He was a rising Democratic star who, in 2018, came close enough to being Florida’s governor to trigger a statewide machine recount.
Now Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee who lost the race to Ron DeSantis, has been indicted in federal court on 21 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and making false statements — charges related to how he and a close associate raised and used money during his campaign and his time as mayor.
We don’t yet know if the allegations are true. Gillum, for his part, quickly denounced the case as politically motivated and said he would prove his innocence.
But there can be no dispute that another round of negative publicity from Gillum’s problems — there was also that episode in a Miami Beach hotel room that involved police and, eventually, rehab — is the last thing Democrats in Florida needed.
It’s not fair that other Democrats should have to bear the weight of Gillum’s possible misdeeds or misfortune. But fair has little to do with politics or, especially, fundraising for candidates. A group as beleaguered as Democrats are in Florida can’t afford the spectacle of Gillum in handcuffs in federal court.
But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday as he pleaded not guilty, this man who might have been the leader of the party less than four years ago as well as the state’s first Black governor. (The Miami Herald Editorial Board recommended him for the state’s top post.)
It’s been a rough few years for Gillum, who was born in Miami and raised in Gainesville. For a while after his loss to DeSantis, he had a national platform as a political contributor to CNN. In 2020, though, police found him in a South Beach hotel room with two men, including one suffering from a possible drug overdose. Gillum was not charged with anything. He went to rehab for alcohol abuse and later came out as bisexual during a TV interview that included his wife.
Gillum has long been under investigation, going back to his Tallahassee days. He paid a $5,000 ethics fine in 2019 after a federal investigation that involved undercover FBI agents and undeclared gifts, including a ticket to see “Hamilton” in New York. This latest round of far more serious allegations involves Gillum and his political adviser, Sharon Janet Lettman-Hicks. Federal prosecutors allege that they diverted money from his political committee to pay Gillum, defrauding campaign donors and organizations.
As Gillum’s star fell, Florida Democrats have had plenty of struggles of their own. Republicans now surpass Democrats in the number of registered voters in Florida. The state handed Donald Trump a solid win in 2020. And at the close of qualifying for candidates last week, it appeared that, in the state Senate, Democrats did not even field a candidate in 15 out of 40 races; in the House, Democrats apparently failed to contest 41 out of 120 races. House Republicans celebrated the election of at least 20 of their members, as the Miami Herald reported.
For Florida Democrats, it adds up to a difficult future — and a far cry from the days when Gillum was on the ascendancy, and the governorship seemed within their grasp.
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