Two Republicans, Michael E. Gauger and Lauro Diaz, are competing for their party’s nomination to oppose Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.
Dislodging a well-known, well-financed 20-year incumbent is a tough challenge, but Republicans have an obvious clue as to whom Bradshaw would rather not face — it’s Gauger.
Gauger impresses us as the far stronger candidate. We recommend his nomination in the Aug. 20 primary, to give voters a viable option in November.
The Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association (PBA), which has long been close to Bradshaw, endorsed him the day he announced for a sixth term in May 2023. PBA sources overall have contributed at least $4,750 to Bradshaw’s campaign.
Follow the PBA money
They have also given six $1,000 contributions to Diaz. That accounts for some 12% of his meager fund-raising so far.
Diaz says his PBA support is no different than Gauger’s support from the Fraternal Order of Police. But there’s a major difference: The FOP, unlike the PBA, is highly critical of Bradshaw.
Unions and other interest groups often place bets on both sides of a campaign. But in this instance, the PBA has put that $6,000 on a candidate who lost in a landslide against Bradshaw four years ago and would likely lose again. The PBA would be all in for Bradshaw in November.
It’s time to give another Republican a chance.
Decades of experience
Gauger and Diaz are former Palm Beach career sheriff’s deputies. Gauger, 76, retired as chief deputy after 51 years in the sheriff’s office and is a consultant and paralegal. Diaz, 62, joined the office after serving in the military police and rose through the ranks over 27 years.
More recently, Diaz was deputy chief of police in Bartow for two years, a job he resigned to run for Palm Beach sheriff.
He left Bartow amid discord that led to the departure of Chief Bryan Dorman. A consultant’s report cited a “leadership crisis” that cost Dorman the respect of many officers and said that the local state attorney did not trust the agency’s work on major crimes.
News accounts said the report implied that Diaz contributed to the turmoil by openly bad-mouthing Dorman in front of other officers.
“As far as undermining the chief, I never did so,” Diaz said as he and Gauger debated their backgrounds in a joint interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board. Diaz did say that he had told Dorman that he should go to the city manager and resign.
Diaz maintains that Bartow hired him “to fix their investigations” and that he was a whistleblower.
No immigrant crackdowns
Aside from who should replace the Democratic sheriff, Gauger and Diaz agree that the department is ill-suited to participate in any sort of manhunt for undocumented immigrants such as their party’s presidential candidate proposes. Both would limit their actions to arresting them for specific crimes.
They also oppose arresting homeless people who aren’t committing crimes — the underlying intent of a new state law, HB 1365 — and would be proactive in helping the homeless.
They would also halt the controversial longevity bonuses that Bradshaw pays to retiring executives. Gauger said that when he retired, he thought his “was too much, it’s wrong.” He also said the department doesn’t need four helicopters or a fixed-wing plane “that sits in a hangar.”
Their sharpest policy differences are over community policing — Gauger strongly supports it and Diaz is a skeptic — and who’s more Republican.
“I’ve been a Republican since I was 18,” Diaz said. “I’ve not been a Republican for a year and a half.”
Conceding that he’s a former Democrat, Gauger said he “didn’t leave the party, the party left me.”
For a nonpartisan PBSO
The sheriff’s office should be nonpartisan, he added, because it’s about “safety and serving the community.”
Gauger, of Wellington, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in liberal studies and social work from Barry University and has also had courses at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the University of Louisville. Diaz, who didn’t say where he lives, cited bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice and homeland security and emergency management but didn’t say who awarded them.
Their questionnaires and a video of the Sun Sentinel interview can be accessed online.
The sheriff’s salary, set by state law, is $270,489
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
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