The boss is back: Tallahassee is already awash in special-interest money.

The flood of cash flowing into Republican Party and (to a much lesser extent) Democratic Party coffers from Big Sugar, the telecommunications industry, the doctor, lawyer and hospital lobbies and other special interests exert a pervasive influence on what might loosely be called public policy making in the Florida Legislature.

It is no point of honor for Floridians to be able to brag that they have the best Legislature money can buy. But even Florida’s reputation as the Switzerland of soft-money banking (donors banking on the willingness of grateful lawmakers to do their bidding) isn’t stopping legislators from trying to further expand the opportunities for fat cats to purchase even more influence in Tallahassee.

The latest “innovation” in making friends and buying influence is a resurrection of a bad old idea that was put to rest in the 1980s after an earlier generation of lawmakers grew embarrassed by and wary of the raw influence that so-called “leadership funds” could purchase for their House speakers and Senate presidents…

On Monday, the Senate amended an

Send post as PDF to

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!