County Bill Would Bar Vendors' Campaign Donations

An Allegheny County Councilman wants to tighten the rules on contractors' campaign contributions for County races.

District 1 Councilman Matt Drozd says when political candidates accept money from vendors that do business with the county, there can be impropriety and unfairness in awarding future contracts.

Drozd says while the current law prohibits candidates from asking contractors for money, the contributions can still be accepted if they're offered. He says that can lead to the candidate awarding the vendor a contract as a favor when he or she is elected.

Drozd says his bill would bar candidates from accepting those campaign donations altogether. He says he's bringing it up for a full vote now because of inaction from his fellow Council Members.

"I'm willing to let this go into committee, but it's been sitting in committee, and it's particularly buried," says Drozd. "And you know what? I'm going to say it was the prior [Council] President's job to bring it out, and guess who got a lot of contributions in this last campaign. I would ask him, 'How many of those were vendors within Allegheny County?'"

Drozd says although campaign contributions can be considered a form of free speech, they are often unethical and unfair to taxpayers. He says when an elected chooses a contractor as a favor rather than by merit, it can result in a higher cost for the county.

Bill Would Axe City's Campaign Finance Law

Pittsburgh Councilman Ricky Burgess says he wants to repeal the city's Campaign Finance Law because it is "meaningless."

Burgess says he has always obeyed the 2009 law to limit campaign donations, but other candidates disobey it without repercussions.

He says the Campaign Finance law is unenforceable, because it was never adopted by the county. Burgess says he therefore introduced legislation to repeal the law because it is "inconsequential and meaningless."

"The limits are supposed to be $1,000 per individual contribution and $2,000 per PAC organization, and we have candidates that are taking far in excess of those dollars in this primary season, in direct violation of the law," says Burgess.

Burgess says he is withholding his own County Finance Report as a protest of the situation.

However, Councilman Bill Peduto issued a statement denouncing Burgess' bill, saying Burgess is "caving to special interests and working to hide who is funding his campaign." Peduto writes that he's also disappointed several Council Members voted to waive the public comment period for this legislation.

County Councilman to Propose Campaign Finance Reform

At tonight's legislative session, Allegheny County Councilman Matt Drozd plans to submit an ordinance that would ban county officials from taking contributions from vendors, contractors or employees that do business with the county or have financial connections with the county. Drozd says he's been mulling over this legislation for years and believes he has the support of County Executive Dan Onorato. Drozd says he has seen contracts awarded where there was clearly a conflict of interest and he wants to put an end to the practice and to the perception that contracts are granted based on contributions to officials. He says he's not trying to put Allegheny County officials and lawmakers running for higher office at a financial disadvantage, "what I want to do is, anyone who runs for the office even, cannot accept contribution from vendors....I want to make that broadened, include anyone that's running for the office, even if it's not an elected office in the county, they can't do that." He says he's received complaints from small businesses and companies owned by women and minorities, "there's a perception – I've heard this from many of them – if you don't give a donation, you're not going to get a contract or any kind of work from the county, or other areas in government." The session begins at 5 p.m. in the Gold Room at the Allegheny County Courthouse.

Study Says Gas Money Impacts Shale Laws

The good government watchdog group Common Cause Pennsylvania says campaign contributions and lobbyist spending is influencing the debate over the development of the Marcellus Shale formation. A Common Cause study found people and companies with ties to Marcellus Shale gas drilling gave nearly $3 million to Pennsylvania political candidates in the last 10 years and millions more have been spent by gas drilling lobbyists in the three years since such reporting has been required. Common Cause Pennsylvania Associate Director James Browning says Pennsylvania is like the “wild west” of campaign financing. He points to Christine Toretti who is the CEO of S.W. Jack Drilling. Toretti gave $990,000 of her own money to political campaigns and her company gave more than a million since 2001. Browning says it took hundreds of hours to find all that information thanks to the state’s loose campaign contribution laws. Toretti is also the National Committeewoman of Pennsylvania to the Republican National Committee and is known to give money for issues not related to gas drilling. State Representative David Levdansky of Clairton says the influences of big money can be seen in the refusal of the PA Senate Leadership to call votes on legislation that would limit drilling in the Marcellus Formation and impose taxes on the drillers. Common Cause says the top three Republicans in the state senate have all received campaign contributions from the gas industry. Levdansky has long been a proponent of campaign finance reform and has recently called for more controls on drilling on state lands.

The study also finds shale gas money could be playing a role in the race for the governor’s mansion. Republican Candidate and PA Attorney General Tom Corbett leads the six candidates with $360,000 in donations from gas concerns. Democratic candidate and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato places a distant second with $60,000 in contributions. Browning says the governor’s office is so important to this issue that they found a $25,000 contribution to Governor Ed Rendell after his last election. “Now this is someone who is term limited, he is not going to have another campaign for governor. This is clearly an attempt to stay in his good graces,” says Browning. Pittsburgh League of Women Voters Shale Researcher Shannon Debes says the state needs tighter controls to make sure voters have more say in the future of the state than big money. She says the debate over drilling is such an important issue for the state’s future that voters cannot allow it to be dictated by political donations.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Allegheny County Digitizes Campaign Finance Reports

Beginning May 11, 2009, Pittsburgh area residents will have the chance to review campaign finance reports for all Allegheny County elections online, at the county's website. This includes reports for all municipal, school district and county candidates, as well as those in city-specific races such as City Council and mayoral elections. County spokesman Kevin Evanto says the site will use drop-down menus and will be simple an quick to use. "Within 72 hours of reports being filed with the County Elections Office, the reports will be scanned, posted to the internet and indexed for retrieval. People can search by candidate name, committee name, office title, report type or report date," says Evanto. The new system is a great improvement on the former way of viewing finance reports, which entailed travelling to the County Elections Office and requesting access to those documents.

Orie Sponsors Bill to Reinstate Gaming Contribution Ban

Pennsylvania Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie (R-Allegheny) is sponsoring legislation that would again attempt to eliminate campaign contributions by workers in the gaming industry. A similar bill was overturned last week by the State Supreme Court on grounds that it “violated free speech” and was “too broad.” Orie says the court believed the legislative intent of the old legislation was to limit contribution amounts. She says her newly-worded bill clarifies her intent to eliminate all contributions.

New Jersey and Louisiana have laws preventing those in the gamin industry from donating to political campaigns. Orie says her hope is to stop corruption and the appearance of impropriety.

End Pay to Play Legislative Package

Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto will introduce a 5-bill package tomorrow that he says will help end the so-called "pay to play politics" in the city of Pittsburgh. Peduto's proposals involve everything from limiting campaign contributions to registering lobbyists to eliminating no-bid contracts. Peduto says you "can't break the culture of pay to play politics if you just pass one of the bills...together they begin to loosen the bolts of the new 21st Century machine politic and its influence of money on decision-making."
One proposal would limit campaign contributions for mayor and controller to $2,000 from an individual and $4,000 from a political action committee(PAC). For council campaigns, the limits would be $1,000 and $2,000 respectively. Those amounts could be contributed in the primary and the general elections. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl earlier this year introduced a proposal to limit contributions for mayor, controller and council to a total of $4,600 from an individual and $10,000 from a PAC for the entire election cycle. Peduto says that allows the entire amount to be contributed for the Primary Election which is the key race in Pittsburgh (because of the city's heavily Democratic registration edge). Peduto's legislative package also includes creation of an online searchable database for all campaign contributions and contracts.
Peduto is also proposing eliminating all no-bid contracts for all contracts over $30,000. On Friday, Mayor Ravenstahl removed an exception from the no-bid contracts for professional service providers such as attorneys and financial advisers where the contract is above $30,000. However, Peduto says an executive order could be changed by the next mayor and it's important to put the no-bid changes into the city code.
The councilman also wants to require all bids for city contracts to disclose any finder's fees or payments to lobbyists or consultants, and that all lobbyists register annually with the city.
Peduto says the timing for these proposals is right because the primary for mayor and half of council is next month and voters should know where the candidates stand on these issues.

Ravenstahl warned to not sign campaign finance reform

A campaign finance reform watchdog group has sent Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl a letter encouraging him to veto recently passed legislation that would limit campaign contributions in city races. Center for competitive politics president Sean Parnell says the bill would not take corruption out of politics and it might be unconstitutional. The bill passed this week limits individual contributions to $2,000 and limits political committees to $5,000 per election cycle. There is an exemption for candidates running against candidates who spend more than a quarter of a million dollars of their own money on a campaign. A similar provision in federal law has been argued before the US Supreme Court. Parnell says Pittsburgh ordinance would chill free speech, further entrench incumbents because challengers would not be able to get out their message and it would not limit corruption. He says politicians will still feel the pressure to get endorsements and other special interest group support.

City Council adopts Campaign Finance Reforms

Pittsburgh City Council today approved new campaign finance rules. With a 5-4 vote the bill has been sent to Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. The bill bars candidates for city office from taking more than $2,000 per election from any individual or partnership and no more than $5,000 from any political action campaign.

Voting yes on the bill were, Bill Peduto, Doug Shields, Bruce Kraus, Patrick Dowd, and Ricky Burgess.

Voting no were Tonya Payne, Jim Motznik, Darlene Harris, and Dan Deasy.

All members of council voiced support for the reform bill but also made sure to express their own feelings regarding the fact that Pennsylvania does not have any statewide limitations or reforms coming. Members who voted in the negative said they would support a statewide reform bill that places everyone on an even playing field.