Allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are reportedly planning to execute a controversial money transfer to free up tens of millions of dollars to support his expected 2024 presidential campaign.
DeSantis, widely considered former President Donald Trump’s top potential Republican primary rival, won his 2018 gubernatorial race and easily clinched reelection in 2022 with the help of a deep-pocketed state political committee. The group has raised more than $225 million for DeSantis and currently boasts nearly $86 million in cash on hand.
But if DeSantis decides to run for president — as he is widely expected to do in the coming weeks — he is legally barred from dumping that war chest into his federal campaign coffer. That’s because federal law bans the transfer of state-level political funds to a national election.
Instead, the governor’s allies could try to transfer them to a pro-DeSantis federal super PAC, which is required to remain independent of his potential presidential bid. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, has reported that those plans are underway.
“That is the path we expect for DeSantis to take,” Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel for the nonprofit government watchdog Campaign Legal Center, said in an interview.
Ports’ group argues that such a transfer from a candidate-controlled state committee to a federal super PAC is illegal. But other experts disagree, and Ports acknowledged that the Federal Election Commission “has not had the teeth to enforce in this area.”
There’s history to support that claim: The FEC allowed a similar maneuver during the 2020 congressional race of Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.
Donalds, a former state representative, had resigned as chair of his own political committee, “Friends of Byron Donalds,” shortly before running for Congress. A few months later, that state group contributed more than $107,000 to a federal independent political committee that supported Donalds’ candidacy.
The Campaign Legal Center…
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