Thursday, December 27, 2012

Powerful term limits foe arrested in stolen identity scheme

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune called him "the most powerful political player in Sarasota County politics," but former county GOP Chair Bob Waechter has earned a new and far less flattering tagline after his arrest this month in an indentity theft scheme apparently aimed at embarrassing political opponents.

The Sarasota Sheriff's office said Waechter was charged with the criminal use of a stolen identity for allegedly buying  a prepaid debit card  to make campaign donations to Democrats in the name of a rival Republican.
 
See the full story from the Herald-Tribune here.

Veterans of the battle in Sarasota County over their popular voter-approved 8-year term limits law recall Waechter as a vocal opponent of term limits who championed a new referendum in 2011 to abolish the 8-year limits and replace them with new 12-year limits after a 12-year waiting period. The commission retreated from that plan after a public outcry.

Term limits "put the county at risk of losing a very experienced county commission," he told the Tiger Bay Club in October 2011.

"A lot of things have changed since 1998," when voters approved 8-year term limits with 68% of the vote, Waechter said.

Indeed they have.