Top Gaetz ally paid $10k monthly as "redistricting consultant" while Gaetz was drawing maps

Matt Dixon
Naples Daily News











Matt Dixon, (@Mdixon55)

TALLAHASSEE _ As state Sen. Don Gaetz was leading the Senate’s redistricting efforts, one of his top allies was being paid $10,000 per month by the Republican Party of Florida to act as a “redistricting consultant.”

The payments came at a notable time: In late 2011, Gaetz was incoming Senate president, which meant he was in charge of coordinating 2012 Senate campaigns. It gave him a large amount of control over how huge sums of money were spent by the state GOP on Senate races.

That included money to consultants like Rich Heffley. Gaetz has said he had no idea his longtime friend was being paid by the party for redistricting advice.

The $10,000 regular payments from the Republican Party of Florida to Strategic Inc., a company owned by Heffley and his wife, Nancy, began in September 2011, the month Gaetz took over as the head of Senate campaigns. The payments ended in December 2013, a week after incoming Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, officially took over.

This look at state GOP expenditures is provided in thousands of pages of depositions and court documents related to an ongoing legal challenge over how the Legislature redrew the state’s congressional districts.

The lawsuit, filed by a group of plaintiffs that includes the League of Women Voters of Florida, contends the new congressional maps are at odds with so-called “Fair District” amendments passed by voters in 2010. Those changes, in part, said that the redistricting process no longer could favor or disfavor a specific political party.

If Tallahassee-area Circuit Judge Terry Lewis rules that politics shaped the maps to an unconstitutional level, it could force lawmakers to redraw that state’s congressional districts. The trial is scheduled to start Monday.

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