The Florida House and Senate are split on what to do about a type of campaign slush fund that’s been getting some flack in the news lately. House members say its time to do away with the funds known as CCEs, but Senate leaders say the problem can be solved with more rules for how those accounts can be used.
Committees of Continuous Existence or CCEs are special campaign funds that let lawmakers take advantage of a legal loop hole to accept money from special interests without facing contribution limits and gift bans. And they’ve gotten a lot of attention lately because of concerns over what lawmakers are paying for with the money in those funds.
“I think what we’re trying to get away from is the members who kind of ruined this for us by basically using them every day during session to entertain their friends,” Senator Jack Latvala said.
Former Representative Chris Dorworth made the news for what some call the misuse of his CCE. Critics say he was able to fund a lavish lifestyle through his fund despite going through personal financial trouble. But Senator Jack Latvala, a Republican from Clearwater said the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee has a plan to tackle that.
“This will get at one of the abuses that’s been widely reported on of people using their CCEs for what our president lovingly terms at their filet moignon lifestyle,” Latvala contended.
The Senate bill, SB2 prohibits a reporting individual, like a lawmaker, from accepting a gift from a CCE—putting the funds under the same kinds of regulations as lobbyists. Some like Senator Oscar Braynon, a Democrat from Miami Gardens, have raised concerns about what that might mean for people who are using their CCEs for legitimate purposes.
“I want to make sure we stop the behavior. But I don’t want an unintended consequence to be now CCEs can’t do what they were set up to do,” Braynon said.
CCEs are intended to make contributions to candidates. They’re created with a written purpose statement. For example, one CCE called the Conservative Principles for Florida CCE lists mission as promoting leaders with conservative principles and ideas of efficient and responsible limited government. And Latvala argues the Senate bill would help to ensure all spending from the CCEs would need to be in line with the CCE’s purpose. He said the bill is an attempt to strike a compromise between lawmakers who want to keep the funds, and those who are looking to get rid of them.
“CCEs are in the cross hairs in this building, on both sides of the people that we’ve elected to lead us. What I’m trying to do is identify what are the problems that people are concerned with on the CCES and go at the problems rather than the existence of the committees,” Latvala said.
Latvala doesn’t think there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But it seems Representative Robert Schenck, a Republican from Spring Hill, doesn’t think CCEs should stick around. Schenck is the sponsor of HB569, a campaign spending bill introduced in the House.
“What this bill intends to do is allow us, the public, anybody who is interested to see where the money goes, where it comes from and what it’s spend on,” Schenk said.
Schenk argues CCEs take away from government transparency. His bill would put a timeline in place to phase out CCEs out by November. No contributions could be accepted after August of this year. But at the same time, the bill would increase the limit for individual campaign contributions from $500 to 10-thousand dollars—a move Schenk said is well overdue.
“Five hundred dollars seems to be archaic in today’s world. In fact, there is a court decision from the state of Vermont where they tried to set their limit to $460 and they ruled it was too low,” Schenk added.
Schenck said he recognizes that the money currently being directed to CCEs would likely be put in other accounts, but he says there are already mechanisms in place to help members of the public track the funds there.
So far, the Senate bill has passed its first committee, the House bill has been work shopped, but is still awaiting its first hearing, and they’ve both got a ways to go before making it to their respective floors.
