Change of plans, everyone (The Next Mayor)

Dave

:

Maybe he's gotten too many contributions from unions.

http://www.philadelphiacontroller.org/friends_of_bob_brady.pdf

Posted by Dave | March 19, 2007 12:45 PM

Joe:

Is it me or, on page 7/19 of this document, does it list 'Bob Brady for Congress' (which I'm assuming is Brady's congressional fund) as one of the funders (with a $20k contribution) to Bob Brady for Mayor?

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but is this legal?

Posted by Joe | March 19, 2007 1:06 PM

Jennifer:

So long as it's a registered PAC, that's allowed, I would presume.

Posted by Jennifer | March 19, 2007 4:39 PM

Dave

:

Technically, I think it's allowed. However, it's possible to use this type of donation in order to hide donations from individuals or organizations that aren't allowed to donate money. E.g. X union has donated the limit to Brady's mayoral campaign, so it donates money to his congressional campaign which, in turn, donates to his mayoral campaign, or an individual/organization disallowed by law from donating altogether could do the same thing.

I don't know if this is happening in this particular case, but there have been a couple articles about possible ethics violations in Brady's campaign finance:

http://thenextmayor.com/vault/20070215brady_finance_loophole.html
http://www.seventy.org/transparency/campaignfinance/news/0207/bradymoney.html

Posted by Dave | March 19, 2007 5:31 PM

Saul:

I think you are trying to hard to nail Brady. Can't he be just accepting a donation from his own congressional PAC? Everything has to be some sort of funneling from Unions...it's getting tiring. All the other candidates can find a way to do it too but with their niche - it's just easier for you to pick on the Unions.

Posted by Saul | March 20, 2007 8:59 AM

Dave

:

He can just be accepting a donation from his personal PAC -- in fact, that's exactly what he's doing, and that's the point. The money in his personal PAC has to have come from somewhere. It didn't necessarily come from unions, but Brady get a huge amount of money from unions, so of course they're going to get mentioned as a possible source.

Posted by Dave | March 20, 2007 9:15 AM

Wendy:

Both papers wrote about the relationship among Brady, PACs and union money. Here's the Daily News' version, concerning Unity 2001.

The key paragraphs:

"...the Brady campaign also reported receiving a maximum $20,000 donation from Unity 2001, a political-action committee run by a member of Brady's congressional staff, Anthony Cacciavillano, and headquartered at Brady's 34th Ward office in Overbrook.

"Almost all of the money that Unity 2001 collected in 2006 - $52,500 out of $56,000 - came from the same three unions that made maximum direct contributions to Brady's campaign.

"Brady also accepted a $20,000 donation from the Democratic City Committee, the party organization he has led for the last 20 years."

Posted by Wendy | March 20, 2007 9:36 AM

Saul:

I think it's a stretch to say that money donated to Brady almost a year ago was donated with the intent that it would go to his mayoral campaign. Brady didn't even say he was running until December/January - money donated last summer or even early last fall, especially while Saidel was still running.

Posted by Saul | March 20, 2007 10:05 AM

Saul:

I think it's a stretch to say that money donated to Brady almost a year ago was donated with the intent that it would go to his mayoral campaign. Brady didn't even say he was running until December/January - money donated last summer or even early last fall, especially while Saidel was still running.

Posted by Saul | March 20, 2007 10:10 AM

Dave

:

Saul, it isn't about "intent," it's about these things called "campaign contribution limits." I know those are kind of pesky when you only have a handful of large donors, but they remain in effect until the courts rule otherwise.

Posted by Dave | March 20, 2007 11:02 AM

Saul:

So Dave, what you are saying is that a union cannot give to any other PAC, ever, for risk of running afoul of these campaign contribution limits?
Technically, you can give $1,000 to a PAC that you believe in and then go make a max contribution to, let's say, Michael Nutter (or any of the others). If that PAC max's out to Nutter as well, are you in violation of the campaign contribution limits?

If you want to follow the money this way, you can, but it's going to tie you in knots, and it doesn't only go back to Brady.

Posted by Saul | March 20, 2007 11:14 AM

Anonymous:

Saul,

You're the one tying yourself in knots. Go read what Wendy quoted from the article. It's petty cut-and-dried. Doesn't take a genious to understand what I'm getting at here.

Posted by Anonymous | March 20, 2007 11:59 AM

Dave

:

That was me in the previous comment. Don't know why I got logged out.

Posted by Dave | March 20, 2007 12:00 PM

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