TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A group of super-wealthy people helped foot the bill as Gov. Ron DeSantis barnstormed Florida and the rest of the country campaigning for his reelection and stumping for political allies running up to the midterm elections this month.
They include hoteliers, developers, restaurateurs, investment brokers, trucking magnates, health executives, gas station and convenience store owners, and oil distributors, some of whom benefited from appointments to state boards and from laws enacted by DeSantis. Those include the state’s gas tax holiday, raising the commission for retailers on lottery ticket sales, earmarking millions of advertising dollars for Visit Florida, and lifting the state’s lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not only did the extremely rich donate tens of millions of dollars in cash to the governor, they made more than $500,000 worth of in-kind contributions to cover his transportation costs, an Orlando Sentinel review of state records shows.
That doesn’t include the nearly $200,000 in transportation costs covered by the Republican Party of Florida. Nor does it include thousands of dollars in direct payments for hotels, commercial airplane tickets and other travel expenses.
“It’s the old campaign finance thing to curry favor with the governor and gain private access to him,” said Ben Wilcox, research director for the nonpartisan organization Integrity Florida.
“Something we’ve seen is corporate owners providing free flights and then they happen to be on the flight or have their lobbyist on the plane with the politician,” Wilcox said. “That’s access you can’t buy. They’re not doing it out of a sense of good government, they’re doing it for influence.”
Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political science professor, agreed it’s a great way to “get the ear” of a politician and more access than the average voter.
A governor who travels a lot
DeSantis clearly loves to travel, as seen by the $145,000 he racked up in travel expenses while in Congress, and his annual travel expenses paid for by Florida taxpayers. His state travel expenses went up from $2 million for 2021 to $2.4 million for the 2022 fiscal year that ended June 30. The state plane he uses logged 139 days of flying time in the past 12 months.
The use of private planes is allowed under state campaign finance law as long as the candidate reports the cost as a campaign expenditure or in-kind contribution.
Campaign records filed with the state only provide a date for the contribution and whether it was for transportation, lodging or food and beverage, but they don’t go into detail about the date or destination of any flight. So there is no way to trace how DeSantis got to Pennsylvania to campaign for gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, Arizona for Kari Lake, or Las Vegas for Adam Laxalt, for example.
Records also don’t detail how DeSantis traveled to Orlando in February for CPAC, considered the pinnacle of uber-conservative conferences, or to other similar political events around the state and country. But records do show in-kind transportation contributions reported on the same days as those out-of-state events and the CPAC conference.
“Lack of details or specificity or transparency is a loophole in state campaign law by design,” Wilcox said. “The system should be designed so there is complete transparency for how those dollars are used. In-kind contributions like plane rides should be more specific and give dates and destinations of those flights, but there is no political will to tighten those loopholes.”
The records give at least a partial glimpse into the world of the millionaires and billionaires who foot the bill for the governor’s travel around the country.
Ralph “Larry” Roberts, founder of RLR Investments and R&L Carriers, an Ohio-based shipping and trucking company, and developer of the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, donated $275,000 in cash and $20,000 of in-kind transportation costs in October, the month before the election.
One of his companies owns a Dassault Falcon 7X, a jet worth at least $18 million that seats 19 passengers. Other in-kind donors have private planes, too. Between them all, they could muster a fleet of executive jets worth tens of millions of dollars.
Another donor, Charles B. Johnson, founder of Franklin Templeton, co-owner of the San Francisco Giants and owner of two homes in Palm Beach, gave DeSantis $855,000 in cash and close to $15,000 of in-kind transportation costs.
Daytona Beach developer Mori Hosseini, chairman of the University of Florida Board of Trustees, gave DeSantis $280,000 cash an in-kind transportation costs of nearly $17,000 through his various companies.
Thomas Corr, a Vero Beach resident and President and CEO of the George E. Warren Corporation, the largest importer of oil on the East and Gulf coast, gave DeSantis $234,000 in cash and $19,260 in transportation costs. His company, TLC Leasing, gave an additional $5,169 in-kind transportation costs. Corr served on DeSantis’s first inaugural host committee.
Maximo Alvarez, owner of Doral-based Sunshine Gas Distributors, which owns 360 gas stations, donated $135,000 in cash, and $9,961 for in-kind transportation costs. DeSantis appointed Alvarez to the Florida State University Board of Trustees in 2021.
Companies owned by Aubrey Edge, head of First Coast Energy, one of the largest distributors of Shell gasoline in the United States, donated $200,000 to DeSantis and nearly $31,000 of in-kind transportation costs. DeSantis appointed Edge to the university Board of Governors in 2020.
The gas distributors were the prime beneficiaries of October’s gas tax holiday. Gas retailers also got a 0.75 % raise on their commission on state lottery ticket sales, which was inserted into the back of the state budget bill at the last minute after a bill with similar language failed to get heard.
The language for that bill, filed by Rep. Ana Maria Rodriguez, R-Miami, was written by Nelson Diaz, a Southern Strategy lobbyist who represented two clients on this bill: Sunshine Gasoline Distributors and the Florida Petroleum Marketers Association. Alvarez sits on the legislative committee of the petroleum marketers association, while Edge is a member of the finance committee.
Undervaluing the costs?
According to one jet leasing website, the cost of leasing these jets range from $4,000 to $8,000 per flight hour. Donors could be undervaluing their in-kind donations, but under state campaign finance law, candidates only have to provide an estimate of the value of a commercial ticket for travel provided on a private plane for a similar route.
One potential ethical pitfall is whether the governor’s political office is coordinating these flights with the campaign staff, Wilcox said.
Campaign records show that the campaign paid the Florida Department of Law Enforcement $15,000 for three separate occasions when the governor used the state plane for campaign travel.
The state plane is owned by the FDLE and used for state business, FDLE spokesman Gretl Plessinger said. “If it is used for a campaign event, a campaign must reimburse FDLE.”
No further details were provided despite repeated requests to explain why the campaign reimbursed the state.
The DeSantis campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But campaign records show the dates of the payments correspond with dates the governor was traveling on official state business, suggesting he was piggybacking state business with campaign events.
Hosseini, who was reappointed by DeSantis to the UF Board of Trustees in February 2021, was instrumental in steering DeSantis’ controversial Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to a job at UF.
He also led the search committee for UF’s new president, Ben Sasse, a Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska. Sasse drew fire from students and faculty alike about his conservative views.
Hosseini allowed Florida first lady Casey DeSantis to use his jet to fly from Tallahassee to northeast Florida to attend both a political GOP fundraiser held by a donor to her husband’s campaign and an official event to promote a federal grant for mental health, Politico reported at the time.
Close coordination between the governor’s office and DeSantis’ campaign staff was needed for the first lady to mix the two, Politico reported.
The state Department of Transportation is building a $50 million exit ramp on Interstate 95 in Volusia County that provides access to one of Hosseini’s residential developments.
“It’s probably a little bit of a gray area,” Jewett said. “It all sounds perfectly legal in terms of the rules that have been set up, but it may be a little gray because of the lack of transparency. That can lead to questions about how much aid is being given to a candidate and what they’re getting in return.”
Daniel Smith, chairman of the political science department at the University of Florida, agreed that lending an airplane to DeSantis gives wealthy donors “face time with a candidate and prospective front runner for the Republican nomination for president.”
And that kind of access has a more personal touch to it than writing a six-figure check, Smith said. “I’m presuming many of these owners are tagging along if it’s their jet.”
“It’s clear he’s willing to take money from anyone,” Smith said of DeSantis. “What’s the quid pro quo?”
--------
