The Republican Party of Florida late Monday night posted its haul for the fourth quarter of 2009 and the $4.28 million included the names of many familiar donors, including a $500,000 contribution from The Villages, $150,000 from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, $210,000 from Progress Energy, as well as a $250,000 check from Rooney Holdings.
One persistent criticism of Republican Party of Florida chairman Jim Greer was that he was not doing enough to raise money and that most of the donations in fact due to the work of others, including the next two legislative leaders, Sen. Mike Haridopolos and Rep. Dean Cannon. (Greer for his part steadfastly denied the allegation.)
One of the candidates vying to succeed Greer says he will back legislative efforts to recreate so-called leadership funds in order to help Floridians track which donations in fact are due to the efforts of top legislators. Leadership funds were banned more than 20 years ago amid allegations that donors were buying influence in the Legislature. The money in the funds were controlled by legislative leaders and were generally used to help with the campaigns of incumbent legislators.
Sen. John Thrasher, who also heads the Senate Ethics and Elections committee, said on Monday that "it's all about transparency" and that Florida law should allow for the recreation of leadership funds - as well as requiring independent political organizations, also called 527s, to identify donors.
"If there are going to be those kinds of funds, if there are going to be those kind of allotments later on, then everybody ought to understand who gave it,'' said Thrasher. "I think we ought to have real time disclosure and real time who gave it. How much they gave and all that, I could care less, but I do think people ought to know when and how much they gave."
Haridopolos said on Monday that even though Greer has stepped down from his post he still wants to push for the recreation of leadership funds. He said that anywhere from $10 million to $13 million will be raised to help Republican Senate candidates during the 2010 cycle and that prior to Greer's announcement that some contributors were anxious about how their donations would be spent.
"I think the way you gain trust as you move forward is you open up our books to contributors, taxpayers, whoever,'' said Haridopolos.
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