This week City Council will consider Bill No. 060629, which in its unamended form would gut the city’s limits on campaign contributions and be a major step backwards in the effort to reform politics in Philadelphia. You can help stop 60629—or even better, have it improved by amendment—by signing a petition which will be delivered to your Council members Thursday morning.
Bill 60629, which is sponsored by Councilman Goode, would, in its original form, define a candidate as someone who has filed nominating petitions or declared his or her candidacy for office. The result would be that there would be no limits on how much money a candidate could raise before early March of an election year. (See below for information about an amendment Goode proposed today that may fix this problem)
Goode claimed that his ordinance would prohibit candidates from using money that exceeds the finance limits ($2500 for an individual; $10000 for a PAC) after they file petitions or declare their candidacy. However, his unamended bill creates two massive loopholes in the campaign finance law. First, because campaigns, especially for Mayor, may start a year or more before the filing deadline, a great deal of campaign spending will be entirely unregulated. And second, a candidate can, in March, pre-pay many of his or her expenditures for the next three months: campaign staff, the preparation and placement of TV and newspaper ads, and so forth.
Because of these loopholes, Bill 60629 would give a tremendous advantage given to people with the political connections and name recognition to raise a lot of money early. Challengers and grassroots candidates, who tend to be slow starting in building their campaigns, would be at a tremendous advantage. In other words, like most campaign finance bills put forward by incumbents, this one is an incumbent protection act.
Bill 60629 should be amended to follow state law and use a common sense definition of who is a candidate. By that standard, a candidate is anyone who is raising or spending money or has consented to allow other people or a campaign committee to raise or spend money for purpose of influencing his or her nomination or election to City elective office.
Right now, potential Mayoral candidates Evans, Saidel, Brady, Nutter, and Knox are abiding by the rules that would be unambiguously put in force by an amendment along these lines. Potential candidates Fattah and Dougherty have not agreed to do so
As I was writing this, a press release from Councilman Goode indicated that he will propose an amendment to Bill 60629 that will go at least part way towards closing these loopholes. He would extend the campaign contribution limits to any candidate who has who authorizes a political committee, in writing, to raise funds on behalf of his or her candidacy for City elective office. This is a welcome amendment and goes at least part way to closing the loopholes the original bill created. However, I’m not sure it would apply campaign contribution limits to “exploratory committees” that are operating on behalf of undeclared candidates. I am currently examining this and will report back when I find out more.
If, as I hope, Councilman Goode’s amendment is satisfactory, we still need to find the votes in City Council to support it. So, again, I urge you to sign a petition in support of amending Bill 60629
There is one good feature of Bill 60629, a “millionaire’s” exception that double the contribution limitations for mayoral candidates when one candidate contributes more than $250,000 of his or her own money.
To insure that all loopholes are closed, I would suggest that §20-1001 paragraph (1) of the bill be amended as follows
Philadelphia has been making progress in cleaning up our political campaigns. In 2003, under the leadership of Councilman Goode, City Council set limits on contributions to political campaigns. In 2005 and 2006, under the leadership of then Councilman Nutter, a series of laws were enacted that limited campaign contribution from those who do business with the city. Two days ago, under the leadership of State Representative Dwight Evans, the House of Representatives passed a bill would end any legal confusion about the city’s right to regulate campaign finances. And, with the support of Rep. Evans, Council members Tasco and Verna have promised to hold hearings on legislation that would establish public financing of political campaigns.
With all the progress we are making towards reforming politics in Philadelphia, this is no time to take a step backward.
Please, sign the petition now.
For more information about the unamended version of 60629, go to the Committee of Seventy Website.