Why am I not surprised about the stealth amendment added to a bill in the state House on
Tuesday that takes a whack at the city's new campaign finance law?
The amendment -- would eliminate the new requirement that candidates and campaign committees file electronic copies of their regular spending reports with the city's ethics board. It passeed 200-1.
In turn, the board posts these returns on its web site and makes it easier for citizens to find out who is spending and giving to political campaigns. Until this year, committees and candidates had to file only on paper and only with either the state or city elections bureaus. If you wanted to see copies, you had to visit their offices.
The authors of the amendment stepped forward yesterday (Thursday) and claimed it was a harmless measure, designed to help mom-and-pop ward political committees who find it onerous to meet the new filing requirement.
State Reps. Rosita Youngblood and John Sabatina Jr. said they acted after getting complaints from ward committee treasurers. "It's a hardship upon them," Youngblood told Bob Warner of the Daily News. Sabatina said: "My concern is the little old guy who has to go downtown to two-finger type his contributors."
Let's do a reality check here:
First, Youngblood and Sabatina aren't exactly neutral observers. Both are Democratic ward leaders -- Youngblood in the 13th, Sabatina in the 56th.
Second, mom-and-pop image aside, ward committees take in and spend thousands in a year. In the spring primary, for instance, I estimate $2 million was funneled to ward organizations by Democratic candidates, most of it for street money to pay committee people for election day work.
Third, the bill comes just five years after a state grand jury, investigating ward committees in Philadelphia, issued a report that criticized ward leaders for failing to file reports, keep receipts, and for discrepencies in reporting that indicated that some leaders were pocketing money handed over by candidates. Three ward leaders and the head of the local black ministers group were indicted in the scandal. The grand jury said the system of taking cash and lack of reporting was "abhorrent."
But, as Fred Voigt, then head of the Committee of Seventy, noted it is hard to get ward leaders to clean up their act.
"Once [the investigation] ends, there's a tendency to relapse back into the old game," Voigt said."
What happened this week lin Harrisburg smells like a relapse to me. And it stinks.
-- Tom Ferrick
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