Thinking Out Loud [Florida Trend]

When state leaders created the Collins Center for Public Policy in 1988, political leaders welcomed an independent source of unbiased information to illuminate issues that the state faced. Former Gov. LeRoy Collins and a bipartisan group insisted the organization would remain impartial and nonpartisan. "We should pot exclude any perspective, any theory, any attitude, any solution on a partisan basis," said former Gov. Bob Martinez at the time.

Twenty-five years later, the ranks of Florida's think tanks have swelled. Along with the Collins Institute, the legacy of the now-defunct Collins Center, at least 11 other organizations, funded by private, tax-exempt donations, now purport to provide ideas and research to the state's lawmakers and decision-makers.

What's changed, however, is that most of the think tanks now are grounded in an ideology or focused on a single issue. Even more notable is how some think tanks are aggressively blurring the line between information provider and advocate.

On one end of the spectrum today are groups registered under the IRS' 501(c)3 tax-exempt classification - traditional think tanks like the Collins Institute that publish research reports but refrain from lobbying. The James Madison Institute, for example, openly brings a free-market philosophy to its reports, but Bob McClure, its president and CEO, says "our focus is on education and the issues and our mission - and we don't ever want there to be some appearance that we're somehow benefiting by lobbying some issue."

At the other end of the spectrum are clearly defined lobbying organizations like the Foundation Tor Florida's Future, founded by former Gov. Jeb Bush, that register as 501(c)4 non-profits. That classification eliminates tax deductions for their donors but enables them to openly lobby and run political campaigns.

The middle of the spectrum is the most dynamic - and controversial. The 501(c)3 law restricts political advocacy by charitable groups, but there's a loophole. Organizations like Tarren Bragdon'sFoundation for Government Accountability can choose to operate under the law's "h" section, which allows them to spend roughly 15% to 20% of their resources actively lobbying the issues they research - while preserving tax deductions and anonymity for their donors.

In addition to defining permissible lobbying expenses, the "h" section

spells out what activities are inbounds: "I can't say endorse Jane Smith over Bob Jones, but I can say here's an issue we think you should vote in support of or vote against," says Bragdon.

Bragdon, a former Maine state lawmaker who moved to Naples two years ago, acknowledges his group operates in a far different way than traditional hands-off research groups. Just issuing white papers won't get the job done, he says. "Ultimately, a good idea doesn't matter unless it becomes law and so if you want to have an impact, policymak-ers are the ones who can make that happen so you have to engage with them."

Following are thumbnails of the state's leading think tanks.

HEAVY HITTERS

Florida Chamber foundation

(Tallahassee)

2010 Revenue: $1.3 million

Key Personnel: Mark Wilson, Bentina C. Terry, Tony Carvajal and Tracey Lowe. Wilson is president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce and president of the Florida Chamber Foundation. Terry, vice president for external affairs and corporate services at Gulf Power, chairs the foundation's board. Carvajal, former COO for the now-defunct Collins Center for Public Policy, is executive vice president, and Tracey Lowe, also formerly of the Collins Center, is director of program development.

Funding Sources: Not disclosed About: The business-led group got its start in 1968 as the Florida State Chamber of Commerce Educational Foundation with the goal of improving Florida's education system. By 1983, the foundation broadened its scope to address Florida's growing population and demands on water, energy and transportation and the need to diversity the state's economy. A major project of the group has been the development of its "Six Pillars" framework to serve as a "visioning platform" for a long-term strategic plan for the state. The think tank created a Florida Scorecard, an online tool that provides key metrics for tracking economic progress in the state's 67 counties.

Foundation for Excellence in Education

(Tallahassee)

2011 Revenue: $8,498,544

Key Personnel: Jeb Bush and Patricia Levesque. Bush is chairman. As executive director, Levesque oversees the 47 staffers who work on policy, advocacy, events, development, communications and marketing and perform other duties for the group.

Funding Sources: Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the GE Foundation, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Walton family Foundation, among others. Sponsors of the group's annual summit have included education companies Amplify and Pearson, Microsoft and Target and various philanthropic groups.

About: Bush founded the non-profit in 2009 to export the education reforms pioneered in Florida to other states. The group's agenda includes implementation of "rigorous academic standards" such as Common Core, digital learning, ending tenure for teachers and implementation of data-based evaluations and compensation. The foundation, which shares an address and some staff with its related non-profit, Foundation for Florida's Future, has also organized a coalition of state school chiefs and leaders called "Chiefs for Change" to help advance its agenda.

Foundation for Florida's Future

(Tallahassee)

2011 Revenue: $291,772

Key Personnel: Former Gov. Jeb Bush and Patricia Levesque. Bush is chairman, and Levesque, who served as Bush's deputy chief of staff, is executive director.

Funding Sources: The group does not disclose donors.

About: When Bush founded the group after losing his 1994 bid for governor, the Foundation for Florida's Future published white papers on education and other topics. Today, the high-profile think tank is perhaps the most influential voice shaping the skate's education policy. It has been a powerful proponent of creating more charter and virtual schools, providing vouchers and tax credits to help parents cover private school tuition, strengthening the state's annual standardized testing, instituting merit pay for teachers and increased funding for digital education. The group has also been a backer of "parent trigger" legislation, which would enable parents to petition for changes at a failing public school, such as converting it to a charter school.

Florida TaxWatch

(Tallahassee)

2010 Revenue: $2.3 million

Key Personnel: Dominic Calabro, John B. Zumwalt III, Michelle Robinson and Robert E. Weissert. Calabro is president and CEO; Zumwalt, president of Zumwalt Co., is board chairman; Michelle Robinson, a vice president at Verizon, is chairman-elect. Weissert is chief research officer.

Funding Sources: Supported by memberships, donations and grants from individuals, foundations and corporations

About: The non-profit research institute and government watchdog was founded in 1979 by a group of former Florida lawmakers and business owners who saw the need for a private and independent research organization to keep an eye on government spending. Research covers everything from education to health care, property insurance, taxes and budgeting and transportation. The group is probably best known for its annual Turkey Watch Report, which highlights appropriations that appear in the state budget at the last minute, receiving little or no public review. In 2013, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed more $71 million in turkey projects that TaxWatch identified - more than two-thirds of what the group highlighted.

James Madison Institute

(Tallahassee)

2011 Revenue: $1.9 million

Key Personnel: Bob McClure, president and CEO. McClure served in an advisory capacity on the transition teams of both Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. He also served on the Economic Advisory Council for Scott

Funding Sources: While JMI does not publicly disclose its "several thousand" donors, IRS filings from other foundations show it has received funds from a number of conservatively aligned foundations and groups, including the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Adolph Coors Foundation and the State Policy Network.

About: Founded in 1987 by former Florida State University President J. Stanley Marshall, the James Madison Institute is Florida's oldest and largest free-market think tank. While the group doesn't lobby, it seeks to educate lawmakers and the public on free-market approaches to issues through research, conferences and seminars and through various publications. The group, which is a member of the conservative State Policy Network, has been particularly active on issues such as property rights, taxes, education, health care, public pension reform and property insurance.

FSU-TIED

LeRoy Collins Institute

(Tallahassee)

Revenue: About $125,000 a year

Key Personnel: Carol Weissert, Lester Abberger and Allison DeFoor. Weissert has directed the institute since 2007. Abberger, managing partner of B.L. Abberger & Co., and DeFoor, a former county and circuit judge and sheriff, serve as chairman and vice chairman, respectively.

Funding Sources: Interest revenue on an endowment of nearly $4 million and by project-specific support from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. In the past, the institute has received some funding from the Florida League of Cities for research and to update local governmental revenue and expenditure data. There are no individual donors.

About: Established in 1988, the institute describes itself as a "non-partisan, statewide policy organization, which studies and promotes creative solutions to key private and public issues facing the people of Florida and the nation." Originally called the Collins Center for Public Policy, after the late governor, the center split into two separate entities in 2000 - the Collins Center for Public Policy, which operated out of Miami and other offices, and the LeRoy Collins Institute, which is housed at Florida State University. The Collins Center for Public Policy closed this year amid financial woes, but the LeRoy Collins Institute continues its work. The group, which has examined the cost and sustainability of municipal pensions, will study , health benefits provided to municipal and county government employees.

UF-TIED

Bob Graham Center for Public Service

(Gainesville)

2012 Revenue: About $1.1 million

Key Personnel: David Colburn is interim director of the Bob Graham Center and director of the Reubin O'D Askew Institute on Politics and Society. He was provost and senior vice president at the University of Florida from 1999-2005 and has been a member of the University of Florida history faculty since 1972.

Funding Sources: The center receives $265,000 from the state to fund three positions and has a $3-million, four-year grant that funds two other staff positions and new programs. An endowment provides $130,000 per year.

About: The public policy think tank offers a leadership training program for students. Since it opened in 2008, the center has regularly held public events featuring lawmakers, journalists, scholars and others. It also produces white papers on issues such as election reform and conducts occasional polls in conjunction with the UF Bureau of Economic and Business Research on a host of public policy issues. Next year, the Reubin O'D Askew Institute on Politics and Society, which was created in 1994, will be merged into the Bob Graham Center for Public Service. There, the Askew Institute will be represented through the Reubin Askew scholars program for advanced undergraduate students working on research topics in the area of public policy.

NEWCOMERS

R Street Institute

(Tallahassee)

2012 Revenue: $792,000

Key Personnel: President and co-founder Eli Lehrer, Florida director Christian Camara and senior fellow Don Brown, an insurance agent from DeFuniak Springs. Lehrer is former vice president of the Heartland Institute and a former speechwriter for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Camara, a former Florida House aide and GOP field coordinator, previously held the same position with the Heartland Institute's Center on Finance, Insurance and Real Estate. Brown, a former Republican member of the Florida House, is a lobbyist.

Funding Sources: Corporations and foundations, with a small portion from individuals

About: The Washington, D.C.-based free-market think tank focuses primarily on insurance and regulatory issues but also weighs in on school choice, the environment and other free-market issues. The Florida branch was launched last year by a group of staffers of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute who split from that group. The group focuses on issues related to reforming the state-run insurer Citizens, the CAT fund and the overall regulatory environment. A feather in the group's cap this past legislative session was passage of a provision that will bar Citizens from insuring new construction along the coast.

Integrity Florida

(Tallahassee)

2012 Revenue: $15,950

Key Personnel: Husband and wife Dan and Nicole Krassner, and Mike Dema, now assistant city attorney for St. Petersburg. Dan Krassner, the group's executive director, served as chief strategy and communications officer for the Florida Chamber of Commerce and was vice president of communications for Florida TaxWatch. Nicole Krassner is creative director. Ben Wilcox, former executive director of Common Cause Florida, is the group's research director.

Funding Sources: Grants and grassroots contributions. The group has doubled its revenue for 2013. Donors are disclosed on its website.

About: Integrity Florida promotes ethics and transparency in government. Since it launched January 2012, the group has issued 10 reports. The ethics bill that passed last session contained several recommendations from those reports, including calls for greater public access to officials' financial disclosure reports. In February, the group issued a report taking aim at the state's economic development agency, Enterprise Florida, for its "pay-to-play" contracting practices, but the study caused a schism among the group's board of directors, some of whom objected to the fact that the report was funded in part by Americans for Prosperity, run by the politically active billionaire Koch brothers. Krassner says independence is central to his group's brand and approach and that he's "proud of our diverse funders, board of directors and focus on policy, rather than politics."

Florida Next Foundation

(Tampa)

2011 Revenue: $416,908

Key Personnel: Alex Sink and Ned Pope. Sink, a former banker who served as CFO from 2007-10, is chairwoman. She is a senior adviser with Tampa-based Hyde Park Capital. As president of Florida Next, Pope runs the day-to-day operations of the group. He served under Sink as director of external affairs when she was CFO.

Funding Sources: Corporate donors who don't object are listed on the group's website - including C1 Bank, Knight Marketing, Florida Blue Foundation, Force Works and Ernst & Young. If requested, it also provides financial statements showing how a donor's money has been spent.

About: Sink started the non-prtisan think tank in 2011 after she lost her 2010 bid for governor. The group aims to boost Florida's economy by empowering young professionals, entrepreneurs and small businesses through various programs. The non-partisan organization has been holding brainstorm sessions around the state called Impact Forums, where a mostly under-40 crowd pitches ideas about how to improve their communities.

Project on Accountable Justice

(Tallahassee)

2012 Revenue: $107,000

Key Personnel: Allison DeFoor and Deborrah Brodsky. DeFoor, a former county and circuit judge, sheriff and Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 1990 as running mate to Gov. Bob Martinez, is chairman. Brodsky, PAJ director, previously served as director of the Florida TaxWatch Center for Smart Justice and also spent eight years working for the Florida Legislature as an editor for the Journal of the House of Representatives and other publications.

Funding Sources: Foundation "gifts" comprised $75,000 of the group's total annual revenue. The rest came from individuals.

About: Launched last year, the bipartisan think tank focuses on providing state lawmakers with the data to reform the state's criminal justice system. PAJ is a partnership of Baylor University, St. Petersburg College'sInstitute of Strategic Policy Solutions and the Florida Public Safety Institute at Tallahassee Community College.

Foundation for Government Accountability

(Naples)

2011 Revenue: $212,194

Key Personnel: Tarren Bragdon, Chris Cinquemani, Christie Herrera and Chris Hudson. Bragdon, president and CEO, ran a similar group in Maine called the Maine Heritage Policy Center. Bragdon served in the Maine Legislature from 1996 to 2000. Cinquemani previously directed communications at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, and Herrera is former director of the Health and Human Services Task Force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate-funded non-profit with a conservative bent that produces model legislation for state lawmakers. Hudson, a former legislative assistant, directs government relations for the group.

Funding Sources: Bragdon says his group discloses only those donors who want their names made public. In 2011, that short list included Robert Levy, chairman of the CATO Institute, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, another free market-oriented think tank. IRS filings show that the State Policy Network provided the group $60,000 in startup funds in 2011. The group has disclosed no donor names for 2012 or 2013.

About: Founded two years ago, the group specializes in health and welfare policy and has been focused on fighting the expansion of Medicaid. FGA is a member of the State Policy Network, a national umbrella organization that oversees a network of conservative state-based policy organization.