A.G. Gancarski
Duval County voters face a battle of two experienced candidates for the Supervisor of Elections seat that will be vacated by Jerry Holland this year.
Representing the Democrats, Tracie Davis, who has served in the SOE office for 13 years, through 44 elections, and as she said at the St. Paul AME forum this past week, other elections beyond that, including Union and high school elections. Davis projects an image of competence, but she has an edge to her that you don’t immediately see when you first meet her. At the aforementioned forum, she introduced herself by saying, “I stand before you to make sure that your power is never taken away again.” Clearly, that was a reference to the 2000 presidential election debacle.
The Republican standard-bearer, Mike Hogan, is a smart man and immediately blunted that critique, saying, “Florida was embarrassed and humiliated” in 2000 … and that’s why Hogan, in 2003 as a legislative chair of the Florida House Committee on Ethics and Elections, was instrumental in the effort to rewrite election laws and eliminate the use of outdated technology.
As Public Relations Employment Commission chair, Hogan oversaw 144 elections in three years, something he contends gives him the necessary experience to step into Holland’s shoes and do the job. He also points to his experience as the Duval County Tax Collector as evidence of his ability to step in and do the job, saying that managing the Tax Collector’s Office was “more complex” than managing the SOE office would be, and that “75% of the time spent by the Supervisor of Elections is managing the office.”
The candidates both see technological improvements as key: Davis advocates online voter registration, while Hogan is a proponent of “merging databases,” with an eye toward stopping a particular type of voter fraud from seasonal residents who vote here and then where they live during the warmer part of the year. Hogan vows he wants to stop those “snowbirds [from coming] down and voting in Florida” when they are registered elsewhere.
Hogan cites his time as the tax collector as one in which he made it easier for Duval County residents to pay taxes, saying that he “changed all of our systems … expanded hours … and decreased customer wait times.” Ninety-two percent of constituents, he said, rated him as an A or a B on a report card-style evaluation.
Hogan more than held his own in the forum, debating Davis with disarming respect. He is a confirmed retail politician, a voice of old Jacksonville with a distinctly 20th century presence. He also has baggage spanning the decades.
There are those who contend he is vulnerable on certain issues. Those issues include cutting city spending, where he has been described as “weak-kneed” except when it comes to cutting the city ethics office and the human rights commission — a move that would have saved $1 million and lost $7 million in federal grants, say some critics.
He disputes that contention. “The one million saved versus seven million lost is absolutely false. We would never have jeopardized any federal funding or grants. Under my plan the Human Rights Commission would have been an all volunteer commission in Duval, working in conjunction with the State Commission on Human Rights. Currently, citizens have the right to file with the State Commission on Human Rights and the Federal Commission on Human Rights. How many do we need?”
“As to the Ethics Office, it is a duplication of the State Ethics Commission, again taxpayers are having to fund two offices with the same purpose and jurisdiction.”
Critics also contend that, at a time of budget constraints, managed to get a $2 million boost to the Duval County Tax Collector’s office while the city wrestled with a $100 million budget deficit.
He rejects this contention, saying that “to put it nicely, this is horse dung. They only reported one side of the Balance sheet, they reported expenses and conveniently forgot the new revenues. This increase in expenses happened because the State of Florida Department of Motor Vehicles transferred the responsibility of issuing drivers’ licenses to my office which meant we had to absorb about 23 more employees (the State was employing over 40). This allowed the State to save millions of dollars, thus, Florida taxpayers saved millions of dollars. On the revenue side however, the move of that function to my office generated more income than cost for the City of Jacksonville. Bottom line, the City’s overall cost of my office was actually reduced by 1.2 million dollars from 2003 (when I came into the office) to 2011 (when I left office). In addition, some of the costs involved were one time dollars to purchase equipment to accommodate the new work function and new employees.”
He supported increased telephone rates, claim critics, to the tune of $344 million and an $8 million fee increase for driver’s licenses. But in both of these cases, there were, he says, extenuating circumstances.
The legislation itself was a clean-up bill on telecom de-regulation. There are a lot of details involved but the main point was to remove regulations that dated back to the 30’s regarding phone service to residents. The continued growth of cell service was shrinking the land line market and the phone companies were held to strict regulations regarding service calls and infrastructure. The 350 plus million dollars was an estimate the opposition suggested might occur, but the actual number could not have even been calculated.
After 9/11 the US Government through the Department of Homeland Security stepped up requirements on drivers’ license IDs. (4 or 5 of the perpetrators who participated in the plane crashes into the Twin Towers had “valid” Florida drivers’ licenses.) The new cards had to have security protection – holograms, layered printing, etc., to prevent fraudulent copying. Because these cards would cost more we had to increase the drivers’ license fee. However, we only increased enough to cover the cost of the new card.
Critics say he was profligate. Realists might say that Hogan was just getting what he could for his constituents or for his offices. Whatever the case, it is unlikely that Davis will be able to use the information in any sort of meaningful way. Even if she wanted to, she doesn’t have the resources or the latitude to go negative on Hogan, who is destroying her when it comes to fundraising.
It’s historically difficult to raise money for the SOE race. Davis has taken in just shy of $32,000. Hogan, meanwhile, has more than $55,000 raised, and the trend is with him. Name recognition in both the GOP and beyond is as well. Barring a last-minute commitment by the Duval County Democratic Party to give Davis money for mailers and to help her GOTV effort, it’s likely that Mike Hogan will be elected to office in three weeks.
