And there's a hint that this issue may show up in the City Council races. From YPP's Dan (though we added the emphasis):
Dear Councilpeople Greenlee, Reynolds-Brown, Tasco, DiCicco, Kenney, Miller and others:
You all have a chance to make this go away. You have a chance not to hand your opponents a huge stick to whack you with. You have a chance to show that you listen. You have a chance to show that when only one-quarter of Philadelphia thinks we are on the right track, that you will not make nakedly bold moves to preserve that status quo.
Make this law go away, and, we can forget it happened.
Not only is this morally wrong, you are hurting your chances to keep your own jobs, and you are going to show yourselves as out of touch. Get ready for ads and fliers from every single one of your opponents detailing that you are on the side of the well connected, and the status quo.
Comments (5)
This may be a stupid question but, since city council has been brought up, do the campaign finance limits apply to city council elections as well as the mayoral election?
Posted by Dave![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/nav-commenters.gif)
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February 1, 2007 10:01 PM
Remember how everyone thought the pay raise was a done deal and then all hell broke loose. That can happen with this issue.
Posted by karen | February 1, 2007 10:02 PM
FYI, The YPP site says that several council candidates have now publicly voiced their strong opposition to Kenney's effort to gut campaing finance laws, including Matt McClure, who wendy yesterday gave credit to for sharing his campaign finance report with the media.
Posted by Outlaw | February 2, 2007 1:43 PM
Perspective makes all the difference.
I applaud Nutter in continuing to oppose Kenney's efforts to remove caps in the mayoral race. By standing by his principles--even when the law as it now exists is assisting a rival candidate (and one that hurts Nutter in particular, as he has polled stronger in White communities than Fattah or Evans and it is from these White communities that Knox is almost exclusively drawing support) demonstrates his strength of conviction and makes me believe I can trust him to do what is right even if politically inexpedient.
On the same token, I think Knox should be ashamed of voicing opposition to Kenney's bill. As he is so obviously the only candidate that benefits from the inequity inherent in the current structure of the law, how can we take his sounding off on it as anything other than self-interested posturing? His criticism of the bill--given his blatant stake in the matter--undermines his own credibility, of course, but it also undermines the credibility of the legitimate arguements against Kenney's effort.
Woe to us if they all get lumped together and legitimate concerns are thrown out with the filthy bathwater of Tom Knox' screw-em-all-so-long-as-it-helps-me campaign strategy.
Posted by Phaedrus | February 2, 2007 6:17 PM
I want to praise Councilman Kenney for having the courage to propose the revision to the campaign finance ordinance to close the multi-millionaire loophole! Councilman Kenney and his co-sponsors are showing leadership. Sure, they knew that people with vested self interest would clamor, such as Knox and Nutter. But they also knew that it wasn't right to let someone buy the election.
We all know that it isn't right to have one candidate that can donate 3000% of the individual donor limit to himself! How is that defensible??? It's not.
Kudos to Kenney and his supporters!
Posted by Andy Daven | February 4, 2007 9:56 PM