Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., shared his concerns about federal tax reform and his opposition to the state’s new voting law in Naples Friday.

In Southwest Florida to deliver the keynote address at the 2011 Campaign for Leadership at the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce’s event at the Naples Botanical Garden, Nelson expressed his continued opposition to a new voting law passed by the legislature earlier this year.   

The measure reduces the number of days for early voting and places new restrictions on third party groups that register voters.

“It makes it harder to vote.  It makes it harder to register to vote.  It makes it harder to have your vote counted as you intended,” said Nelson.

“I’ve talked to the governor about this, asking him to try to reverse what the legislature did and I just wrote to the Attorney General of the United States pointing out that there is a similar pattern among 13 other states in suppressing the rights of voters,” he added.

A three judge panel in Washington is considering provisions in the law, but despite pressure to reach a decision before Florida’s January 31^st primary, the panel isn’t likely to rule before next summer. 

During his presentation, Nelson also spoke about reforming the federal tax code through the elimination of loopholes for special interests. 

“There is more money going out of the U.S. Treasury in the special exemptions for certain special interests.  There’s more money going out of the Treasury than there is coming in each year in individual income tax,” said Nelson.

“If you get rid of some of those loopholes, take the revenue instead, poor it into the revenue code, you can actually simplify the IRS code and you can lower everybody’s rates including the corporate income tax rates,” he added.

When asked about the growing field of GOP candidates looking to challenge him in next year’s election, Nelson said for now, he’s focusing on his work in the Senate