Last Year's Bad Idea for Unlimited Fund Raising Is Still a Bad This Year

Last year, then Governor Crist vetoed a bill passed by the Florida Legislature that would have permitted legislative leaders to raise unlimited money through leadership funds is being resurrected.

The House State Affairs Committee is considering a veto override on last year's bill that allowed top legislative leaders such as the Senate president, speaker of the House and majority and minority leaders to raise money through a special fund that is separate from political party fundraising.

In the Senate, veto overrides have not emerged yet in committees.

Republicans supported the bill to establish leadership funds last year, claiming it as a way to improve transparency in the fundraising process because it required quarterly reports of fundraising activities.

When Crist vetoed the leadership fund bill, he said he rejected the notion that affiliated party committees, or leadership funds, would benefit our state.

The Legislature originally outlawed these funds over 20 years ago.

Democrats who opposed the bill last session said that the public needs to know who raises money for political parties and who has discretion over how those dollars are spent and would have given lobbyists and corporations another way to influence powerful legislative leaders who wield considerable control over what bills are given serious consideration.

Campaign finance reform anyone?