Florida Governor Rick Scott could face $82 million fine if allegation that his campaign violated finance laws proves true. (File/UPI/Martin Fried) |
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Florida Governor Rick Scott’s reelection campaign has been accused by the state's Democratic Party of violating campaign finance law.
On Monday, Allison Tant, Florida’s Democratic Party Chair, filed a complaint against the Republican governor with the Florida Elections Commission, accusing his campaign of illegally transferring $27.4 million from “Let’s Get To Work,” Scott’s longtime but now defunct electioneering communication organization, to a recently formed political action committee also named Let’s Get To Work.
The complaint from Democrats is really about the difference between how ECOs and PACs are allowed to operate, and whether Scott’s campaign is skirting those rules by transferring funds from one to the other.
Under recent legislation, political committees can give directly to a political party, while an ECO can’t. Thus Scott is able to use the funds with more flexibility.
If Scott’s campaign is found in violation of finance law, it could face a fine as steep as $82 million.
John French, Chairman of Let’s Get To Work, maintains that because the former organization was dissolving, they were within their rights to redistribute the funds to the new organization, but Dems maintain that Florida law doesn’t allow for an ECO to donate directly to a committee.
In an interview with The Huffington Post Tuesday, Mark Herron, an elections lawyer and state elections expert, said of French's argument. "I get it. I understand it. It's the subterfuge that they went through to transfer the money illegally. It's allowing them to do indirectly which they can't do directly.”
Meanwhile, Scott is behind former governor and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist in the polls.
[Florida Democrats]
[Huffington Post]
[Jacksonville Daily Record]
