A secretive nonprofit financing a proposed constitutional amendment that would make it far harder to amend the state constitution in the future has raised money from a group linked to a lobbying organization for Florida Power & Light, U.S. Sugar Corp. and other big businesses.
The nonprofit, known as “Keep Our Constitution Clean Inc.,” has spent more than $9 million on a campaign to pass Amendment Four on the 2020 ballot — which, if approved by voters, would require all future amendments to go through two statewide referendums.
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Keep Our Constitution Clean is what critics call a “dark money” group, because it is organized under a section of federal law that allows it to hide the identities of its donors even though it is spending money to influence an election.
But federal tax records reveal one donor: Another dark-money nonprofit, known as “A Better Miami Dade Inc.,” which transferred $150,000 to Keep Our Constitution Clean in 2018, the year Keep Our Constitution was created.
And A Better Miami Dade has extensive ties to Associated Industries of Florida, according to tax, corporate and campaign-finance records.
A Better Miami Dade was created by a Miami political consultant who once worked for Tom Feeney, the former Republican congressman from Central Florida who is now the president of Associated Industries. It has used a Jacksonville lawyer who is Associated Industries’ top attorney. And it has transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to and from other organizations that are run by Associated Industries executives in Tallahassee.
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