31 Quotes by Ben Wilcox

When the legislature refuses to act on an issue, citizens need to have some way to go around the legislature.

When voters go into the voting booth and they read what's being proposed, it's going to be like common sense to them. It's a basic conflict of interest for legislators to draw their own districts.

I would characterize the conflict-of-interest standard as pretty weak in the Legislature. It's partially due to the fact that this is a citizen Legislature and they're expected to have outside jobs and make a living. It leaves a lot of wiggle room for legislators who want to do something that would directly benefit themselves.

Bush raised money up to that level, then stopped and allowed the party to take over the funding of the campaign and the advertising. After that point, public financing in Florida has not really been doing what it was meant to do in the beginning.

If it's being done just to hide their real vote, I don't think that's the way to go. I find it kind of hard to imagine that there would be that many people that would be fooled by it.

I think we've seen in this session and in past sessions a kind of an arrogance from the legislature that they know best rather than the people. They don't trust the people to make decisions in their own interest.

It gives us some guidelines for coming back and drawing an amendment that will pass the court's muster.

I think that's where you see the real use of money to buy influence because in this case, they're not even principled enough to be supporting one candidate over another. They just want to have access and influence with whoever wins. They're just basically hedging their bets.

I think it would be significant campaign finance reform. It would be a serious attempt to deal with what we believe is the most common avenue for special interest contributions.