This is a big birthday for our nation. Two hundred and fifty years of a nation conceived in liberty, with a government that derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed”. Since the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision, the governed have been experiencing an information assault funded by dark money donors. In our local elections, these dark money donors give thousands of dollars to political committees (aka PACs). Unlike a campaign donations, which is limited to $1000, a dark money donor can give as much as they want to a political committee. Then those political committees send out messaging via mailers, surveys, robocalls to help their anointed candidates. These dark money donors and their lapdog candidates are the “cunning, ambitious and unscrupulous men” (and women) that our first President, George Washington, warned against. We need a system that outlaws dark money in elections. In the meantime, let’s unmask these donors and their preferred candidates.
I’ve been studying local dark money for over a decade now, and the tricks that local dark money donors are using to hide their identities have become more devious over time.
During the first 5-7 years of dark money flowing into local races, the main way to hide donor identity was flipping money from one PAC to another. This is still done. By donating to one PAC, and that PAC donating to another, and the second PAC donating to a third, the original donor can claim they had nothing to do with the third PAC’s messaging that either 1) praised their anointed candidate, or 2) trashed the grassroots candidate.
One of the most memorable ads targeting a local candidate was a commercial showing a bearded man dancing around like a female ballerina. He was wearing a pink tutu, leotard, tights and slippers - the whole nine yards. The narrator attacked Jono Miller, who was running for the Sarasota County Commission. The ad made it seem like the ballerina dancer was Miller. He was favored to win, and that ad very likely sunk him. It was unprecedented at that time - 2008 - and it came in the last few weeks of the campaign, when he had very little time and campaign money left to mount an effective response. Miller never did find out who paid for the ad.
Que Bono? Who Benefits?
Millions of dollars in favors are at stake for interested donors - in the form of reduced impact fees, special exception approvals, fire sale prices on public land, charter school approvals and more. Interested donors want to swing elections to their anointed candidates, and defeat candidates who will truly represent the public. A candidate that can’t be bought won’t be on board with special “favors” that these donors want.
A bought City or Country Commission, a bought School Board - they don’t want to listen to residents.
Today, we are seeing Tallahassee dark money operators at work in our local races. We are seeing PACs formed at the state level (sometimes Federal!) operating in City and County races. We are seeing “clerical” errors in PAC documents that make it impossible to positively identify donors, and we are seeing completely anonymous firms incorporated in Florida which are giving thousands to PACs that then pump those dollars into our local races.
We have to change the system. We need legislation that turns off the dark money spigot in our elections. We need to depose the kingmakers. But we can’t wait for legislation.
The dark money political ad assault is about to begin
When you get mailers about local elections, when you see social media ads, YouTube ads, robocalls, ask yourself - Who is sending this to me? Who is funding this ad? What is their agenda? If you live in Sarasota County, you can scan and upload the mailer images to the facebook group “Citizens for Sarasota County”. You can work with your neighbors in the group to figure out who wants to influence your vote.
Let’s depose our local “Kingmakers”. It’s time.
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