LAWMAKERS FORM PANEL TO PROMOTE TAX LIMITS

State Reps. Connie Mack and Joe Negron take their promise to bring fresh thinking to the Florida Legislature seriously.

They – and seven other conservative Republicans, all first- or second-term lawmakers – this week came up with a novel way to advance their less-government, anti-tax philosophy.

Taking advantage of the state’s broadly written campaign finance law, they formed a political committee to solicit money to spend on radio and television ads, direct mail, research and expenses to influence legislation. And, if they choose to take advantage of a loophole in the law, they can collect the money without disclosing who gave it to them.

“This political committee is designed to exert constant pressure on the legislature and government to listen to the vast majority of people in the state that believe government is growing faster than the population of the state and family incomes,” said Mack, a Fort Lauderdale marketing executive and chairman of the group, which calls itself the Freedom Caucus. “It’s not designed to raise money and write checks to candidates. It is to advocate on our issues.”

They received their first contributions this week.

Issue advocacy groups have proliferated in Florida since 1999, when a federal court struck down a law that required them to register and report their contributions and expenditures.

As a result, powerful interest groups financed by trial lawyers, doctors and business groups have created campaign committees with innocuous-sounding names like Coalition for Family Safety and Citizens for a Sound Economy. The groups spent millions on attack ads aimed at specific candidates but cloaked them as issue ads and thus avoided the $500 contribution limits.

But this is the first time legislators have created a political action committee to advocate their issues, said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause of Florida, which promotes campaign finance reform. With the courts striking down another provision in the law in December, the rules are broader this year, he said.

“They can get away with a lot,” Wilcox said.

Rep. Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, is sponsoring legislation for the third year in a row to close the loophole in the campaign law that allows issue advocacy committees to escape from disclosing their contributors. He thinks the Freedom Caucus PAC is legal but should not be necessary if the legislature is functioning democratically as it should.

“Political parties do this sort of thing all of the time,” he said. “We like to think we are a collegial body and we have that chance to influence other members one-on-one.”

While Wilcox acknowledges there is nothing illegal about legislators forming a committee to advance their ideology, if they “cloak it in the issue advocacy guise,” he thinks it raises questions.

“It’s another avenue for special interest groups to buy influence,” he said. “It makes you wonder why legislators wouldn’t concentrate on working within the process unless they see some personal benefit to it.”

Negron, a Stuart lawyer, responds that “there’s benefit for letting people know that we exist and what we’re trying to accomplish,” and their agenda could receive broader support.

The committee’s initial goal is to raise $100,000 and begin running radio ads that oppose proposed revision to the sales tax law, Negron said.

The group also hopes to work on eliminating the intangibles tax and legislation or a constitutional amendment to cap state spending to the rate of personal income growth.

Besides being perfectly legal, it is perfectly timed.

The centerpiece of the Freedom Caucus platform is to oppose the tax revision initiative promoted by Senate President John McKay in the regular session, which begins Jan. 22. Dozens of interest groups, from the broadcasters to cattlemen, have said they are willing to spend big money to defeat the plan to roll back the state sales tax from six to four cents on the dollar in exchange for applying it to hundreds of services that are now exempt.

The Freedom Caucus political action committee is poised to accept those donations.

Besides Mack and Negron, members of the caucus include freshmen Reps. Carey Baker of Eustis, Mike Haridopolos of Melbourne, Donald Brown of Defuniak Springs, Jim Kallinger of Winter Park, Jeff Kottkamp of Cape Coral and sophomores Chris Hart of Tampa and Bruce Kyle of Fort Myers.

mary_ellen_klas@pbpost.com

GRAPHIC: PHOTO (C), Joe Negron (mug)