FP&L link to ‘ghost’ campaign consultants highlights urgency of dark money reforms

In Florida, consumers have no choice about who they buy their electricity from, thanks to the state’s system of regulated monopolies.

If you’re a Florida Power & Light customer, that means you must do business with a company whose money bankrolled political consultants using underhanded tactics to manipulate elections.

That much is clear from a blockbuster Orlando Sentinel story that outlines connections between FP&L and those involved in the campaigns of phony candidates in three state Senate elections last year, campaigns intended to undermine Democratic candidates and ensure Republican victories.

Why might a power company be so intent on keeping the state Senate in GOP hands? This much is certain: The financial fortunes of utilities across the state depend in large part on state laws and on state regulators known as the Public Service Commission.

The state Senate must pass those regulatory laws, as it did last session in a bill that gave the PSC regulatory power over disputes between companies over the use of utility poles. This year, for example, one bill would make it harder for solar customers to sell their excess electricity back to power companies, saving the companies money at the expense of the solar industry.

The Senate also must confirm the governor’s picks for PSC commissioners, who approve rate increases for power companies. Worth noting: The most recent PSC appointee, Gabriella Passidomo, is the daughter of Republican state Sen. Kathleen Passidomo of Naples, who’s expected to become Senate president a year from now.

So if you’re a power company that’s in bed with the Republican Party, as FP&L is, you have a distinct financial interest in making sure the Senate stays in GOP hands.

Keeping the Senate red was the whole point behind last year’s no-party affiliation candidates in Miami-Dade Districts 37 and 39 and Central Florida’s District 9. At the time, Republicans had a narrow 23-17 majority, so it was essential to win those races for the GOP to retain control.

The campaigns of the NPA candidates were funded through various nonprofits and designed to siphon off potential votes for Democrats.

Thanks to Florida’s meaningless campaign finance laws, those nonprofits are able to hide contributions to the point that it’s almost impossible to discern where they got their money.

But Sentinel reporters Jason Garcia and Annie Martin obtained a trove of documents that show FP&L dropped millions of dollars on political consultants who were behind the nonprofit group Grow United Inc. Grow United was the beating heart of the campaigns supporting the NPA sham candidates, all of whom remained in the background and unavailable to the public.

The documents, described in the story as including “checks, bank statements, emails, text messages, invoices, internal ledgers and more,” leave no doubt that one of Florida’s leading utility companies had a significant financial connection to campaigns designed to do nothing more than deceive voters.

One of those South Florida races has resulted in criminal charges against the sham NPA candidate and a former Republican state senator accused of bribing the candidate.

As a corporation, FP&L should be ashamed of even getting near this type of anti-democracy behavior. Just as bad, however, are the Florida politicians who continue to do nothing about the information black hole created by dark money in politics.

It’s particularly galling that Florida residents — who have no choice but to do business with a power company that has a legal monopoly — often have no way of knowing how that company is spending money to influence politics. That is, until a cache of documents shows up and news reporters start digging into them.

This sordid episode proves once again that government-sanctioned campaign secrecy is the real election scandal in Florida. Not early voting. Not ballot drop boxes. Not voter IDs.

State Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, had one of the best and simplest ideas we’ve heard so far to shine light on dark money. He wanted to make it illegal for political committees to contribute money to other political committees or parties. That’s how campaign money gets hidden in Florida. Money changes hands so many times it’s impossible to tell how a contribution got from Point A to Point Z. His bill would have stopped much of that.

Gruters, who’s chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, has clearly given up on the idea, probably because dark money proved so successful for the GOP last year. Maybe he was never serious about it in the first place.

These latest revelations must awaken the public to the threat dark money poses to a functioning democracy, and politicians must finally be forced to take action to bring more transparency to this state’s elections.

As for the politicians who won’t get behind transparent elections, the people of Florida should vote them out of office. Every last one of them.

This editorial originally appeared in the Orlando Sentinel.

FILE FP&L line workers install equipment in South Florida in 2015.