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DeSantis Officials Raise Eyebrows With Campaign Cash Pleas: Report

State officials in Florida have reportedly been fundraising off lobbyists with business before the state—raising legal and ethical concerns.

Officials from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration have been texting lobbyists with business before the state and asking for political donations—a breach of campaign finance norms that raises legal and ethical concerns, according to a report from NBC News. Traditionally, a candidate’s political operations are walled off from the employees of that candidate’s currently held office—especially a sitting governor who still has line-item veto power over items in the state budget, which DeSantis has yet to complete. Whether the state employees’ actions are illegal is unclear, but nearly a dozen lobbyists who spoke with NBC News said it raised ethical concerns that are impossible to ignore. “At a minimum, even if they are sitting in their home at 9 p.m. using their personal phone and contacting lobbyists that they somehow magically met in their personal capacity and not through their role in the governor’s office, it still smells yucky,” one election law attorney told the network. “There’s a misuse of public position issue here that is obvious to anyone paying attention.” At least one official confirmed that they and their colleagues were fundraising for DeSantis’ campaign, and denied that they had engaged in any wrongdoing.