AGO 83-74
In Attorney General Opinion (AGO)
83-74 Florida Attorney General Jim Smith, a
Democrat at the time, told Chairman of the Florida Democratic Party
Charles Whitehead that the party loyalty oath which his party
was proposing was unauthorized by the legislature and therefore
could not be used to bar Democratic candidates from being placed on the
ballot. (You can look up AGO 83-74 by going to the Florida Attorney
General's website at http://myfloridalegal.com, then clicking on
AG Opinions on the left list of items in green, then click on the
first entry of Searchable Database of Attorney General Opinions, then
in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, click on Jump To Year and select
1983, then scroll to AGO 83-74 and click on it.) But the Democrats with
Whitehead at the helm did it anyway and
no one in our state government, Republican or Democrat, has yet
tried to stop them, although our party chairman has taken them to court
with in Kelly v. Oliver and Kelly v. Harris. Whitehead was also the Democrat's
Chairman during the 2000 presidential election.
Many of you may remember that this same Attorney General Jim Smith became
erradic and
politically bizarre during the 1986 race for governor in which he a Democrat
was for the first time subject to signing his party's loyalty oath which he,
as Attorney General, had determined was
unauthorized and perhaps unconstitutional as well in AGO 83-74. It was widely believed that
he would run for governor, but then Smith decided to be a running mate instead,
then dropped out of the race altoghter and then at the last minute became a candidate
for governor again but lost that very close primary race to Steve Pajcic. Smith then cooly endorsed
Pajcic then in less than a year he became a Republican and was soon
thereafter appointed Secretary
of State by newly elected Governor Bob Martinez, himself a former Democrat.
Perhaps during this 1986 governor's race the politically ambitious
Democratic Attorney
General Jim Smith was conflicted between publicly challenging his party's
party
loyalty oath which he had concluded was unenforeable back in 1983 and the
other choice of quietly signing the oath and keeping his political career on
track for the governorship. He kept quiet and throughout his tenure as
Secretary of State (1987-1995)(2002-2003),
Florida's chief election officer let the people of Florida
down in the process.
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