I oppose any legislation that would have the effect of eliminating campaign contribution limits in the current Mayoral race.
The goal of campaign finance reform is to preserve our democracy. Democracy is undermined when money becomes so important in politics that those who contribute to campaigns play a dramatically greater role in determining who holds office—and thus what our office holders do—than our citizens. So I am concerned about both limiting the influence of those who contribute to the campaigns of others and those who contribute to their own campaigns.
In order to attain both goals, I proposed last week a compromise that would lift campaign contribution limits gradually if a candidate for Mayor increased his contributions to his own campaign.
Rather than being a serious compromise, the new bill goes so far in lifting contribution limits as to make them meaningless. It is a fig leaf that doesn’t cover the obscenity of the initial bill.
I have also proposed a number of way in which we can reduce the role of money in political campaigns. In particular we need public financing of campaigns and we need to reduce the cost of campaign advertising on television by renegotiating the franchise Comcast holds with the city.
But our broken politics in Philadelphia is incapable of thinking ahead. Everyone knew month ago that Tom Knox would spend millions of his own money on his campaign. And everyone has known for years that money was far too important in our campaigns. And yet our campaign finance laws remain inadequate.
At this moment in the history of Philadelphia, our most important goal has to be to keep the hard won limits on campaign contributions in place. So we have to fight against this legislation
In May, our goal has to be to elect City Council candidates who are willing to fight to preserve democracy in the city that gave birth to it in modern times.