Campaign $ limits in effect as city appeals ruling

Philadelphia Daily News (PA)
Copyright 2006 The Philadelphia Daily News
December 27, 2006

Campaign $ limits in effect as city appeals ruling

By Dave Davies, The Philadelphia Daily News

Mayor Street has decided to fight in court to uphold contribution limits on candidates for mayor and City Council, meaning the restrictions that had been imposed will remain in effect for now.

"We believe the city is fully within its rights under the state election code," City Solicitor Romulo Diaz said yesterday, referring to contribution limits enacted by City Council in 2003 and amended twice since.

Common Pleas Court Judge Allan Tereshko earlier this month tossed out the city's campaign-finance law, saying that only the state had the authority to regulate campaign contributions.

The city's filing of a notice of appeal yesterday imposes an automatic stay on Tereshko's order, which means the limits will remain in effect until the issue is resolved by appellate courts.

State law imposes no limit on campaign contributions, and past mayoral elections have seen contributions of $50,000 and higher.

The new city law limits contributions from individuals to $2,500 and limits contributions from political committees to $10,000. But a "millionaire's amendment" enacted this year doubles those limits when a heavily self-financed candidate enters the race.

Since millionaire Tom Knox is in the 2007 mayoral contest, the higher contribution limits are in effect: $5,000 for individuals, and $20,000 for political committees.

Diaz said the city will argue not only that the city law does not violate the state election code, but that the state ethics code has a specific provision enabling municipalities to enact ethics provisions to suit local circumstances.

"We see campaign finance as both an electoral and an ethics issue," Diaz said.

The legal status of the city's campaign-finance rules has been shrouded in legal uncertainty for months. In September, Common Pleas Judge Gary Glazer, ruling in a separate lawsuit, appeared to uphold the city's authority to regulate contributions.

Despite the uncertainty about the city's authority, the declared mayoral candidates have pledged to accept only contributions that fall within the city's limits.

Candidate Michael Nutter, who had already appealed Tereshko's ruling, praised Street's decision as "the right message we need to send to end this city's culture of corruption."

The city also has enacted laws barring companies and individuals that make large contributions from seeking no-bid city contracts and financial assistance.

With the May 15 mayoral primary inching nearer, the Philadelphia Board of Ethics is trying to move speedily to clarify new and complicated city rules regulating campaign spending.

Meeting yesterday, the five-member board - whose members were sworn in two weeks ago - reviewed a draft response to seven campaign finance-related questions submitted by one of the candidates for mayor, former City Councilman Michael A. Nutter.

They discussed plans in the works for creating first-time rules for the filing of campaign-spending reports by all city candidates.

And they moved ahead with translating into "plain English" a complex set of rules about how much candidates can raise and spend.

Still unclear, though, was how much the voter-approved board could practically accomplish to effect next year's much-anticipated mayor's race. The board, an independent entity with a $1 million budget, is charged with enforcing campaign-finance rules and other matters.

"We have a lot on our plate right now, and don't have a full staff," board member Pauline Abernathy said.

The board is partly handicapped by the late start it got because of Mayor Street's seven-week delay in nominating its members.

Indeed, the board itself is busy getting up to speed on the city's ethics rules, having completed a two-hour training course prior to yesterday's noon meeting.

"You clearly have a great deal to do in a small period of time," Zack Stalberg, president of the government watchdog group Committee of Seventy, told members yesterday. That said, on election-related issues, he urged the board not to get weighed down in bottomless legal matters, but rather to use its "moral authority" to suggest what candidates should, and should not, be doing.

Held at Community College of Philadelphia, it was the second ethics board meeting in as many weeks, with yet another scheduled for next week. The topic again: campaign finance