SB1116 eliminates the public financing of candidates for statewide elected office, contingent upon voter approval of an amendment to repeal the requirement in Article VI, Section 7, of the Florida Constitution.
The Senate passed SB1116 on February 28, 2024, by a vote of 28 to 12. We have assigned pluses to the yeas because taxpayer dollars have no place in political campaigns. Public money should not be used to advance partisan agendas, and laws requiring or restricting campaign contributions amount to a regulation of political speech. Citizens should be able to voluntarily contribute to whichever candidates they wish, but government should never violate their freedom of speech by forcing them to subsidize candidates with whom they may disagree. In addition, campaign finance laws subject both candidates and their supporters to another sweeping layer of government surveillance, violating the personal privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.