Real-estate lobbyists try to tilt election with deceptive ads

Lobbyists for Realtors tried to kill a plan to slow suburban sprawl in Orange County. Then they pretended to support that plan in campaign ads for a candidate they want to win a key local race.

Photo credit: Bob Jagendorf

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Imagine opening your mailbox to find a mailer from the National Rifle Association — touting a candidate claiming to support gun control.

That’s a bit what it’s been like in parts of Orange County, where some residents recently received mail pieces promoting Steve Leary, a candidate running in a potentially pendulum-swinging race for the local county commission.  

The campaign ads, which arrived just before last month’s primary election and helped Leary advance to the November general election, heaped praise on Leary for supporting for one of the most contentious issues in this year’s local elections: A proposed “rural boundary” that would wall off some of Orange County’s undeveloped land from further suburban sprawl.

“It’s high time to…protect our rural boundary,” one mailer declared. “Steve knows how to get us there!”

Protecting the rural boundary, another piece promised, is Leary’s top priory.

There’s just one catch: These ads were paid for by a deep-pocketed special interest group that represents Realtors — who have lobbied hard against a rural boundary in Orange County.

Just a few months ago, the head of the local Realtors association publicly warned county leaders that the organization — one of the most influential lobbies in local politics — was “strongly” opposed to a rural boundary.

“This proposal may well diminish and/or remove individual property rights…” Cliff Long, the president of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, wrote in an April 15 a letter sent to Orange County’s mayor and all six current county commissioners, among others.

It’s akin to Vladimir Putin promoting a candidate for Congress by claiming that candidate will protect Ukraine.

That’s not the end of the deception, either. Leary’s chief opponent in the race for Orange County’s District 5 commission seat — the candidate he now faces one-on-one in the general election — is Kelly Semrad. She’s the environmental activist who has personally led the campaign to create a rural boundary.

Meanwhile, Leary, a former mayor of Winter Park, has been vague about whether he fully supports the proposal, which consists of two separate-but-related charter amendments that will also appear on the November ballot. And Leary has raised thousands of dollars from real-estate developers who have tried to block the rural boundary referendums.

In fact, the Orlando Realtors have endorsed candidates in all three county commission elections. In each race, the Realtors are backing the candidate who is less committed to the rural boundary.

The duplicitous ad blitz illustrates the lengths some special interests will go to try and trick voters into electing industry-cozy leaders. But it also underscores the stakes of this year’s elections in Orange County, where nearly half the county commission is up for grabs — in races in which there are clear divides between the candidates on issues like tourism taxes and suburban sprawl.

Technically, the mailers promoting Steve Leary were sent by a political committee controlled by the Florida Association of Realtors, a statewide lobbying group for Realtors based in Tallahassee.

But the Orlando Regional Realtors is a local affiliate of the state organization. And the Orlando chapter has been actively fundraising for that political committee — which records show has also spent at least $12,500 on polling in Orange County’s District 5 commission race.

Mercedes Fonseca, the vice president of government affairs for the Orlando association, also insisted that the campaign ads are not inconsistent with the Realtors’ lobbying.

When the Orlando Realtors told county leaders they were “strongly” opposed to the rural boundary, Fonseca said they were not necessarily against the idea itself. The organization, she said, wanted to slow the process down because they were upset that neither they nor other affected industry groups — such as the agriculture and construction lobbies — had been consulted in discussions about the proposal.

Obviously, Orange County leaders decided to put the rural boundary referendums on the ballot anyway. But Fonseca said it’s not correct to say the Orlando Realtors oppose them — the group, she said, hasn’t yet taken an official position the actual ballot measures.

I’d say the Realtors’ endorsements in the three county commission races already reveal quite clearly where they stand on these rural boundary referendums.

In addition to Steve Leary, the Realtors are supporting Austin Arthur, a marketing executive who opposes a key piece of the rural boundary plan — and who, like Leary, has raised thousands of dollars from developers who have lobbied against the proposal. The Realtors are also backing Linda Stewart, a state senator who voted for a developer-backed bill in Tallahassee meant to stop the referendums from happening.

Their opponents — incumbent commissioners Nicole Wilson and Mayra Uribe — both voted to put the rural boundary referendums on the ballot. Both say they will personally vote for the measures, too.