Report: About 1 in 7 Florida political committees operate in the ‘shadows’

JACKSONVILLE — A signifificant number of the nearly 1,000 political committees active in Florida provide i nfor mati on to t he pub - lic that is often vague and doesn’t fully explain what they do.

An analysis by The Florida Times-Union revealed Sunday that 1 out of 7 political committees are operating in what the newspaper describes as “the shadows.”

The newspaper says it is diffifficult to fifigure why these committees were created and whom they are intended to benefifit, even after combing through public records and state databases.

While the income and expenses may be reported in public records, the details of the expenditures are not, and it is also unclear in many cases who is making decisions for the committees.

In many cases, even the names of the committees obscure what their true purpose is. They have names like “Citizens Alliance for Florida’s Economy,” “Citizens First” and “Citizens for Florida Prosperity.”

“T h e y a l l p u t t h e s e nice-sounding names on it, but what these political committees are is nothing more than private committees that legislators and oth- ers use to raise unlimited amounts of money and skirt campaign fifinance limits,” said Bob White, a Melbourne resident who is spokesman for a coalition of right-leaning groups pushing for campaign fifinance reforms.

In documents that the committees file with the state, offifficials with committees who want to obscure their true purpose fifill in “To be determined” where it asks for disclosure of the candidates or issues the committee supports.

Adding further to the lack of transparency, the “dark money” committees are frequently interrelated and pass money on to each other.