Golburgh Signs Financial Disclosure; Will There Be A Lawsuit?
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Judicial candidate Lloyd Golburgh amended his financial disclosure Monday, putting his signature on the form that he had failed to sign at the proper time.
“He did submit an amended form,” said Mary Cooney of the Supervisor of Elections Office. “It is signed and I notarized it.”
Golburgh will remain on the ballot unless there is a law suit to remove him.
A law suit would allege Golburgh was not a legal candidate because he didn’t file a signed financial disclosure before the qualifying period closed.
Legal opinions differed on the merits of such a case.
“He’s not a candidate,” said one lawyer.
“There is no way a judge is going to cancel this candidacy for an oversight as minimal as this,” said another.
That’s why they call it legal opinions, and not facts.
Now it will be interesting to see if anybody dislikes Golburgh’s candidacy so much that they file suit.
Golburgh is running against County Judge Edward Merrigan.
Here is my original post explaining the controversy.
May 10th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Whomever said this is “minimal” better read the law on this topic.
Minimal is if he left off an asset or liability which the Amendment Form allows him to fix. Maybe leaving of what Group Number he was running in may be deemed minimal.
Not signing the form coupled with the fact that the knowingly allowed the notary to violate the law by allowing her to “notarize” his “signature” without the document not being signed, takes this out of the minimal category.
How can he explain that he allowed the notary to notarize a blank signature in violation of thelaw?
He will be lucky if all that happens is he get kicked off the ballot. I would think the Florida Bar and FDLE who investigates notary cases will be interested in his participation in all of this. Then there is the poor Notary….
The problem for the Court is if you start allowing the “minimal” stuff to slide, especially in this case a signature on a vital document, you start going down a real slippery slope.
May 10th, 2010 at 10:03 am
I would have to agree that failing to sign a legal document is not trivial.
An unfortunate lesson to learn.
May 11th, 2010 at 3:05 am
I would be curious to know when the Amendment was filed. My understanding is that it is clocked in at the time you submit it to SOE. So if it was clocked in yesterday that would suggest that Golburgh lied on Friday when he said he filed it then. Cant this guy ever just do things the right way?
June 12th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Though many assumptions are being made, they are wholly uninformed. The qualifications for judicial office are controlled by the Florida Constitution. If a statute creates additional requirements for judicial office qualification, it is (and has been held) unconstitutional. The form requiring a signature was not even created by the Legislature. It was concocted by someone in the Ethics Commission; not by constitutional amendment or even legislative action. The frivolous lawsuit alleging otherwise is a polically motivated farse, created to fool those too lazy to read the law they so readily espouse, or, worse yet for Merrigan (the previously suspended plaintiff/attorney Beamer notwithstanding), an uninvestigated claim, subject to sanctions by statute. Merrigan may be all that he may be. But Golburgh is better for not having (to date) stooped to the farsical low and detestably personal levels engendered by the abuse of legal process to stay in office. An omission is an omission. An affirmative act to abuse the court system clearly requires removal from office. What he does in his campaign he will continue to do on the bench. Look at the browardbeat disapproval ratings. Polls will now be worse.
June 12th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Article III, Section 19, of the Florida Constitution provides:
“All judicial officers in this state shall be conservators of the peace.”