Florida's already loose campaign finance laws just got more relaxed

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law in June that limited how much money political parties could spend on candidates. It applied only to people running for federal office.

Following the decision, Politico reporter Gary Fineout said the Republican Party of Florida, along with other campaign committees, filed a lawsuit in a Pensacola federal court asking for the SCOTUS ruling to apply to state laws as well. The judge agreed last week.

Fineout said Florida GOP party chair Evan Power emailed members saying the party scored a "major First Amendment victory for Florida Republicans and every candidate" they support.

Now, major parties can make unlimited coordinated expenditures to state and local candidates. That means the major parties can pay for services, goods, even advertising for candidates they support, but not give the money directly to them.

Fineout said in-kind contributions would still have to be accepted and reported as such, but there would be no limit.

Fineout spoke with Your Florida's Meghan Bowman about the decision and what it means for candidates running in the state — especially gubernatorial candidates Byron Donalds and David Jolly.

The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity.

The lawsuit wrapped up last week after a federal judge approved the settlement. How does it affect campaigns through the midterms?

In essence, Florida has what some have described as already having a kind of "Wild West" of campaign finance laws.

These kinds of odd laws lead to sort of strange advertisements — like what we call three-pack ads.

These are ads where somebody's running for something, and then at the very end of the ad, you'll see the pictures of two other people, and it'll have this big disclaimer that says, "Paid for on behalf of," and it'll list the three candidates.

That was a way to get out of the coordinated spending limits because for legislative candidates, the limit is $50,000. For statewide candidates, the limit is $250,000, but there are already carveouts. So, if the party wanted to pay for your staff or your polling, they could do it, list it as an in-kind donation, and it wouldn't apply to this cap.

The Republican Party and these party committees, they sued, and said, "Look, we just want to get rid of these coordinated expenditure limits altogether because we believe they're unconstitutional. They're a violation of our First Amendment rights. We should be able to, through a coordinated process, spend as much as we want to help these candidates."

So they sued the state attorneys and the Florida Elections Commission.

The state attorneys basically said, "This isn't our fight. We don't have a position on it."

The Florida Elections Commission had what they call a shade meeting, where you can discuss litigation in private.

The only caveat is that if you decide to make a decision and to go forward in a particular direction, you have to take that vote in public, and that's what they did. In a very short meeting, they approved a settlement in the lawsuit.

And they, in essence, said, "Okay, Republican Party, we agree with you. These laws are unconstitutional, and they should not be enforced."

Last week, the federal judge in the case signed off on what's called a consent agreement.

There are already no limitations on how much people can donate to affiliated PACs — like Friends of Byron Donalds and Florida 2026, which belong to David Jolly. How does this decision affect those candidates?

It will make it easier for the Republicans or the Democrats to spend money to help candidates they want to see supported.

Cash limits are still theoretically in place. The Republican Party of Florida can't write a check for a million dollars and just give it to Byron Donalds' campaign. Those caps exist, but only for cash.

But more importantly, what the Republican Party can do is spend a million dollars on advertising, do it directly for Byron Donalds, and it wouldn't apply to these limits.

So the practical effect is it's just going to make it a lot easier for them to spend money on behalf of the candidates, especially on advertising.

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Alright, so no limits on advertising now. How is this going to affect the midterms?

It's just going to allow them to go forward in an easier fashion. We have about six weeks left before the election. So, I don't know how much of an impact right off the mark it's going to make.

Now, what's going to be interesting is, in theory, it could help the Democrats as well. The issue, though, is that Democrats don't have the financial resources Republicans do.

I think the important thing to note is that this comes at a time when, if you're just looking at the polling and you're looking at the situation, even in Florida, a state where Republicans have a decided advantage in terms of voter registration and, of course, financial resources, they are encountering severe headwinds right now.

I think a whole series of polls has shown the race between David Jolly and Byron Donalds is extraordinarily tight.

There is an environment in Florida where I think the Republicans are in a situation where they may feel the need to spend a lot of money.

Being based in Tallahassee and reporting from the Capitol, what are you hearing from legislators? Are they nervous? The GOP thought they pretty much had Florida in the bag, right? DeSantis won by a lot in 2022.

I think everyone is very cognizant of the fact that what happened in 2022 is not going to happen this year. I think there are Republican consultants who still anticipate a Byron Donalds win, but I think that they don't expect a margin anywhere close to what DeSantis got in 2022.

Now, I mean, who knows? Maybe all this polling that's been happening lately is not on target. And obviously, that's been an issue in some polling in the last few years. But I will tell you that I have heard from enough people, especially on the Republican side, who are taking the tightness of this race seriously.

Before the DeSantis era, a lot of elections in Florida were close. Now Republicans have a 1.5 million voter registration edge in active voters.

The Jolly campaign's position is that Donalds has spent tens of millions on his campaign so far, and the race isn't changing. So, their attitude is, okay — keep spending money. But still, the point is the Jolly campaign keeps saying, "Look, you've been hitting us and you've been out there advertising, and it's not changing the numbers."

If you have any questions about state government or the legislative process, you can ask the Your Florida team by clicking here.

This story was produced by WUSF as part of a statewide journalism initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.