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Falling Contributions Close Common Cause

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The Associated Press

Published: March 23, 2009

Updated: 03/23/2009 07:54 pm

TALLAHASSEE - The leader of a nonpartisan government watchdog group isn't going down without a fight.

Even though Common Cause's Ben Wilcox will be out of a job as of March 31, the group's Florida executive director appeared Monday in a House Committee hearing to testify in favor of revising campaign financing.

Common Cause is shutting its Florida operations at the end of the month due to falling contributions blamed on the nation's economic woes. Wilcox, though, said he may keep lobbying lawmakers on open-government, elections and ethics issues through the end of the legislative session on May 1.

"Even if I have to come up here as a private citizen, I may do that, too," Wilcox said. "I don't want to leave issues up in the air."

Wilcox and Sarasota-based development director Alex Chavez are among about 20 staffers being let go nationally.

Adrienne Katz-Katz, a Common Cause state board member from Orlando, said she's hoping another organization with similar aims may find a place for Wilcox, a former public radio reporter who's been with Common Cause for the past 10 years.

"Ben is a treasure," Katz-Katz said. "We're going to find something. We don't want to lose him for our advocacy for people who care about good government."

Wilcox spoke about the impending layoffs after appearing before the House Appropriations Council on Education & Economic Development to testify in favor of keeping but revising public financing for gubernatorial and Cabinet races.

The panel approved a 2010 ballot proposal to take a requirement for public financing out of the Florida Constitution (HJR 81). The council, though, also voted for a bill (HB 83) to cut spending limits - as urged by Wilcox - if voters keep public financing.

Wilcox told the council that the Legislature in 2005 defeated public financing's purposes of reducing campaign spending and the influence of special interest cash on elections by increasing spending limits to $20 million for governor and $10 million for each of the three Cabinet seats.

The council-approved bill would reduce the limits to $7 million for governor and $3 million for Cabinet, slightly more than the pre-2005 levels of $5 million and $2 million. The bill also would repeal the state's public financing law if voters first agree to remove the constitutional requirement.

The law has been on the books since 1986, but voters then put the requirement in the Constitution in 1998 by adopting an amendment offered by the Constitution Revision Commission. It'll take a three-fifths vote in each chamber to get the repeal on the ballot and then a 60 percent vote at the polls.

Common Cause also is pushing for legislation to expand early voting, increase postelection campaign auditing requirements and make it a felony to make frivolous voting challenges.

The organization also is part of a coalition gathering petitions to get on the 2010 ballot a pair of state constitutional amendments designed to prevent political favoritism in redistricting.

"I will personally continue to support that because I just believe it's so critical," Wilcox said. "I'll keep hanging around."

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