Jon Ausman

Jon Ausman is Florida resident active in Democratic party politics in Leon County.

Career
Jon Ausman studied at Florida State University, and became Chair of the Leon County Democratic Party in 1980 at the age of 26 years old. After the 1992 elections, Ausman ran for Chair of the Florida Democratic Party, but did not win. Ausman stepped down at the Leon County chair in 2000 to become State Committeeman for the county. He tried to get re-elected as Chair in 2005, but lost to Rick Minor. Ausman would be susepended as state committeeman in 2011 after controversy erupted of Ausman's taking sides in local Democratic Party primaries, and his endorsement of US Senate candidate Jeff Greene, after Greene paid Ausman $4,000 in consulting fees.

Controversies
Ausman has generated a reputation of a controversial figure in Democratic Politics. This reputation is due to several "controversies" surrounding him, typical of small level politics throughout history.


 * Jon Ausman was arrested during the 1990 election following getting into a fight with some Republican supporters who where putting in yard signs at a polling place. Ausman asserted they where the aggressor, but Ausman was detained as the aggressor in the incident.


 * In 1998, Ausman, as a vice-chair for the Florida Democratic Party, organized a meeting of 1,300 party activists and workers to meet in Orlanda to discuss the status of the Party. The meeting was not approved by the Florida Democratic Party, and was scheduled at time when the Florida Chair, Mitch Caesar, would be out of state.  The move angered Democrats, who saw Ausman as going over his bosses head.  Ausman had run against, and lost to, Caesar earlier that year for the position of Chair.


 * In 2002, Florida Democratic Party Chair Bob Poe, along with Attorney General Bob Butterworth, U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, party treasurer Earl Scales and Florida AFL-CIO President Cindy Hall, called on Jon Ausman to resign from the Florida Democratic Party and the DNC. The reason given was Ausman's unprofessional reaction to the fact that Ausman was denied a $25,000 consulting job with the Florida Democratic Party.  Poe alleged that Ausman said that without this, he would not help Democrats defeat Jeb Bush in the 2002 Governors Race.  Poe also recalled Ausman telling him that in 2000, Ausman did not help Al Gore win Leon County because Gore has not recognized the then-Leon Chair when speaking at Leon High School during the election.


 * In 2010, Ausman was responsible for 4,000 fliers that where distributed in black churches that promoted specific Democratic candidates for office. This includes races where it was two democrats against each other, and white Democratic candidates where left of the flier.  The flier also had the Leon County Democratic Party logo on them, insinuating that the flier was approved by the local party (it was not).


 * In 2012, Ausman received a $4,000 payment for consulting by Bryan Desloge, a County Commissioner in Leon County that is a member of the Republican Party. The payment came several weeks after Desloge became unopposed thanks to no one filling against him