TBBA Advocacy Program: Political Committees

This is the second article in a three part series.

The TBBA’s Advocacy Program is a three-pronged approach to help ensure that your voice is heard with regards to relevant governmental affairs, political action, and building industry issues. This issue of the Building Barometer discusses political committees and how they work for our members.

TBBA’s political committees are organized to permit the accumulation of contributions from consenting members’ dues to be used to fund contributions to candidates and related political activities. Each of our committees is organized as a corporation controlled by TBBA’s Board of Directors, files reports with the state elections division as a Committee of Continuous Existence (CCE), and is considered by the Internal Revenue Service to be a 527 political organization. They are corporations for basic business liability purposes, file as CCEs in order to avoid reporting all members’ contributions from dues individually, and are 527 organizations the same as every form of political committee. Our political committees are for state and local candidates only, not for federal candidates which are considered by NAHB. Our committees are also set up to make contributions to candidates only, not to conduct direct campaigns for or against candidates or issues.  As with individuals or organizations, our contributions are limited to $500, although there is state legislation pending this year to increase this amount as well as to abolish the CCEs used by organizations like TBBA.

The TBBA has 3 political committees, one each in Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties. The goal of these political committees is to identify and support candidates that support the legislative or executive goals of the building industry, or support those that are “pro-housing”. These future decision makers must understand our perspective and how, if elected, their decisions affect our industry and community. Not every candidate values housing or what this industry means to the local economy. Because some candidates are anti-growth, we have a responsibility to educate our members on who we believe are the pro-growth, pro-housing candidates, and our political committees helps us achieve these goals.

During an election year, our political committees will spend hours interviewing potential candidates, both to get to know them and to educate them about our industry. We look both for the candidates who support the builder community, and also look for electability. Though many qualified and well-intentioned candidates vie for these positions of leadership, only a few have the public appeal and the support to win on Election Day.  Once our political committee selects candidates, we can not only make a contribution to their campaign, but also publicize our endorsement and even begin to go to work with them on their campaigns. At best, we can establish win-win relationships that will last for years to come, and continue discussions with our winning candidates at Governmental Affairs forums and issue-specific meetings.