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Republican budget knife trained on public good

A Times Editorial
Published February 26, 2008

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Some Republican legislators are using the state budget crisis as convenient cover for renewing their partisan attack against public campaign financing. Their time would be better spent repairing the damage they already have done instead of asking voters to kill it.

Public campaign financing for statewide candidates in Florida has been around for more than two decades. It provides matching money for smaller contributions to candidates who agree to a spending limit. It also protects those candidates from big-spending opponents by guaranteeing them a public dollar for every private dollar the opponent spends beyond the limit. Fortunately, voters like the concept so much they added it to the Constitution in 1998.

That hasn't quieted Republicans who can't stand the thought of a level playing field for campaign money. They are sponsoring resolutions (HJR 281 and SJR 956) that would ask voters this November to kill public campaign financing as a way to save money. The money involved, some $11-million in 2006, is a tiny investment in democracy and a blip in a $70-billion state budget or even the $2-billion legislators have to cut. The real issue is the political stubbornness of lawmakers such as Sen. Dennis Jones, R-Seminole, who challenged supporters to name a candidate who won because of public matching money.

Here's a Republican: Bob Milligan, who in his first run for office in 1994 upset an entrenched Democrat for state comptroller and made an immediate impact on the Cabinet with his common sense and straight talk.

And here's a Democrat whom Republicans would rather forget: Gov. Lawton Chiles, who narrowly defeated Jeb Bush in 1994 after Bush spent well over the limit and handed Chiles several million dollars in public matching money.

Public campaign financing does not work as well now because the Legislature all but gutted it in 2005. Lawmakers cynically raised the spending limit for candidates for governor from $5-million, which was too low, to roughly $20-million, which is too high to create a fair playing field. Guess how much Charlie Crist spent on his 2006 campaign? Just under the limit.

Unlike Bush, who hated public campaign financing and never accepted it, Crist has accepted public money for his campaigns, including $3.3-million in 2006. While the governor cannot prevent the Legislature from placing constitutional amendments on the ballot, perhaps Crist can convince lawmakers that the concept is worth saving and that they should focus their cost-cutting efforts on more wasteful programs.

[Last modified February 25, 2008, 21:45:44]

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