On WCOA this morning, State Rep. Alex Andrade said Form 6 is not “the be-all and end-all of financial disclosures and keeping government officials on the up and up.”
“At the same time, it’s the bare minimum of what public officials are expected to fill out and submit so that people can be aware of the investments you have in certain different businesses or what kind of interests you have and companies or ownership stakes you have in, land that you may be purchasing,” he said, noting that he has complete the form nine times.
“It’s a four-page document that you have to sign under oath,” Andrade said. “It’s not the most difficult document to fill out, but it’s also not the most difficult document to print and mail in.”
He explained the difference between incumbents and other candidates using Form 6, which is available online.
“If you are already an incumbent, there’s already an account for you at the Florida Commission on Ethics to fill out your Form 1 or Form 6 financial disclosures, and it’ll be publicly available,” Andrade said.
“What the Legislature did was say, because we’re trying to move all of this online and centralize it at the Florida Commission on Ethics, candidates who don’t have an account yet with the Florida Commission on Ethics, they can use that same online platform to fill it out instead of printing one out and filling it out by hand. That’s just for convenience.”
He added, “The requirement to turn in your full and public financial disclosure has never changed for candidates, and the requirement for constitutional officers to turn in their full and public financial disclosure to the supervisor of elections in whatever county they’re running in has never changed.”
According to the state lawmaker, candidates have been announced as qualified and then later found to meet the requirements in the Florida statutes in other counties. The next step after the qualification deadline is certification.
“The week after that qualifying period for candidates is the week where every office goes back through that paperwork and those documents, checks every box, crosses every T, dots every I before finalizing and ratifying its ballot to send to Tallahassee so that its ballots can be certified and printed,” Andrade said.
“I wasn’t surprised that someone was deemed not qualified during that qualifying during the ratification certification week. That’s not out of the ordinary. In fact, I called the Florida Secretary of State and asked the same question, ‘Did y’all have someone you listed on your website as qualified that turned out not to be qualified?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we had a candidate. There was a clerical error, and the candidate didn’t turn in all their paperwork, so they ended up not being qualified.’”
#notreadbypamchilders
C.J.,
You don’t understand the process. As I posted earlier, Bruce Childers does not have an account with the State Commission on Ethics. He doesn’t have a Form 6 stored with the commission. He used the commission site to complete a Form 6 but failed to print it and turn in to the Supervisor of Elections office before noon on Friday, June 14. As Rep. Andrade said on my radio show, the online form is for the convenience of candidates without ethics commission accounts. He could have printed a blank form and hand wrote his entries and given that to the SOE. All the candidates that qualified understood the process.
Bender will present the facts at the upcoming court hearing.
-Rick
The document at the link below is the “Bill Analysis And Fiscal Impact Statement” for SB 774. Also below is a Studio 850 link to a copy of the SOE’s 2024 Qualifying Check List used to determine that Bruce Childers qualified. There are no dates for the two reviews, the first conducted by Sonya Daniel, the second by someone with the initials “KS.” Can assume that both were conducted on Wednesday, June 12 because the SOE posted a document that same day describing Childers was qualified? The check list does not provide a place to certify that a hard copy of Form 6 when required was provided to the SOE office. I can see how SOE staff relying on the check list would believe that Childers had as Andrade would say checked the boxes, crossed the Ts and dotted the Is. Did the incomplete check list unwittingly lead Sonya Daniel to give incorrect instructions to Childers? Channel 3 and News Radio 92.3 are reporting that Childers did not submit the Form 6. He did, right? He submitted it online to Tallahassee, yes? The only issue is if he was required to give a hard copy of Form 6 to the SOE (yes) and is he to blame because the SOE staff said he did not (a judge will sort it out). If this drags on, the SOE election could be conducted in November or during a special election. The big mystery remains what Bender knew and when he knew it and why he didn’t tell Childers. If the candidate in question had been a friend, would Bender have told his friend about the issue?
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/774/Analyses/2023s00774.rc.PDF
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=975398997928272&set=pcb.975399174594921
https://escambiavotes.gov/news/2024/06/12/qualified-candidates-wednesday-june-12