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This year, court proceedings rather than platforms are catching headlines in the Philadelphia mayor’s race.
On Dec. 13, Philadelphia Judge Allan Tereshko ruled the state alone has the authority to regulate campaign contributions, effectively tossing out the city’s three-year-old campaign finance law.
Mayoral hopeful and former Philadelphia City Council Member Michael Nutter (D) filed the lawsuit, currently on appeal. If successful, the suit would force candidates in violation of contribution limits to return excess funds and comply with the other aspects of the fundraising law.
Designed to break up the monopoly of influence held by big-money contributors, Philadelphia’s law limits campaign contributions and requires both candidates and political committees to disclose financial information to the Philadelphia Board of Ethics.
Nutter’s lawsuit follows on another lawsuit, which sought to impose the same campaign finance restrictions on announced and unannounced mayoral candidates, filed on behalf of the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia government watchdog group.
“City campaign finance control is a good practice anywhere, but the bigger the city, the bigger the budget,” said Zach Stalberg, president and CEO of the Committee of Seventy. “If big businesses can influence campaigns, they can effectively buy public officials and you’re dealing with a lot of money in big cities.”
Tereshko’s ruling comes despite a September decision which found state campaign finance legislation did not preempt the city’s law. Meanwhile, the city appealed Tereshko’s ruling, meaning that its campaign finance system is back in effect, pending further decisions.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) pledged to create the strongest campaign finance legislation in the country in his State of the City address this year. But he will not have to worry about the situation in Philadelphia affecting things in the Big Apple.
New York City Campaign Finance Board spokesman Eric Friedman said he does not expect the Philadelphia proceedings to prompt a deluge of similar cases in New York, where the laws are designed differently from those in Philadelphia.
To receive public funds, candidates must adhere to spending limits and meet minimum requirements for both campaign money raised and the number of individual contributors.
The system is not all voluntary, though.
According to the Campaign Finance Board, all candidates must comply with some regulations. These include contributions limits, a ban on corporate contributions and required public disclosure of campaign finance activity.
Also, while Albany has its own set of campaign finance regulations for state office candidates, there has been no legal conflict between city and state, as in Pennsylvania.
“No one has challenged the limits in New York City,” said Friedman.
Suzanne Novak, a campaign finance reform lawyer at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, also does not expect that to change based on the Philadelphia proceedings.
“The New York law has been developed independently, and unless New York has the exact same provisions as the Philadelphia law, there shouldn’t be any impact,” she said.