A.G. Gancarski
A settlement has been reached between state Rep. Kim Daniels and the Florida Elections Commission on disputed campaign spending from Daniels’ failed 2015 re-election bid to the Jacksonville City Council.
Daniels will be compelled to pay $1,500, per a consent order signed in October. The deal will be finalized at an FEC meeting Tuesday.
As Jacksonville’s Folio Weekly reported in February 2015, Daniels spent $4,000 of campaign funds to promote her book, “The Demon Dictionary,” in a religious magazine called Shofar.
Daniels also offered editorials in the magazine without the provision of disclaimers marking the communiques as campaign communications.
Local activist and journalist David Vandygriff of JaxGay.com filed an FEC complaint. In March 2016, staff recommended to the commission that there was probable cause to believe that an election code violation might have occurred.
Daniels was found to have violated three separate counts.
Count 1 states that on or about March 1, 2014, Daniels used campaign funds to defray normal living expenses.
That violates Statute 106.1405, which asserts that contributions cannot be used “to defray normal living expenses for the candidate or the candidate’s family, other than expenses actually incurred for transportation, meals, and lodging by the candidate or a family member during travel in the course of the campaign.”
Count 2 asserts a prohibited expenditure during the same time frame, violating 106.19(1)(d).
Count 3 asserts a report of false information, violating 106.19(1)(c), on or about April 9, 2014 — a date that coincides with when her campaign finance information would have been filed.
Though Daniels appears to have successfully resolved the campaign finance quibble, the pastor/politician has at least one more pending legal matter.
Daniels’ Spoken Word Ministries has fought foreclosure proceedings on an $860,000 “parsonage” in Davie, Florida, with its latest contention being that Hurricane Irma presented impacts.
Daniels’ foreclosure attorney, citing “irreconcilable differences,” removed himself from the case.
The mortgage holder, Freedom Mortgage Corporation, has sought to foreclose on the property since December 2016.
However, those efforts have been successfully forestalled over months. Motions to cancel a sale date have been filed four times. The most recent one, a cancellation of an October sale due to Hurricane Irma, reset the event to a December sale date.
A hearing in that case also is slated for Tuesday in South Florida.
