TALLAHASSEE ??A Senate panel advanced its?own campaign-finance bill (SB 1382) Monday in an attempt to provide more transparency?to fundraising and crack down on lawmakers? perceived abuses of political slush funds.
The House and Senate are playing trade with separate campaign-fundraising and ethics bills this session. The Senate has already passed its ethics bill, and the House s advancing a fundraising reform that speeds up reporting requirements for some political committees.
Senate leaders have expressed heartburn with the House idea of lifting the current $500 limits to $10,000, which the House bill (HB 569) does. The bill also abolishes political slush funds called Committees of Continuous Existence, and requires weekly and daily?online disclosure of campaign checks and spending in the weeks and days?leading up to elections.
Last week, House Speaker Will Weatherford said their bill would be amended to create a tiered system allowing candidates for governor and other Cabinet offices to raise more than local and legislative candidates.
Senate Ethics and Elections Chairman Jack Latvala?s alternative would set maximums at $3,000 for statewide candidates and $2,000 for judges. But it would keep the same $500 caps for legislative and local candidates.?
Latvala said part of the point of the?bill was ?harmony? with the House,?which has not yet advanced an ethics bill like the Senate wants.?But he conceded that $500 limit for legislative and local candidates ?will have to go up a little bit.?
The Senate bill also closes a major loophole in the House bill, which doesn?t put any additional disclosure requirements on the state parties and ?leadership funds? lawmakers can create. The Senate bill would require weekly reporting from legislative candidates and daily reporting over the final week for statewide candidates, parties, and the leadership funds.
And it allows what are called ?Political Committees? or PCs to buy ads, which would reduce the need to use other, Electioneering Communications Organizations, or ECOs. ?This puts it all in one place where people don?t have to go? to multiple types of committees to run a single campaign, Latvala said.
?But senators on the Ethics and Elections Subcommittee still had reservations about that stepped up reporting as well as the fact that the bill doesn?t try to curb political giving.
Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, called it ?politically correct? and??overkill,??which would lead to more elections-related complaints to game the system.
?This is excessive and just sets people up to be in a state of no-compliance,? ?he said.
Democrats on the panel said the bill was ignoring the larger question of how to get money out of the system.
?It does not go far enough to stop what everybody wants to stop happening: for corporations and other groups to give unlimited amounts through parties and committees,? said Sen. Darren Soto, D-Orlando.
?I?fear we?re chasing people away from democracy, with all this money,? said Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.
But Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, responded, ?You?re not going to get money out of this process ? Money is going to make it into this system, and it is an?illusion to think you?re?going to be able to do anything about that.
?All we can hope for is we?re creating a system where it will be easier to follow the money.?
leprechaun night at the museum pope shenouda bolton muamba sxsw crystal cathedral st. patrick s day
No comments:
Post a Comment