,000 contribution to End the Corruption, according to Florida Division of Elections records. Herron said he has no connection to Florida Workers’ Alliance, which has received over $150,000 from Mark PC since 2021, according to the state’s campaign finance database.

Attorney Stephen Thomas, who is chairperson for the Florida Workers’ Alliance political committee and, according to 2022 tax filings, the director of the Florida Consumer Alliance, a 501(c)(4) that gave $17,500 to End the Corruption, did not immediately respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

What happens next in the recall process

There are several key next steps in the recall process.

Under Florida law, the recall committee has 30 days to gather signatures from 5% of the approximately 32,000 registered voters in Coral Gables, which is about 1,600 signatures.

The clerk will then submit those signatures to the supervisor of elections for verification. If the elections supervisor can verify the requisite number of signatures, Lago will have a chance to submit a “defensive statement” against the recall. The clerk would then prepare a document called the “recall petition and defense.”

From there, according to state law, the committee would have another 60 days to gather signatures from at least 15% of the city’s electors — or approximately 4,800 voters in Coral Gables. The supervisor of elections would then verify the signatures to “certify whether 15 percent of the qualified electors of the municipality have signed the petitions.”

If enough signatures are certified, the city would have a recall election within approximately 30 to 60 days, according to state law. At that point, Coral Gables voters would decide whether or not to recall Lago, who is up for reelection next April.

This article has been updated to correctly reflect the title of the attorney affiliated with the Florida Consumer Alliance.