‘Friends’ make DeSantis a big-money powerhouse

“Friends of Ron DeSantis” is a symbol of the distortion done to democracy by cynical Supreme Court decisions that allow money to outshout free speech, and by politicians who make it much worse.

Since creating a political committee by that name in 2018, Florida’s governor has raked in $214 million in cash and in-kind contributions. After two successful races for governor, $62 million remains unspent to jump start his unannounced run for president. Nearly $900,000 arrived after he was re-elected in November.

Five years ago, DeSantis was an obscure congressman who had just snagged an endorsement from then-President Donald Trump. No politicians other than selffunded billionaires have raised so much so quickly as DeSantis has.

The donors to his loosely regulated soft-money machine are a nationwide list of thousands of the very wealthy and unwealthy, the powerful and the voiceless, who have given as little as $1 and as much as $10 million at a time.

The larger donors represent all facets of the American oligarchy. Some run companies that have lucrative state contracts. Others serve on state boards DeSantis appoints. Many small donors, motivated by his conservative, firebrand-style politics, appear to be making automatic recurring contributions.

Like many other operations of its kind, “Friends” launders money to and from other committees, notably the Republican Party of Florida. That makes it impossible for the public to trace whose money paid for what, including the lavish inauguration held this week in Tallahassee.

As a state-level committee, “Friends” can’t directly fund a presidential race. But it can contribute to another friendly PAC, as long as it doesn’t get caught coordinating directly with it.

Although the amount raised is noteworthy, committees like “Friends” are commonplace in Florida, where statewide campaigns can only raise $3,000 per donor — $1,000 for legislative races. But these sorts of political committees, on the other hand, have no donation limits and are beholden to a single candidate, making those campaign contribution limits utterly meaningless. “Friends” has reported 22 individual donors of $1 million or more, including a billionaire who gave $10.5 million and another who’s in for $10 million.

Astonishingly legal

It’s astonishingly legal, blissfully tolerated by Florida legislators who long ago lost their virginity to the distorting and corrupting influence of money in politics. Scores of lawmakers from both parties have their own “friends of ” committees.

There was once a time when they weren’t so jaded and cynical.

Florida’s fund-raising scandal of a bygone era was Claude Kirk’s “Governor’s Club,” a slush fund the former governor created in the late 1960s primarily to finance his flights on a leased jet. He tried to keep it secret, but the Supreme Court forced him to reveal the donors to a legislative investigating committee. Almost quaint by today’s standards, Kirk’s fund had squeezed $420,680, mostly in $500 checks, out of 233 people, including road contractors, consultants, liquor licensees and state political appointees.

Legislators in both parties took offense. They also took action, refusing to confirm Kirk’s transportation secretary and passing a law requiring public officials to report all gifts of $25 or more.

By comparison, the total haul of Kirk’s Governor’s Club would be worth some $3.2 million today. That’s less than “Friends of Ron DeSantis” reported in each of 25 different months.

DeSantis’ campaign treasury totaled $42 million more in his 2018 and 2022 campaigns, a large sum but incidental to his unlimited slush fund.

The single largest “Friends” donation was $10 million from Robert T. Bigelow of North Las Vegas, Nev., a hotel magnate and aerospace investor.

DeSantis’ top individual donor is Ken Griffin, who moved his Citadel hedge fund from Chicago to Miami and has given the governor $10.5 million. The Republican Governors Association is the largest overall, at $21.8 million, much of which could be money that came from its own wealthy donors. Four days before the election, “Friends” received $500,000 from Trish Duggan, who has been a donor to Donald Trump, a top donor to the Church of Scientology and is the ex-wife of a billionaire venture capitalist.

Potential conflicts everywhere

The “Friends” donor list is a nearly inexhaustible source of potential conflicts of interest and rewards.

The Florida Bulldog, an internet investigate journal, mined it recently after DeSantis called for a statewide grand jury to investigate unspecified “crimes and wrongdoing” in relation to COVID-19 vaccines.

The DeSantis administration has had its own questionable dealings during the pandemic. “Friends” received $125,000 from Phillip Frost, a Miami health care entrepreneur whose holdings include BioReference Laboratories, which received two no-bid COVID-19 state testing contracts totaling $2.5 million in 2020.

According to the Bulldog, Sarasota’s Physicians Group received two no-bid purchase orders for hand sanitizers costing more than $2 million in 2020. Owner Gary Kompothecras, a chiropractor, gave $27,500 to “Friends” in 2018 and $20,000 in May of 2022.

Then there are the appointees. For example, “Friends” reported $1,030,000 in contributions directly from or linked to 11 of the 17 members of the university system’s Board of Governors.

People contribute to politicians for lots of good reasons, such as their shared political ideals and their admiration for the recipients. Others do it for self-interest — to guarantee access or cultivate favors.

It’s hard to tell the good from the bad sometimes, but a decent start would be to limit how much anyone can give to such perpetual committees and restrict the laundering of money among them. The original source of any money that makes its way into politics should be disclosed, period.

Ultimately, the American public needs constitutional amendments that would enable limits on total spending by politicians and parties. Otherwise, we are fated to be a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich — the opposite of what Lincoln extolled.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.