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Dirty Money

Campaign cash at the root of Big Sugar’s political clout

December 6, 2022

Remember when we told you last week about the Dominican sugarcane operation — partly owned by the Florida-based Fanjul brothers — facing an federal import ban and allegations of forced labor? Similar allegations have dogged the company for years; the…

Our voter guides grade candidates on clean water and ‘dirty money’

November 2, 2022

Are you ready to Vote Water? With the Nov. 8 general election less than a week away, and early voting in full swing, Floridians are in the process of shaping our collective future. Will cleaner water be part of it?…

Voter guides: Who’s getting dirty money – and why it matters

October 24, 2022

We’ve got an election coming up in two weeks. Do you know which campaigns are keeping it clean — and which campaigns are powered by “dirty money?” “Dirty money” means political contributions from special interests to candidates, or to political…

While other issues dominate the headlines, we can’t take our eye off the ball – clean water

October 18, 2022

Environmental concerns haven’t been high on the campaign agenda this year. Particularly at the state level, abortion and inflation take up a lot of bandwidth. At the federal level cultural and pocketbook issues also predominate. Our foundational cause, clean water…

Our Voter Guides are out. Here’s how we decided to endorse Charlie Crist

October 12, 2022

On Tuesday VoteWater published our 2022 General Election Voter Guides, a definitive look at clean-water candidates (and not-so-clean-water candidates) in 15 key Florida counties. If you live in Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Collier, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Manatee, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe,…

Big Sugar spending big ahead of Nov. 8 election

September 23, 2022

Don’t look now, but the fall election is just around the corner. And Florida’s powerful sugar industry is doing everything it can to guarantee that on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, the winner will be: Big Sugar. Since Jan. 1,…

Un-endorsement: Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick said she wouldn’t take sugar money – then did

August 19, 2022

Our survey question to Congressional candidates this cycle was pretty simple: Special interests like Florida’s powerful sugar industry spend lavishly to influence elections, with “Big Sugar,” the phosphate mining industry and big utilities, among others, spending hundreds of millions of…

In U.S. District 27 race, Russell never misses a chance to slam Big Sugar

August 17, 2022

At VoteWater, one of our core issues has always been the corrupting influence of money in politics. Political campaigns require funding, and everyone is entitled to give as they see fit. Yet the reality is, the biggest corporate entities give…

Crist for governor, because Fried is too close to Big Sugar

August 16, 2022

VoteWater has endorsed Charlie Crist in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, over Nikki Fried. There are several big reasons for this: First, as we first reported last week, Fried’s campaign has taken a boatload – as in, more than half a…

Why is Nikki Fried getting so much money from sugar-related PACs?

August 9, 2022

Late last month we issued our voter guides for Florida’s Aug. 23 primary election. Between now and election day we reserve the right to update the guides as new information comes to light. We did just that today, in regards…

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