Crist Wrong on Affiliated Party Committees, Says Senate Majority Leader

Crist has vetoed legislation allowing presiding House and Senate leaders to create fundraising committees for candidates, and Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, is calling him out.

The legislation would have created Affiliated Party Committtees, which allow the Senate president, House speaker and minority leaders to set up fundraising committees for candidates in their political parties. Critics have said the committees will resurrect "leadership funds," unregulated slush funds banned in the state for 20 years.

"I don't think it's the right thing to do nor the right time to do it," he has been reported as saying.

Diaz de la Portilla said in a release that the governor's veto is "100 percent wrong."

"As Governor Crist knows all too well, unchecked power resting solely in a party chairman's office is no way to account for how political party dollars are spent," he said in a release.

"The bill -- by enforcing new reporting and accounting procedures on legislative leaders -- would have required mandatory quarterly reporting guidelines and the obligation to post those reports online. In other words, voters would have had the ability to see exactly how legislative leaders from each party spend contributions and who made those contributions."