VoteWater’s “Dirty Money Project” is making news across the Sunshine State.

First, Executive Director Gil Smart’s Oct. 4 op-ed in the Miami Herald explained how “dirty money” to dirty politicians is a root cause of dirty water. Then, just this week, Craig Pittman touted the Dirty Money Project in his column for the Florida Phoenix, detailing how and why we gathered, crunched and published the data.

Wrote Pittman: “Smart reminded me of a joke that Robin Williams once made about how politicians ‘should be like NASCAR drivers. They should actually have to have jackets with the names of all the people who are sponsoring them.’

“The Dirty Money database is the next best thing, Smart said.”

Pittman encouraged his readers to look up their own senators and representatives to see who owns them. And in fact, our website saw a surge in traffic after the story published — indicating that his readers were doing just that.

This is just the beginning for the Dirty Money Project. Our partners at the Stetson University College of Law are digging through lobbying data, looking to detail how many lobbyists the big polluters employ, and how much they pay for it. We hope to publish that report soon.

And we continue to update our database with new information about new “dirty” donations to decision-makers at the federal, state and county commission level.

As always, our goal remains to empower you, to tell you who’s trying to “buy” your local decision-makers – and to give you the tools to demand change.

Your support can help us dig up even more “dirty” details. Please consider donating to VoteWater today!