Andrew Gillum Using Dark Money to ‘Flip Florida Blue’ by Registering 1 Million Voters

In an effort to register 1 million new voters in Florida ahead of the 2020 presidential election, failed Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has shifted tactics from using a political committee required to report every expenditure to a private nonprofit that can disclose much less financial data, including the sources of donations.

Gillum’s use of the nonprofit, calling itself Forward Florida Action is notable, given the Florida politician’s warning last February about the influence of “dark money” in his own race for governor, referring to entities that obscure their donors. Gillum is deploying his nonprofit for the voter registration drive instead of utilizing his political committee, Forward Florida.

The Tampa Bay Times first reported on Gillum’s shift in financial tactics, saying:

Gillum moved $500,000 from the political committee to the nonprofit last month, according to campaign finance reports filed Wednesday.

What Gillum does with that money will largely be shielded from public view. Unlike his political committee, which is required to itemize every expenditure and report it to the state each month, the nonprofit does not have to disclose its spending.

Nor will the nonprofit have to account for where it gets its money. The organization’s annual tax documents will be public, but those include far less information and it will be more than a year before they’re made available.

The change came after the Tampa Bay Times reported in May that the FBI had subpoenaed records related to his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. This after Gillum’s time as Tallahassee mayor was tied to an FBI probe into city hall corruption, a federal investigation that involved undercover FBI agents going on trips with Gillum.

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