There could be money laundering involved here

The news that disgraced former Sen. Frank Artiles was arrested last week on charges of campaign finance fraud has Miami’s political underbelly scurrying for cover. Because he was not alone, dear readers. There’s no way.

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Voters in Hialeah and Miami Lakes have been barraged by a deluge of mailers that call Coral Gables firefighter and Democratic candidate for Senate a weak, tax-happy, socialist, communist puppet.
Yes, the Republicans, are very afraid.
They hand picked State Rep. Manny Diaz Jr. for the seat vacated by termed-out Rene Garcia, and are now finding it too steep of an uphill climb.
They poll, too, and their results must be the same as the two other polls that have Perez leading, if only by a little bit. A Public Policy Polling survey done from Sept. 26 through Oct. 1  has Perez, a one-time aide to former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas — who supports and has campaigned with him — beating Diaz by 3 points. This is the same company that has gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum leading. An internal poll shows the same thing. Sure, it’s within the margin of error, but 21% were still undecided and the trend seems to lean blue. Hillary Clinton won the district by 12 points in 2016 and Barrack Obama and Bill Nelson each won the district by 4 points in their last elections.
“I feel really good for a first time candidate running against someone who’s been in office six years,” Perez told Ladra.
And it is pretty obvious that Diaz does not feel so good.
The no-show charter school administrator has sent at least nine negative mailers about Diaz, calling him weak on schools because he doesn’t support guns in the classroom and would rather see a ban on assault weapons and saying that he cozies up to Cuba’s Raul Castro and Venezula’s Nicolas Maduro. You know, because Hialeah.
And that’s what Miami Republicans do when they’re desperate.
Read related: Hialeah AB fraud: Working for Manny Diaz Jr.?
The Diaz campaign has only spent about $45,000 on mailers, but most of them have been paid for by the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.
That has left Diaz, who has far outraised Perez, with a lot of cash for TV — he’s bought at least $180,000 worth of time since Sept. 28 — and other get out the vote efforts, like maybe some of the same absentee ballot fraud we know he committed in 2012.
According to the latest campaign reports through Oct. 12, Diaz had raised $613,345 for his campaign. That doesn’t include the $366,810 given to him in staff, rent, polling and data by the Republican Party of Florida. He’s spent $565,938 so far, mostly falsely attacking Perez out of desperation.
And that doesn’t include his political action committee, Better Florida Education — which has raised $607,800 all by itself — and two other PACs he’s affiliated with, which have been funded by Big Sugar, private prison companies and the charter school industry, among others.
Read related: Manny Diaz Jr. is a no show at work — and at debates
All the mailers are ridiculous but the one that says Perez is weak on schools is hilarious, too, considering that the PTA dad has the all the teachers’ union endorsements. All of them. He also has, naturally, all the firefighter unions.
That has helped him raise $136,323 to supplement about $75,000 from the Democratic Party for staff and other in-kind services. He spent a little more than $92,000, but he had a primary to go through while Diaz has spent his time name-calling and dodging debates, just like he did two years ago against the last challenge, Ivette Gonzalez Petkovich, who he only beat with 52% (and she had less money and support than Perez). So it’s not like he’s got a huge base to begin with.
Diaz doesn’t want to debate Perez because he knows his record is going to come into question and he’ll lose more of that. Republican’s aren’t super excited to vote for him already.
Perez is also affiliated with The Floridians For Change PAC, which raised another $351,000, which ain’t peanuts. For a newbie, he’s done pretty well fundraising.
Which may be another reason why Diaz is running scared.

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Is it that State Rep. Manny Diaz, Jr., is afraid to debate a Democrat? Is he afraid to debate a girl?

More likely, Diaz — who has never had to debate for his post — is more afraid that he cannot defend his poor record or his no-show job at a non-credited, for-profit university and his defense of mining companies that have his constituents concerned about their drinking water and homes.

Ivette Gonzalez Petkovich went to the Sun Sentinel screening and the Univision Destino 2016 debate for state reps in September. Diaz skipped both. Gonzalez went to the Beta Beta Lambda candidate forum Monday. Diaz didn’t.

Could he still be embarrassed about losing that Miami-Dade School Board race in 2010 when he was a public school principal? Or his absentee ballot fraud-tainted win in 2012?

Maybe he was too busy as the chief operating officer of Doral “College,” a junior college on a charter high school campus near the Florida Turnpike using public school funds.

Nah. He isn’t on campus much. He wasn’t on campus Friday when Ladra called.

The most likely reason that Diaz won’t debate is because he doesn’t want to have to defend his track record of pay-to-play politics and conflicts of interest, because Diaz uses his position — not his no-show job, but his elected office — to benefit the charter school industry.

Happy Birthday 2015 to Doral College! Standing with Diaz, third from left, are State Rep. Erik Fresen, whose family owns Academica, Doral Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez and State Senator Anitere Flores, president of Doral College from 2011 to 2015

Months after he was elected in 2012, Diaz was hired in 2013 by Academica to manage Doral College, which is on the campus of the company’s Doral Academy Preparatory charter school, where he makes almost $112,000 a year today (those are public funds). He then proceeded to repeatedly sponsor and support legislation that makes it easier for charters schools to open and operate. He serves as chairman of the House Education Committee’s Choice and Innovation Subcommittee but Diaz has told reporters he doesn’t see a conflict. “All these pieces of legislation are broad and affects everyone in the charter school industry,” he is quoted as saying.

But his paycheck is from Academica, the country’s largest charter school company, so it probably “affects” (read: benefits) them the most. And two years after he was hired, in summer of 2015, Doral College had received at least $600,000 of state charter school funds — even though it is still not accredited and the Miami-Dade School district has refused to accept dual enrollment.

Diaz has also used his position to help the limestone miners at the western edge of the county and he probably doesn’t want to hear from all the angry Palm Springs North residents who are sick of the limestone quarry blasting that is destroying their homes and causing them to be concerned about their drinking water.

The state rep voted in favor a bill last year that reduced the mitigation fees that limestone miners have to pay for environmental damages from 45 cents per ton to 5 cents per ton. That money would also go to building a water treatment plant should the limestone quarries contaminate our drinking water.

Between his campaign account and his PAC — ironically called Better Florida Education — Diaz has taken $14,000, so far, from mining interests, including White Rock Quarries photographed here (more on that later).

Many consultants will tell incumbent candidates not to debate unknown challengers when there is barely a chance they will get any traction. But Diaz sits in the most vulnerable state House seat in the 305. Partly because it also includes part of the 954, crossing the line over into Miramar. But mostly because it is more Democratic

In 2012, Manny Diaz Jr. won in the primary against former State Rep. and Miami-Dade School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla. But House District 103 went to Barack Obama that November, with almost 55% of the vote vs. Mitt Romney. That means almost 5,000 voters picked the Democrat at the top of the ticket.

Ditto for 2014, when the sitting Republican governor only got 48.5% of the vote. Diaz did have a Democratic challenger that year — but only hardly. Benjamin De Yurre was thrown to the wolves by the local party after they recruited him for their No Free Rides campaign, planting candidates against every incumbent Republican in the House. But De Yurre only had $44,000 — only $10K of which he raised himself — against a Diaz warchest of almost $310,000.

Gonzalez Petkovich has raised $85,000 all by her lonesome as of Sept. 30th. She’s also had about $70,000 worth of strategic advice and research from the Florida Democratic Party so far.

Diaz, meanwhile, has raised $386,000 and has gotten almost $50,000 worth of support from the state party in polling, staff and research.

This is one of the most turnable seats in the House this November.

Aaaahhhh. Maybe that’s why Diaz won’t show up at debates.

It’s going to be a busy week for Republican checkbooks.

We’ve got at least four fundraisers planned this week, two for Tuesday and two for Wednesday, for GOP candidates in state House and Senate races.

First up is former Congressman David Rivera. We already told you he’s back, running now for the seat abandoned by State Rep. Frank Artiles, who is running for Senate. His fundraiser kick-off is Tuesday at Cuban Crafters on NW 7th Street and it is the most mysterious. No telling who might show up — since there’s nobody on the host committee.

The same night, Artiles is having his own fundraiser in Tallahassee hosted by some of his colleagues and would-be colleagues in the legislature and only two state reps (Jose Oliva and Jose Felix “Pepe” Diaz. Los dos pepes) from the 305, because Artiles is not liked that much. The others are from elsewhere, albeit heavy hitters from leadership — including President-designate Joe Negron, Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano and Speaker Designate Richard Corcoran — perhaps indicating that the GOP is seriously trying to take the blue seat from Sen. Dwight Bullard.

Read related story: In battle to keep Senate seat 40, Dems eye Ana Rivas Logan

Or maybe everybody else is getting their hair done and their shoes shined for Wednesday. That’s when, between them, Sen. Anitere Flores and State Rep. Manny Diaz, Jr., have all the serial political event hosts in town at their soirees, respectively, in Coral Gables and Hialeah.

Let’s ignore that it’s strange for these two — both of whom work in the charter school industry and who arguably draw from the same pool of donors — to have their fundraisers on the very same day at the very same time. Maybe Flores will go to Hialeah next week and Diaz will come to Coral Gables. Cuidado!

The invites are engaging simply because of the large list of inviters — especially with Flores, who is apparently not taking the challenge from Democrat trust fund baby Andrew Korge lightly.

Flores’ event has nine special guests/speakers, 14 event chairpeople, and 25 names so far on the host committee that is “still in formation.” Still in formation?!? When is the elevator at capacity?

Among the special guests is the entire Cuban Congressional GOP caucus (Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) and five of the 13 county commissioners — Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Rebeca Sosa, Javier Souto, Xavier Suarez and Juan Zapata — as well as Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Read related story: Senate 39’s Andrew Korge vs Anitere Flores gets ugly fast

Chairs include lobbyists Ron Book, Al Cardenas and Manny Kadre, builders Sergio Pino and Pedro Munilla, automobile mogul Norman Braman and Miami-Dade Republican Party Chairman Nelson Diaz. Hosts include more Jeb Bush, Jr., container queen Remedios Diaz Oliver and a slew of more second tier lobbyists like Jose “El Chino” Fuentes, Luis Andre Gazitua, Bob Levy and Ralph Garcia-Toledo, who is now playing with the big boys thanks to his tour of duty as driver for then Commissioner Gimenez. (Tell your kids: Forget college! Drive a politician around and you’ll get rich!)

All 48 of them invite us to Bulla Gastrobar on Ponce de Leon Boulevard at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Half an hour later, though, we are invited to another fundraiser for Diaz Jr. at Hialeah Park, which you know is impossible in Miami-Dade traffic. Our hosts here include Sen. Rene Garcia, State Reps. Jose Oliva and Bryan Avila, former State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez (who is the RSVP on the invite) and Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban Bovo, all of whom kind of do stuff in lock step. They also include Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez and Hialeah Gardens Mayor Yioset de la Cruz as well as the full council of both cities.

We don’t have to wait long to see who wins the prize for best fundraiser. Checks written Tuesday and Wednesday will appear on the March campaign reports, which are due and become public April 10th or 11th.

My money is on the Gables soiree for Flores — if simply because of the numbers.

Game on, people! Warm up those wrists!