“Ron DeSantis promised to drain the swamp in Tallahassee,” wrote NBC News reporters Matt Dixon and Jonathan Allen yesterday. “Instead, over more than four years as governor, he has reconfigured the swamp to suit his political needs and shielded it from Florida’s famous sunshine. In anticipation of his 2024 presidential bid, he pushed the Legislature to change Florida's resign-to-run law. He revised state policy so he could transfer $80 million in campaign cash to a federal political committee. And just after his official announcement last month, his administration pressured state legislators and lobbyists to aid his presidential campaign while they awaited his decisions on pet projects in the budget.”
His use of state power to aid his presidential ambitions hasn’t come as a surprise to Florida political insiders who have watched him use the tools of governance to advance his agenda and ideology.
“He reshaped the swamp in his image,” said David Jolly, a former Republican who served in Congress with DeSantis and hails from the same part of the state.
Now, as DeSantis campaigns for the presidency, he’s renewing his vow to drain a swamp— this time in Washington— and is trying to convince conservative voters that he is better suited than former President Donald Trump to shrink government and make it more accountable to the public.
Trump Jr isn’t allow in noting that DeSantis is very much a “puppet of the swamp.” That’s one way to put it. Others might note that DeSantis is all criminal— and his top advisor is a Mafia Princess whose uncle was Tony Bananas. “Since DeSantis launched his presidential bid last month, state employees have pressured lobbyists to donate to it and leaned on legislators— awaiting his final say on their budget priorities— to endorse him,” wrote Dixon and Allen. “DeSantis’ political operation also transferred more than $80 million to a super PAC backing his presidential campaign after his administration changed long-standing guidelines that said such transfers weren't allowed. Jolly, who has since left the Republican Party, pointed in particular to the DeSantis team's pushing for endorsements and contributions while the state budget sat under his line-item veto pen. ‘What screams swamp more than that?’ Jolly asked. ‘You send me your money and you send me your endorsements and I’ll give you state money in return.’ DeSantis’ use of state government extends far beyond making changes that directly benefit his political fortunes. He has also increasingly wielded his power to achieve policy ends— and punish his political foes. At times, that has come through the government's regulation of private businesses and the free market in ways that have made some other Republicans uneasy. The clearest example is DeSantis' fight with Disney.”
Andrew Perez, honed in on DeSantis’ criminal behavior in regard to campaign finance laws, which ole’ Meatball tries to ignore, “betting that no one will hold him accountable. In a political era dominated by wealthy and often secret donors, the activities undertaken by DeSantis and his outside group allies still stand out— and could render what little remains of federal campaign finance laws as completely meaningless.”
Perez was focusing on the $82 million DeSantis’ SuperPAC illegally received from DeSantis’ state campaign, something that violated federal laws prohibiting such transfers. DeSantis had his corrupt pet legislature rewrite Florida law permit the move.
“DeSantis will reap the rewards of illegally using $82 million of state campaign funds to support his presidential run,” said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer and deputy executive director at political research group Documented. Fischer said there’s a “good chance” the Federal Election Commission (FEC) “will let DeSantis get away with it, and even if the agency does take action, the penalties will only be levied after DeSantis’ campaign already benefited from the illegal spending.”
In recent years, well-funded outside groups like super PACs have become an increasingly integral part of political campaigns. This is primarily because candidates’ campaign committees are restricted by contribution limits (currently $3,300 per person), and super PACs can accept donations of any size— including from corporations that are barred from directly giving to candidates.
Given the state money transfer and the DeSantis campaign’s heavy reliance on a super PAC called Never Back Down, experts say that DeSantis and his allies appear to be testing the boundaries of campaign finance laws further than ever before. Outside groups have employed similar tactics, but never at this scale. His team is effectively betting that the campaign finance cops at the FEC are fully asleep on the job.
Super PACs, according to the reasoning of the judicial decision that led to their creation, are supposed to operate independently from candidates. But Never Back Down is actively raising small-dollar donations for DeSantis’ presidential campaign, running TV and digital ads promoting DeSantis, sending mailers, hosting some of his campaign events, and building its own field team outside the campaign. The super PAC expects to have a $200 million budget, with $100 million for voter outreach, according to the New York Times.
A top DeSantis campaign official, Sam Cooper, recently admitted on a donor call that the campaign is factoring in support from “an outside group” that is going to help the campaign organize in larger states— like California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia— slated to hold primaries on “Super Tuesday” in March 2024, according to leaked audio from a campaign presentation.
Kristin Davison, the chief operating officer at the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down, recently told CBS News that the group plans to “do things no other super PAC has done before,” adding: “Every dollar Never Back Down asks for online will go directly to the Ron DeSantis for President campaign.”
Taken together, the group’s activities amount to “a complete end-run around our campaign finance rules, which are in place to curb corruption and the appearance of corruption,” said Stephen Spaulding, a vice president at the watchdog group Common Cause.
…Federal election regulators have failed to police the growing interactions between candidates and super PACs, even as we’ve seen super PACs taping documentaries with candidates, handling advance work for presidential campaign events, and performing opposition research to benefit campaigns.
The FEC, which is made up of three Democratic appointees and three Republicans, has consistently split 3-3 on key policy and enforcement questions, creating new gray areas for campaigns and super PACs to exploit. It can also take the FEC years to issue decisions on campaign finance complaints.
…Stuart McPhail, a litigation counsel at the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said DeSantis and his allies appear to be operating under the assumption that the FEC won’t investigate them.
“There’s no one really guarding the vault here,” said McPhail. “Even if someone did try to enforce the law, you have a current [Supreme] Court that is very skeptical of any kind of campaign finance law. And I think a number of them feel like they have friends on the court. The donors behind the campaign have friends on the court.”
Indeed, the DeSantis super PAC is being led by Chris Jankowski, a veteran Republican operative who helped form the historic $1.6 billion dark money fund helmed by Leonard Leo. As President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser, Leo helped select three of the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices.
Friends of Ron DeSantis, the political committee now financing Never Back Down, received $500,000 last fall from the Judicial Crisis Network, the main political advocacy arm of Leo’s dark money network.
Other major donors to the group have included: hedge fund titan Ken Griffin ($10.8 million), budget hotel magnate Robert Bigelow ($10 million), Wall Street trader Jeff Yass ($2.6 million), and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts ($1 million). The conservative Club for Growth PAC donated $2 million to Friends of Ron DeSantis last summer.
The state’s new campaign finance handbook reversed previous guidance from state officials mandating that Florida political committees could only use their funds for Florida political activities, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.
The new language states, “A Florida political committee may make contributions to an out-of-state political entity that engages solely in non-coordinated expenditures.”
…For campaign finance experts, Never Back Down’s activities represent the culmination of federal election regulators’ failure to ensure that super PACs can’t simply operate as big-money arms of political campaigns.
“The FEC’s inability to enforce campaign finance laws is promoting a culture of near-impunity,” said Fischer. “Candidates know that they can aggressively push the legal envelope and expect to get away with it. But even presidential candidates who are careful to comply with the law still rely on a supportive super PAC to stay competitive. As a result, wealthy special interests have an incredible amount of power and influence over our democracy.”
seriously? I expand on what YOU wrote and it's too close to the truth, so you censor it? How is that different than what the nazis are doing in schools and to books?