Campaign No-No: Candidate Spent More Than She Raised
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Democratic activist Barry Harris should know better.
His wife, Broward Circuit Court judicial candidate Julie Shapiro Harris, is spending more money for her campaign than she is raising.
Barry Harris knows that is a campaign no-no.
Unless Shapiro Harris intends to kick in $116,000 like she did two years ago when she lost a circuit court race, she has got to step up her fund raising.
Shapiro Harris raised $10,794 and spent $11,923 so far in her campaign. If it wasn’t for the $5,100 she kicked in herself, Shapiro Harris would be running a deficit, according to her latest financial report through Sept. 30.
What did she spend it on?
The big expenses:
- Robin Rorapaugh, a campaign consultant, $1,000.
- Mastermailer, a Hollywood mailing firm, $4,100.
- Union Printing in Hollywood, $4,670.
Her 71 contributors are a cross section of Broward and courthouse politics befitting the wife of Barry Harris, such as:
- Commissioner Dean Trantalis of Fort Lauderdale, $250.
- Commissioner Shari McCartney of Oakland Park, $250.
- Mayor Joy Cooper of Hallandale Beach, $250.
- Mayor Lamar Fisher of Pompan Beach, $500.
- Mayor Michael Udine of Parkland’s law firm, $100.
- Democratic activist and lawyer Nick Steffens’ law firm, $300.
- Lobbyist Ron Book of Plantation, $500.
- Property Appraiser Lori Parris of Davie, $36.
- School Board member Robin Bartleman, $35
- Lawyer and courthouse pot stirrer Kevin Kulik, $200.
- Ruden McClosky Committe for Good Government, a defunct and formally powerful law firm that gave her money in the summer just before closing, $250. (The committee also gave its final money to Commissioner Chip LaMarca and House candidate Joe Geller, who works at the law firm that took over Ruden.)
My question is how often Shapiro Harris can go to her husband’s political contacts for donations? Is there more to raise from this bunch?
An important question since she is running against Stacey Schulman, a lawyer who can raise six figures by just picking up the phone.
October 11th, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Buddy-
Julie Shapiro Harris is a well qualified candidate who is highly respected in the court house and in the legal community of Broward County. She has 18 years legal experience and is a public servant today.
She came within a several thousand votes of being elected to the circuit court in 2012 and is building upon that campaign to win in 2014.
The expenditures sited in your story were made at my direction from campaign funds which were reported in full compliance with campaign law. Your headline could be construed to indicate otherwise.
I am confident that both candidates will be successful in raising the necessary funds to communicate to the voters of Broward County.
October 11th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
May I inform you of the term “householding” mail, maybe the reason Julie’s printing costs were so high was because people who had previously donated to different campaigns recieved multiple envelopes for both her fundraising letter and her fundraiser invite? A printer not making money on volume would have been able to narrow down multiple names at one address to one mailing instead of multiple pieces of stamped mail.
The way I look at the contributions to expendatures you lost money on both fundraising efforts due to the cost of the printing and mailing.
Maybe you should read beyond the headline, clearly the story is reported accurately
“Shapiro Harris raised $10,794 and spent $11,923 so far in her campaign. If it wasn’t for the $5,100 she kicked in herself, Shapiro Harris would be running a deficit, according to her latest financial report through Sept. 30.”
It is the usual BS from the campaign blood suckers. While you authorized the costs leaving the campaign with no funds raised, as always in Broward you made darn sure you got paid.
October 11th, 2013 at 7:20 pm
Let’s be real here. Julie is a nice lady…charming in fact. But she is completely unknown in the courthouse because she has never handled a trial, and in fact, has never even practiced in a courtroom. She has spent her entire career working in the clerk’s office.
Try to find her name connected as the attorney of record on any case anywhere at anytime and you’ll find nothing. So yes, she’s a nice lady…but quit with the smoke and mirrors about her alleged tenure as a practicing attorney. It’s just not there and only people outside of the courthouse would believe otherwise.
October 11th, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Buddy are you insinuating that someone should not run for office unless they have the ability to raise six figures by just picking up the phone?
Should I remind you that no amount of money helped the husband and wife Seidman team who both lost their elections?
You make me want to puke with the way you get on your knees for Schulman. Money is not everything…..
FROM BUDDY:
I’m saying that money is an essential part of a Broward countywide campaign. Julie Shapiro Harris recognized that in 2012, which is the reason she put so much of her own money in the race.
Does money guarantee a victory? Certainly not. Shapiro Harris lost her 2012 race, despite outspending her opponent by thousands.
October 12th, 2013 at 9:56 am
What is the point of this story? She had enough cash to cover her expenses. She is raising the money essential to her countywide campaign.
What is the point?
October 12th, 2013 at 11:54 am
Buddy,
Again and again with all this pointless, circular whining about campaign finance. It’s just so tiresome.
If they raise it themselves, they’re elitists. As if only millionaires should be able to run for office.
If they raise it in the business community, they’re taking bribes and can’t be trusted.
If they raise it using lobbyists, they are sucking up to the well heeled crowd.
It’s all bullshit because at the end of the day campaigns cost money. You hear newspapers bellyache about it constantly, but it’s not like they’re giving away free space.
Bottom line is this. Either we go to public financing of campaigns — create a level playing field and eliminate individual and corporate contributions altogether — or we live with the reality that campaign money will always taint the view of our politics.
It’s really that simple. CHOOSE.
If the Constitution doesn’t allow that then let’s amend it. That’s what we the people are there for, to create a more perfect union.
But for Heaven’s sake, let’s stop with the endless bellyaching. Whining doesn’t suit this nation well and never did. We have become a nation of complainers. We used to be a nation of doers.
Grow a pair and fix a problems. Stop acting like a bunch of wimpy complainers, it makes me sick. Stand up. Get behind something for a change.
I’ve been an outspoken advocate for public financing of campaigns since BEFORE my first election. Sadly, it doesn’t exist because nobody seems to care enough to make it happen.
So like most everybody else who wants to make a difference, I am forced to raise money in order to run for office. It is a simple fact of life for me.
Do we like it? Hell no. Must we do it (endure it) to serve our communities, yes. Does it alter our honesty? It should not and never has to. Don’t believe that? Look at voting records. It’s all right there. Voting records tell you everything you need to know.
Challenge those who you feel don’t act with honesty.
But this constant complaining? This constant double guessing? Without doing something about?
That merits no respect.
That’s a lazy, useless, cynical way of acting. Jerks act that way, not citizens who care.
Does every official who receives campaign funds 100% honest? Probably not. Are most of them that way? In my experience, yes. To be sure, they try to be. Don’t believe that? Disprove it. PS — most of you are no bargain either.
The point of all this?
Do something. Be somebody. Stand for something. Let’s stop just being a complainers for crying out loud!! Let’s be Americans again and solve problems. Let’s stop thinking everything about our country is a dead dog also. We have the greatest nation, with all our issues, nobody even comes close. Be thankful. Make it better. Stop the bellyaching.
Thank you. I feel better now.
Angelo
October 12th, 2013 at 7:11 pm
I have superior qualifications to Harris but would never consider myself as qualified for that office. So I have to question her running.
October 12th, 2013 at 7:39 pm
Notice Comm.dean Trantalis w/ his big 250. Nothing but money to burn huh Dino(for now)……
October 14th, 2013 at 11:27 am
Angelo,
Thanks for complaining instead of doing something!
October 14th, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Tamarac,
Good one!
Angelo
October 14th, 2013 at 6:57 pm
Hey Buddy, do you remember how much Ian Richards raised when he ran against incumbent Catalina Avalos? She got her ass kicked even though she had big money donors and Ian Richards was an unknown black man who raised little money.
October 14th, 2013 at 8:32 pm
Ian Richards was a black man who hid from white voters betting on their prejudices against Hispanics and it worked. He put in 30k of his own money.
October 15th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
To Correction give me a break. The Hispanics rule Dade and Broward…..
October 15th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Trust me, they dont rule Broward.
October 15th, 2013 at 4:13 pm
In the last election, incumbent hispanic judge Bob Diaz easily beat 2 opponents and Julio Gonzalez put in for an open seat and almost beat Laura Watswon.
Those days of you can beat someone with a hispanic name in Broward County are over. Take a look around, there ain’t a city in this county where folks “no habla engles.”
October 16th, 2013 at 10:40 am
Julio had every major endorsement, the love of the condos, and the legal establishment. To say he almost beat Watson is a gross misstatement. She was David who beat Goliath.
November 21st, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Here is the true Julio Gonzalez Esq the employee of the year at the now defunct law firm RRA. The behind the scenes effort to prop up Julio by the impotent courthouse power-brokers worked for Rothstein got paid to do nothing.
https://redbroward.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/why-is-a-republican-judicial-candidate-paying-judy-stern-chris-smiths-mom-joe-eggelletions-brother/