Republican ‘betrayal’ sets up bizarre Florida campaign

Carey Baker left the Lake County Supervisor of Elections Office just after the noon qualifying deadline Friday, confident he had wrapped up a fourth term as property appraiser, his third in a row without an opponent and his second without his name even appearing on the ballot.

Baker, you see, had come up with a trick. By filing as a write-in, he didn’t have to pay the typical candidate’s qualifying fee, a savings of $10,685.04. By staking out the election office on Friday, he would make certain he had no opponent, thus winning the race outright.

But an hour or so later, Elections Supervisor Alan Hays called him.

Baker had drawn a last-minute rival. And fellow Republican Mark Jordan’s name, unlike Baker’s, would appear on the general ballot in Lake County, where the GOP dominates elections by a wide margin.

Jordan, a former firefighter and paramedic for Leesburg, was appointed in January by Gov. Ron DeSantis to fill a vacant seat on the North Lake County Hospital District Board, a taxing authority. He had filed paperwork June 10 to retain that board seat, but he rescinded that filing on Friday, putting in for the $168,000-a-year property appraiser post instead.

Mark Jordan’s brother, David, is Lake County tax collector.

“It’s like something out of a Shakespeare play, probably the greatest personal betrayal I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Baker said in a phone interview from a Boy Scout summer camp in Georgia, where he served as Scoutmaster. “I had told David Jordan, who I considered a friend, what I was going to do. Same as I’d done before. … Wait until the very end, and when no one files to run against me, I file as a write-in at the deadline. I’m automatically elected and then I give all that money back to my contributors.”

Baker watched as the elections staff put a sign on the door at noon, closing the qualifying period.

“We’re all basically queued up in this room waiting to hand in our paperwork. I had gotten there before David, Mark and Mike Holland, the mayor of Eustis who also works for David, and a few other people I knew, none of whom were running for property appraiser,” Baker said. “At that point, seeing no one was going to run against me, I turned my paperwork in as a write-in candidate. It was time-stamped 12:01, I said good-bye to everybody and I walked out a happy guy on my way to speak to the League of Cities in Mount Dora.”

Neither Mark Jordan nor David Jordan returned multiple phone calls seeking comment.

Social media has been ablaze with criticism of the Jordans but no election laws were broken, Hays said.

“For some people, there’s statutory laws and there’s moral laws,” Hays said. “No statutory laws were broken here.”

But Anthony Sabatini, Lake County GOP chairman, lashed out at both Jordans, calling the furtive filing “almost pure thievery.”

“Everyone is disgusted and appalled and disturbed by what happened — on a moral level more than politically,” he said. “We’ll do every single thing we can to make it clear to the Jordans, particularly to Mark, that the party will not acknowledge him and may expel or censure him. … He doesn’t deserve the Republican nomination.”

A post on the Lake County Republicans’ Facebook page included the brothers’ phone numbers and pledged to demand the governor “REMOVE Mr. Jordan from office for the cause of misfeasance” although it was unclear whether it meant Mark or David Jordan or both.

Another commented, “This crap is why it is hard to get good citizens to run for offices. Dirty people playing dirty games.”

Tire store owner Ralph Smith, an outspoken Republican, wrote on his personal Facebook page that he would pay his property taxes Nov. 1 and make the check out to “David (Judas) Jordan, Tax Collector.”

In a phone interview, Baker said winning the contested election on Nov. 5 as a write-in candidate will be difficult, “but we’ll give it our best.”

But he also predicted public pressure might persuade Mark Jordan to withdraw.

Baker said he regrets not listening to his wife who had urged him Friday morning to “just write the check” so he could appear on the ballot.

“But I said, ‘No, honey, I got this.’ And so, oh, man, the first call I had to make was to my wife. Of course she was gracious and loving and forgiving, but both she and I knew what a knucklehead I was.”

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