As currently written, Florida law promotes the proliferation of Political Committees (pc) in Florida. The statute allows these PCs to accept unlimited contributions and make unlimited expenditures for the purpose of influencing the outcome of elections in Florida. The statute allows incumbent legislators and legislative leadership to establish PCs for their personal political use and allows unlimited contributions between individual PCs and between PCs and political parties.

These provisions of the statute have served to make individual and corporate limitations on contributions to political candidate’s campaign accounts meaningless and these provisions have resulted in an unprecedented increase in special interest contributions to PCs controlled by legislative leadership and also to the political parties in Florida.

This has allowed for legislative leadership, operating in partnership with powerful special interests, and working through these political committees and political parties to exercise an undue level of control and influence over the results of primary election campaigns. As a result, the people of Florida are losing their voice in the legislative process and their ability to influence issues vital to their wellbeing.

Therefore, we the undersigned Citizens of the State of Florida do hereby endorse and promote amendments to Florida Statutes intended to minimize the influence of Political Committees, maximize transparency and accountability in campaign finance reporting, and eliminate the legal laundering of campaign contributions.