Stop this nonsense... You are affraid of Brady being able to compete b/c you know Evans has no chance agains BOB BRADY!

I know that I keep saying this, but Evans isn't really against the repeal!! He wants to have it both ways.

In this context, with Knox promising to spend up to $15 million of his own money, Dwight's thought would be to have the contribution limits rise commensurately. Isn't this like being for repeal?

This is crazy and we have to move fast.

Thanks for the list of the cosponsors.

Those 8 (and Kenney if he has any sense left) have to start getting faxes and calls making it clear that they will be out of a job if this passes. This is a crazy return to pay for play and they must be so out of touch to think we will allow this to happen. The blatant nonsense of Brady appointing Campbell and Savage just so they can repeal campaign contribution laws so he can collect contributions from fat cat suitors: It is galling and he should be a) embarrassed and b) done with his political career after May.

If Dan or someone can publish fax numbers, and maybe post a PDF that we can sign and fax, then we will be in motion.

Also, we need a timeline. When is the vote? How long do we have to get them the message?

No one-- NO ONE-- can seriously believe that Knox will win just because he can buy ads. If that were true, Perot would be president and Weinberg would be mayor. The people of Philly who vote and make buzz are smarter than that.

STOP THE KENNEY 9!

Political Doc

WAKE UP. For all the progressive talk you are in favor of allowing a predatory lending, redlining banker to buy an election. The campaign finance limits proposed are only lifted when a candidate spends 2 million dollars of his own money. You rail against entrenched power then want to give it ti Tom Knox.

I get an uneasy feeling when one candidate can outspend the rest of the field by 2,3 or 4 to one. What is the track record elsewhere in municipal elections when there is such a disparity in fundraising?

The four candidates with public service records will be able to field election day operations. The battle for votes will be in the trenches, not the airwaves. Knox needs to buy one or by-pass a grass roots approach by using the electonic media. The crowd (sic) at his announcement looked fabricated.

Also, Jim Kenney deserves credit for remaining engaged in this conversation while taking a lot of body punches.

Let's see. In Kenney World, Tom Knox is simply a nefarious millionaire trying to buy City Hall, much like a spoiled little girl stamps her feet and demands the latest Barbie Dream House. I suppose then he will toss it aside in a few weeks because he's bored, and next he'll demand a new toy, like a congressional seat? Nice try, guys.

Plus, there's this truly disturbing and cynical implication that Tom is simply using mind control through his evil ads. Isn't that sad? Machine politicians have so little faith that the voters will reject a message they don't want to hear. (Maybe the problem is that the voters DO want to hear. Maybe Mr. Kenney can propose a bill that requires voters to wear earplugs when Tom's commercials are on, and that will solve everything!)

Let's be clear on this: If the present incumbents hadn't used and abused the system to the point where city government is running so hard just to stay in place, Tom wouldn't be running right now. Mr. Kenney knows that - he's just mad that Tom Knox has enough money to take his message of reform directly to the voters, instead of being diluted through the party machinery.

The sleeping giant has awakened. The voting public is paying attention this time, and the machine will have to come up with something better than smoke and mirrors to justify why they should maintain control.

On another note: When Tom Knox is mayor and asks for public financing for elections, it's nice to know we can at least count on Mr. Kenney's vote, what with his passion for a level playing field and all.

I hope he works as hard then to persuade his fellow councilmembers as he did with this little piece of pique.

I'll assume you're repeating someone else's garbled information, rather than attack your personal integrity. People on this board seem to think highly of you, and I won't contradict them. (By the way, the "sleeping giant" wasn't a reference to Tom. It was a reference to the awakened electorate - the same one that kicked John Perzel out of the leadership.)

Tom wasn't fired by Bob Casey, although he was asked to resign by Tom Ridge.

The last time Tom was in Harrisburg was September 2006, to lobby for Philadelphia gun control. He hasn't had anything to do with banking for, I think, ten years or more, and he certainly didn't lobby to stop lending reform. Who told you that? Please share your source.

I wish on this site that people were allowed to support candidates besides Michael or Dwight... How come when someone supports Chaka or Brady, their hacks or shills?

I think these two lines from a post above show the problem on this site:

"For faxes--use the fax bank at Hallwatch for Council.

Supporting Michael Nutter in 2007!"

At the risk of writing a post which the moderator may pull because it is not consistent with the group-think here, can someone please set up a faxbank for people who SUPPORT the Kenney bill and removing the loop hole for multi-millionaires who want to buy City Hall???

No, you are saying that new voices are not welcome if they do not subscribe to your orthodoxy. And you call this progressive??? I got on this blog NOT because someone sent me. I saw it advertised on The Next Mayor website. If you didn't want new voices, and you just wanted the same 10 guys going back and forth, than you shouldn't have promoted the site to the rest of the city.

I'm sorry if disagreeing with you offended you.

Anyone following the course of political events in what constitutes contemporary Russia knows that former KGB operatives run the government and consolidate power through a process akin to how Knox promotes his own campaign- control of the media through monopolizing the airwaves. Directing disproportionate sums of money in a media blitz ultimately distorts the democratic process. Ergo he who possesses financial clout controls the outcome. Democracy or plutocracy- you make the deduction. Circumventing the democratic process by any strategy be it voter intimidation or media distortion is anathema to anyone but a rabid ideologue.

The antidote for those cognitively challenged is the proposal to revamp the campaign laws...get behind the Kenney bill and even the playing field.

Due to the fact that I have not officially announced my candidacy for City Council At-Large (Tomorrow @ 7 @ the West Phila. YMCA (5120 Chestnut)), I can still offer some insight for why Councilwoman Tasco was a co-sponsor of this bill. From her perspective, we need to have a public debate regarding this issue and re-new the discussion concerning public financing of elections.

Last Spring (4/26 & 6/5), I drafted a resolution and organized hearings (Resolution # 060070) to discuss public financing of city elections. At these hearings, we had various local and national speakers and groups from Neil Oxman, Larry Ceisler, Zack Stalberg, Common Cause, and Public Campaign to elected officials from Arizona, Portland, and New York City discussing whether we should bring public financing to Philadelphia and how public financing has impacted their elections. Considering these hearings and recent polling, it does not appear that the public wants to spend City dollars on elections. However and through Councilman Kenney's bill, I believe that Councilwoman Tasco will, once again, raise the issue of public financing for our elections.

As a candidate and a citizen, I am concerned about the ability of one person to use their personal wealth, which in some part was gained through predatory lending, to be able to buy access to the voters. In fact, we should be requiring our media outlets to provide free public access to candidates so that they don't have to spend these huge amounts of money to deliver their message to the voters. However, we still need campaign finance limits to reduce the influence of special interests. In this regard, I do support Rep. Evans' approach of using a multiplier and a Millionnaire's clause. This type of legislation has been used in other jurisdictions and could balance the playing field without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I would like to offer that Kenney's bill could provide some relief to the current unfair situation, and after the election, perhaps best practices can be explored to really address the problems of the current ordinance. Remember, though, that this ordinance is likely to be thrown out for being illegal (against state law), and is only in play because Mayor Street appealed the ruling.

As an aside, I was kicked off this site once before for expressing unorthodox views that disagreed with the moderator. If you don't hear from me again, it's because I was kicked off again. I understand that this site has a track record for kicking people off when they disagree with the moderator, etc.

Not very progressive. We all can't be Penn law students, and some of us from the community express ourselves in a more direct way. But if this isn't a site for all Philadelphians, just say that.