Florida 20: House Ethics Committee Releases Initial Cherfilus-McCormick Report
January 7, 2025 · 9:58 AM EST
Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick remains the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation, and documents released by the committee last week confirm Inside Elections’s reporting on the South Florida congresswoman’s unusual campaign finances and taxpayer-funded TV ads.
On Thursday, the House Ethics Committee published a report prepared by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) in September 2023 detailing several allegations against Cherfilus-McCormick, who won a razor-thin special election primary in Florida’s 20th District in 2021.
The preliminary report contained evidence that Cherfilus-McCormick may have made "impermissible payments” through a web of private companies and a state level PAC that should have been reported by her congressional campaign, accepted excessive campaign contributions, and “received services related to franked communications and other official work from an individual who was not compensated with official funds,” all of which could violate House rules or federal law.
In June 2022, Inside Elections published a report detailing Cherfilus-McCormick’s use of her House office’s taxpayer-funded budget to air campaign-style TV ads ahead of the competitive primary for her 2022 re-election. It is rare for members to use their official funds to air TV ads, especially in a media market as expensive as Miami, and the ads resembled campaign commercials more than purely informational PSAs. Members are prohibited from using official funds for campaign purposes.
Cherfilus-McCormick and her staff expressed their own concerns about the ads, the report reveals. At one point the congresswoman even floated taking the commercials off the air, noting that kind of advertising “has never been done before.” One of her staff responds that the ads are “close to the line but legal.”
The story also detailed the role that local political operative Mark Goodrich played in both Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 and 2022 campaigns and her official office, a role that Goodrich downplayed in an June 2022 interview with Inside Elections and Cherfilus-McCormick’s office declined to comment on. Goodrich previously was best known as a Republican consultant in South Florida.
Goodrich features prominently in the report, which alleges that far from being a mere volunteer, he was the de facto campaign manager for the 2021 and 2022 races and also oversaw the House office’s franked spending.
In June 2022, Inside Elections asked Cherfilus-McCormick’s office to clarify Goodrich’s roles at the campaign and in Congress. The OCE report includes several drafts of a statement in response to those questions, and an initial draft mentioned Goodrich by name and acknowledged his role in helping place the ads — but maintained he was just a volunteer and supporter of the congresswoman.
Cherfilus-McCormick and her district chief of staff Nadege Leblanc edited the statement to remove any mention of Goodrich and directed the press secretary to withhold other information and not to respond to follow-ups. Leblanc specified that “our answers should be as vague as possible with no specifics.”
Cherfilus-McCormick also insisted that the statement from the House office include a line denying any relationship with her House campaign or knowledge of their actions. But in the next text in the thread she discussed the campaign’s response and directed a campaign staffer not to respond to reporter inquiries. In other text message conversations included in the report, Cherfilus-McCormick, Goodrich and a House office staffer discuss both campaign activities and the franked advertisements.
The report also reveals Cherfilus-McCormick did not seek guidance on her office’s actions until after the fact, directing her staff to “ask legal for an opinion” on June 10, four days after the first ads appeared on TV. And only after Inside Elections sent a June 22 inquiry about Goodrich’s role did Cherfilus-McCormick ask the House Ethics Committee if she was allowed to rely on a volunteer for placing franked ads.
The investigation remains open in the new Congress, and it is not obvious what additional actions the Ethics Committee has taken since it received the OCE report more than a year ago.
The OCE recommended the committee pursue investigations on four different potential violations of House Rules, standards of conduct, and federal law.
Cherfilus-McCormick said in a statement that she “plan[s] on continuing to collaborate with the Committee." But the OCE said she did not cooperate in its investigation and recommended the committee subpoena her.