A ruling Monday from Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Reid Scott upended the Riviera Beach City Council race.
Scott’s ruling means that six of 11 candidates, including all three mayoral candidates, did not qualify properly. The names of the five identified in the lawsuit should not appear on the March 11 ballot, he said.
He anticipated an appeal but said he ruled on the basis of a clear and unambiguous state law.
“I don’t think there’s any ambiguity in the language,” Scott said at a Zoom hearing attended by about 50 people. “And it certainly is not my job as a circuit court judge to legislate from the bench.”
At stake is a city council immersed in personal squabbles while juggling construction projects worth hundreds of millions, proposals for massive new developments to reshape the skyline and a water system rife with failures.
Additionally, lawyers said the question raises an unsettled matter of election law.
Six candidates used debit cards in November to pay their qualifying fees for the March election — $1,212 for mayor and $1,140 for council.
The judge agreed with Delray-based attorney Dedrick Straghn for plaintiffs Ronnie Felder, Tradrick McCoy and Fercella Davis-Panier. They argued that a debit card is not an acceptable form of payment under the law.
Removed from the ballot would be:
- The three candidates for mayor: Felder (who tried to fix his payment but used a check from the wrong campaign account, although he was not named in the lawsuit), Kendrick Wyly and Kendra Wester.
- District 5 incumbent Douglas Lawson and challenger Madelene Irving-Mills, handing the seat to Davis-Panier.
- District 1 challenger Joseph Bedford Sr. but not Bruce Guyton or McCoy, who would remain on the ballot.
Only the District 3 race pitting incumbent Shirley Lanier against Cedrick Thomas would be unaffected.
In representing the candidates thrown off the ballot, Tallahassee election lawyer Mark Herron pointed to a different election statute that says debit cards are the equivalent of printed checks for payment of campaign expenses, defined as spending to influence the results of an election.
“The qualifying fee is essentially the penultimate expenditure intended to influence the results of the election,” Herron said.
However, that’s the wrong section, Straghn said. The Legislature could have repeated that wording in the section applying to qualifying fees but didn’t.
The qualifying language simply says candidates must present “a properly executed bank check.”
“The Legislature intended ‘the law to effect a true bright line,’” Straghn wrote, citing an appellate court ruling earlier this year that removed incumbent Julie Botel from the ballot. The court rejected her payment with a cashier’s check, handing the election to her opponent, Glen Spiritis.
Judge Scott held to that bright line.
“Failure to pay the fee as provided in this subparagraph shall disqualify the candidate,” he said, citing the statute.
Herron said he would file a motion to stay. An attorney for the city, Juan-Carlos Planas of Miami, said he would have to get guidance from the City Council as to whether to appeal.
If no candidate qualifies for mayor, the council would have to appoint a mayor, who would hold office until the next general municipal election, said Richard Giorgio, campaign manager for three council candidates.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
