The Dirty Money Project is live How much did your elected officials get?

Welcome to VoteWater’s Dirty Money Project, now live at votewater.org/dirty-money.

We’ve gathered data on more than 130 elected officials at the federal, state and county commission level in eight south Florida counties, and flagged what we call “dirty money” — campaign cash from polluting industries — because we believe "dirty money" is a root cause of dirty water.

VoteWater has long tracked political donations by Florida’s sugar industry, but now we’re tracking the broader agricultural sector, the phosphate mining industry, Florida’s biggest utilities, and the “sprawl” industry, Florida’s development industry. 

We also took a comprehensive look at polluter PACs, or political action committees, which is a major way these industries spread their political money around without you noticing — until now.

Over the past six years these donors have given hundreds of millions of dollars to Florida politicians. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his political action committee got more than $5 million in "dirty money"; so did Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. The outgoing President of the Florida Senate, Kathleen Passidomo, got more than $2 million; so did the incoming Senate President, Ben Albritton.

We had some help following the money; the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at the Stetson University College of Law contributed reporting on major corporate sources of “dirty money” and dug into how much they give to the biggest polluter PACs.

Our goal isn’t to single out any one politician or PAC. It’s to show, in a broad sense, how "dirty money" influences policy.

"Dirty money" buys access; it ensures consideration. It bolsters political power and creates indebtedness.

If you’ve ever wondered why Florida never really cracks down on water pollution, why every development proposed in your community seems to get the rubber stamp — the answer is "dirty money."

So check out our listings, our links to related stories and an explanation of our methodology. Find out how much money YOUR local elected officials got. And if you see something we missed, let us know. This is a work in progress; particularly at the county level we're not familiar with all the players in every community. So if you see something we missed, email us at [email protected], and if we can substantiate it we’ll update our listings.

Thanks for your support — and for helping us make "dirty money" so toxic even dirty politicians won’t take it.