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LOUIS HAUA Tampa company is offering services to people who want to donate 5 percent of their phone bill to the Republicans.
TALLAHASSEE - A Tampa phone services sales agent has teamed up with the Republican Party of Florida to offer state party members the chance to donate 5 percent of their monthly phone bill to the party.
Party members would have to purchase their local, long-distance or Internet-access services through Chase Communications of Tampa in order to participate in the program. The state party sent an e-mail Tuesday to "Republican Party supporters and interested parties" alerting them to the offer.
"This is an innovative and, hopefully for us, effective, fundraising tool," said Florida Republican Party spokesman Joseph Agostini.
Residents of Pinellas, Hillsborough and Citrus counties, as well as most of Pasco County and a portion of Hernando County, will not be able to enroll in the program for their local telephone service, although they still could use the GOP system for long-distance and Internet access.
The Tampa Bay area is locked out of the local phone component of the plan because of the relatively high access fees that Verizon and Sprint charge competing local carriers to access their networks.
Chase Communications isn't offering local phone service to Republicans in either of those two companies' Florida service territories, according to David Riley, a senior sales representative for Chase.
The program will work similar to the way some universities collect donations through credit cards with which they become affiliated.
Agostini said the party is not aware of another program that uses phone service as a method for collecting political contributions.
Chase Communications is doing business as GOP Communications for the offer. Riley said GOP Communications' name will be on any checks made out to the Republican Party of Florida.
But he said that a Federal Elections Commission review of such programs had determined that contributions made through such phone services would be considered to be from the individuals or businesses that sign up for the services, not the sales agent.
Rates are available at www.gopcom.com
- Louis Hau can be reached at 813 226-3404 or hau@sptimes.com