Fitting or chilling? Miami-Dade ethics panel issues first-ever fine for ‘frivolous’ complaint

This month, the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) did something it’s never done in its nearly three decades of existence.

Some say it represents the first step toward stopping people from using the panel to generate negative headlines about political opponents. Others believe it will cast a chilling effect on people who would otherwise file valid complaints in the future.

On July 10, the COE ordered ethics and elections lawyer Juan-Carlos “J.C.” Planas, a Democratic candidate for Supervisor of Elections, to pay $5,675 to cover the legal fees of former Miami Beach City Commissioner Michael Góngora.

The sum included compensation for what Góngora spent to defend himself against an ethics complaint Planas filed last year, when Góngora ran for Miami Beach Mayor against Planas’ then-client, former state Rep. Mike Grieco.

It also included repayment for costs Góngora’s legal team accrued while seeking recompense for the legal costs themselves — something for which Planas argued there are no provisions in either state statutes or the county code.

Loressa Felix, General Counsel for the COE, told Florida Politics the order marked “the first time that the Commission has awarded fees” since its founding in 1996.

The fees stemmed from a complaint Planas filed Sept. 25, 2023, on behalf of Grieco, who is now under a one-year suspension from the Florida Bar for campaign finance violations. Planas’ complaint asserted that Góngora violated ethics strictures by failing to disclose as campaign gifts tickets he recevied for a dinner event during Carbon Beach in May 2023.

Góngora never disclosed the source of the tickets. He maintained, as did Becker lawyers representing him, that he was under no legal obligation to disclose the tickets because he didn’t qualify for the Miami Beach Mayor’s race until Sept. 7. When he accepted the tickets and attended the event, he was not serving in any elected office.

Planas sent a similar complaint to the Florida Commission on Ethics, which rejected it on Oct. 25. In its order, the State Commission concurred with Góngora’s position that he was only required to file a gift disclosure report upon his qualifying to run for office.

Both complaints hinged on Form 9 disclosure requirements, which are mandated at the state level. Despite the State Commission’s dismissal of Planas’ complaint for “lack of legal sufficiency,” Planas continued to pursue his substantively identical complaint in Miami-Dade for almost a month after, until the COE tossed it too.

COE Chair Judith Bernier, then the panel’s Vice Chair, wrote in a July 15 order that Planas had an “admitted familiarity” with the Miami-Dade ethics ordinances and, as such, his complaint was “frivolous.” She wrote that he “knew or should have known, at the time of filing, that his complaint was not supported by the application of ordinances under the Ethics Commission’s jurisdiction to the material facts present.”

‘A grave mistake’

Planas told Florida Politics he’s appealing the decision, which will otherwise dictate how state statutes are interpreted when considering attorney’s fee penalties and sanctions for unsupported claims or defenses.

As it stands, he said, the judgment is a strong deterrent against action that could otherwise hold wrongdoers accountable.

“The Commission made a grave mistake of setting a legal precedent that will make it almost impossible for someone to file a complaint like this in the future,” he said. “They’ve lowered the standard of frivolity so low that people are going to be afraid to file lawsuits. You get a judge on the wrong day, and someone can be ordered to pay fees for filing a lawsuit in good faith.”

And that’s exactly what Planas said he did. Góngora was the only Miami Beach Mayor candidate who did not file a second-quarter gifts disclosure last year, and that deviation deserved flagging, he said.

He added that because the Florida Commission on Ethics notifies complainants of dismissals by “snail mail” postage, he was unaware for weeks that the state panel had rejected his complaint.

The state’s outright rejection of the complaint raises another concern, he continued, because it essentially established that neither the state nor the county can hold candidates accountable for questionable financial activity while they’re actively campaigning for public office.

“Ultimately, someone has to have jurisdiction here,” he said. “This says no one did.”

‘Tired of being used’

By the time Planas filed the complaints, his client, Grieco, and Góngora had been embroiled in a monthslong feud, with each candidate accusing the other of impropriety.

In late December 2022, Greico secretly recorded Góngora during a meeting the two had in which Góngora bragged about having financial support from powerful real estate developer Russell Galbut.

Grieco told the Miami Herald he recorded their conversation to ensure nothing he said would be misrepresented by Góngora, a fellow Democrat who he said was trying to keep him from running. He also suggested Góngora’s claim about Galbut represented a campaign finance violation.

Góngora argued it did not, since the money from Galbut went to an electioneering communications organization supporting his campaign, which is allowed. He countered that Grieco violated state law by recording him without his consent.

He and then-Vice Mayor Steven Meiner outpaced Grieco and one other candidate to compete in a runoff, which Meiner won with 54% of the vote Nov. 22.

Things might have gone differently, Góngora told Florida Politics, had he not been dealing with Grieco and Planas’ “attempt to cast a false cloud” over his candidacy.

“It was a distraction from my campaigning,” he said. “My feeling is that the Ethics Commission themselves are tired of being used by candidates in political races, of being weaponized to create campaign issues.”

Miami-Dade’s first elected Supervisor of Elections

This November, Miami-Dade will elect its first voter-chosen Supervisor of Elections. County voters abolished the elected post and two other constitutional offices — Tax Collector and Property Appraiser — through the 1957 adoption of the county’s Home Rule Charter. The charter delegated the power of those offices to Miami-Dade’s top executive official, now the county Mayor, who appoints people to those positions.

But in 2018, Florida voters — including 58% of Miami-Dade voters — approved a constitutional amendment requiring every county in the state to elect those officers, as well as a Sheriff, by Jan. 7, 2025.

Current Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White confirmed last year that she would not seek election to the office she’s held since 2015.

Planas, a Republican-turned-Democratic former state lawmaker, is competing for the job in a Primary with political consultant Willis Howard and Arnie Weiss, a digital media entrepreneur whose campaign says he’s “taken on the county” twice about election matters.

The winner will face Republican Miami Rep. Alina García, a longtime GOP operative who scored an endorsement from Donald Trump in late May.

Planas switched parties in November 2020 after Trump spread lies that the Presidential Election was rigged.

The Primary is on Aug. 20, followed by the General Election on Nov. 5.

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Editor’s note: This report was updated to say the tickets Góngora received were for a one-night event, not four nights, and for Carbon Beach.