Two weeks ago, Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long’s re-election campaign sent out mailers to voters without the “paid political advertisement” notice required by Florida’s campaign financing law. In other words, the campaign broke the law.
Now the campaign has added a disclaimer to its most recent mailer, but that disclaimer says “Paid by Janet Long, Democrat for Pinellas County Commission Dist. 2.” However, Long is running in district 1, not district 2. The relevant portion of Long’s most recent mailer, which arrived in our mailbox today, is shown below.
In other words, the Long campaign broke the law – again. This is the third time in less than 6 months that the campaign either fails to include the disclaimer (twice) or included an erroneous disclaimer (once).
Long’s use of coronavirus imagery is appropriate because it certainly seems like some sort of disease has struck the campaign. A disease best described as an inability to follow simple instructions, or “stupidity” in common parlance.
After multiple campaign financing law violations of the same type in less than 6 months, one would think that someone in the campaign would have gone over this latest mailer with a magnifying glass before mailing it out.
But one would be wrong if one thought that.
Once again, just as after the previous instances of Long’s lawlessness, the Guardian contacted Janet Long via e-mail and text and asked a few questions. We also said that if she had any comments for publication, we’d be happy to receive them.
We did not receive from Long by the time deadline we provided her.
Has Janet Long’s re-election campaign come down with a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)? Or do not very bright children run her campaign? The jokes write themselves after Long’s never-ending violations of Florida’s campaign financing law.
As always….the Guardian reports and our readers decide. Like our Facebook page to find out when we publish articles.