A Florida state Senate election is "Ground Zero" for a revenge plot by state trial lawyers furious at a GOP lawmaker who cost them money by pushing reform measures - and their campaign of spending millions of dollars on one of 40 Senate seats got a boost from the country's most popular Republican, Donald Trump.
The once and possibly future President has thrown his weight into the effort to derail the nomination of Tom Leek, who is the target of a multimillion-dollar campaign led by Florida Democrats Leek says are trying to exert their influence on the Republican primary.
Trump announced his support for David Shoar, a retired sheriff who is challenging Leek for the GOP nomination. Shoar has drawn more than $6 million in support from trial lawyers across the state, who are enraged at Leek for supporting reforms that trimmed the fees lawyers could make by suing insurance companies.
“I knew they were very mad and suspected they would someday come looking for their pound of flesh,” Leek said of trial lawyers. “It’s a lot of folks who are Democrats and liberals who are supporting Democrats and liberals, who are now trying to manipulate the Republican primary.”
Leek, himself a lawyer who made a fortune in the insurance business, was attacked by John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan, the nation’s largest personal-injury firm, in a video in which Morgan accused Leek of being in the pocket of the insurance industry and having “little BB balls” for refusing to engage in a debate.
“He’s not a neighbor. He’s a nuisance,” Morgan said in the video. “If you vote for him, you’re voting against yourself.”
Leek laughed at the video, saying he was a Trump delegate at the GOP convention and still has the support of Florida conservatives including all four sheriffs in Senate District 7, where he is running. He can only guess at why the former president is supporting his rival (Trump called Shoar “100% MAGA” in a Truth Social post) but knows exactly why the trial bar is funding Shoar’s campaign.
As a state representative, Leek sponsored bills that ended longstanding practices like assignment of benefits, under which lawyers allied with contractors to sue insurers under a law that guaranteed their fees if they won more than the insurer’s final offer. The insurance industry compiled many examples of crooked contractors who submitted inflated repair bills and lawyers who charged excessive fees, costs that were passed through to insurance customers.
Even the political action committee supporting Shoar has an abbreviation that signals revenge. Floridians for Accountability and Freedom and Opportunity, or FAFO, has raised nearly $6 million so far, almost entirely from personal-injury lawyers who wrote checks as large as $100,000 before they even had a candidate to oppose Leek. (FAFO also stands for “f--- around and find out”.)
Floridians for Accountability has contributed $3 million to Truth Matters and $375,000 to Conservative Veterans Alliance, both of which have run advertising campaigns supporting Shoar and opposing Leek. Truth Matters has spent more than $4 million and Leek’s campaign has spent at least $3 million in what Leek said is the most expensive campaign for a legislative seat in Florida history.
Shoar only emerged as a candidate in June, months after trial lawyers started raising money to defeat Leek. A former sheriff, Shoar is now employed by a personal-injury law firm active in suing insurance companies.
Some of the largest contributors to the PAC are also solid Democratic Party supporters. Attorney Wayne Hogan gave $100,000 to FAFO and has contrinuted $47,900 to Kamala Harris’s Victory Fund and more than $200,000 to other Democratic entities. Pajcic & Pajcic gave $250,000 to FAFO and $25,000 to Harris (partner Seth Pajcic also gave $4,300 to Trump). Searcy Denney Scarola gave $250,000 to FAFO and another $250,000 to Democratic candidate Fentrice Driskell plus another $25,000 to the Florida Democratic Party. The Maher Law Firm gave $75,000 to FAFO and another $90,000 to Harris and the Democratic Party.
Not all of FAFO’s supporters are Democrats. Attorney Robert Rubenstein gave the PAC $100,000 but also contributed $200,000 in the past year to the Republican Party. Leek said he’s not surprised, since Republicans for many years were beholden to the trial bar for contributions.
“For decades, trial lawyers were cultivating relationships with Republicans and had a stranglehold on the legislature,” he said. “What you’re seeing now, Senate District 7 is Ground Zero where trial lawyers are trying to take back the legislature.”
Trump may have endorsed Shoar as payback for Leek’s support for Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis, although Trump signaled sympathy for the trial bar back in 2023 when he criticized Florida insurance reform. In a tweet, he assailed “Ron DeSanctimonious” for “delivering the biggest insurance company BAILOUT to Globalist Insurance Companies, IN HISTORY. This is the worst insurance Scam in the entire Country!”