1) The Board of Ethics Attacks… and this time they ping the best Councilperson we have- Maria Quinones Sanchez. Basically, what is comes down to is that during the 2007 campaign, there was a PAC that was running ads supporting a bunch of candidates- including my dad, Derek Green, Marc Stier and Maria. Because the PAC was running a bunch of ads, they got a bulk rate.

Then, the Councilwoman’s campaign wanted to used the discount the PAC got on the ads for some more Maria-only ads, and so they got the PAC to run them, and then paid the PAC. The BoE decided that violated the campaign finance law, in that she was effectively controlling more than one PAC. So, basically, the campaign saw a chance to get a discount with the Inq/Daily News, and paid money through the PAC to make it happen. She has she messed up, and accepted responsibility.

The rub comes that she says was willing to settle with the BoE, but is pissed that she didn’t have a chance to make her case with the BoE about a specific provision of the settlement agreement(holding her personally liable).

Quinones-Sanchez and her campaign treasurer, Peter Winebrake, acknowledged "a technical violation" of the campaign-finance law, based on their use of an independent political-action committee to save $2,500 on a series of newspaper ads.

Quinones-Sanchez said that her campaign organization had been prepared to settle the matter by paying a $4,500 fine. But she said that she balked at the terms of a settlement agreement proposed by Shane Creamer Jr., the board's executive director, fearing that it would expose her to lawsuits challenging her seat on Council.

"We wanted an opportunity to make our case in front of the Ethics Board, but that was denied," Quinones-Sanchez complained. "We were just flabbergasted that we would be denied."

I will contact the Councilwoman, and let her explain what she means. If there is a chance to improve the BoE procedures, great, let’s do it. This is still new. Improving it, constructively, if there really are some problems, sounds fine. That is a lot different than trying to get rid of someone with silly grandstanding….

2) Mayor Nutter got props for the Philly Foreclosure program. That is really awesome. Its great to see a good program like that being lauded. Let’s also make sure that the other people who got this thing going get their props- people like Judge Annette Rizzo, John Dodds of PUP, various attorneys from CLS, ACORN, and others.

3) Last week it was announced that Philly’s school food program has been spared. Score one for santity. And now Fattah, Sestak, et. al. are trying to enshrine this change into law, so a future doofus at the USDA cannot kill it.

4) Buy Local! Yesterday at the Public School Notebook birthday party, I had some excellent locally made ice cream from Chilly Philly, a Mt. Airy based company. It is sold at Whole Foods, at Weavers Way in Mt. Airy, etc. It is slow made, and awesome. Buy it. Eat it. Enjoy it. Support a local business.

What else is going on?

One of the million things I haven't written about in my two-week post election stupor is the strange saga of Shane Creamer, the head of the Board of Ethics, who was fined by... the Board of Ethics. The deal is that Creamer violated the confidentiality piece of the ethics code, because he told a reporter "off the record" that Seth Williams would not be fined 16k by the Ethics Board. You can read the short story here, or the Ethics Board's longer version of facts here.

The basic gist is that according to Creamer, a reporter asked him about a 16k fine for Seth for the same old errors we kept hearing about, and he said 'no comment,' but was worried that his 'no comment' would be perceived as a yes, and result in a story running that would falsely make claims about Seth. So he called the reporter back, and told him 'off the record' that if Seth were fined it would be a lot less. He then thought he violated the confidentiality clause of the Ethics Law, and so went to his Board and Seth's campaign. And the Board decided he did violate the law, and fined him 500 dollars.

My take on it was that the confidentiality piece of the agreement, which seems to constantly ensnare everyone, really needs to be changed. (Along with a number of other provisions of the law.)

But, in response (sort of), Councilwoman Marian Tasco is now blustering with all of her might, and calling for Creamer to resign.

I AM EXPRESSING MY OUTRAGE AND THAT OF OTHERS WHO ARE OFFENDED BY MR. CREAMER’S RECKLESS BEHAVIOR.

THE GOOD GOVERNMENT ADVOCATES, LIKE ZACK STALBERG AND THE COMMITTEE OF 70, WHO ARE USUALLY VERY VOCAL WHEN THEY PERCEIVE PUBLIC OFFICIALS HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG, HAVE BEEN UNCHARACTERISTICALLY SILENT ABOUT THIS ISSUE. ONCE AGAIN, IS THERE A TWO-TIERED STANDARD OF ETHICS?

I HAVE EXPRESSED MY CONCERNS WITH THE MAYOR AND AM AWAITING HIS RESPONSE.

IF WE ARE TO MAINTAIN A BOARD OF THE HIGHEST ORDER AUTHORIZED TO ENFORCE OUR ETHICS LAWS, WE MUST PRESERVE THE PUBLIC TRUST. THEREFORE, MR. CREAMER MUST BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY FROM HIS POSITION AS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ETHICS BOARD.

IN FACT I BELIEVE HE TENDERED HIS RESIGNATION WHEN HE DECIDED TO ENGAGE IN UNETHICAL CONDUCT.

I say that Tasco was 'sort of' responding to this incident, because she isn't responding to the incident above so much as to her much bigger desire... to get rid of Shane Creamer. And as one of the biggest supporters of Seth Williams, the guy who would have been hurt by this, I call bullshit. (Again, if you haven't, I would really encourage you to read the Settlement Agreement here.)

Simply put, many people in City Hall, even those people who you and I like as politicians, hate the Board of Ethics and they hate Creamer. They would love to get rid of him and put in someone a little more 'friendly.' They now have their hook. Wellllll, no thanks. This is crap, and it is a facade that is obscuring a very real issue: that we still need changes to our campaign finance and ethics laws, so that they actually make sense. For example:

• We need to change donation limits so that they go by campaign cycle, rather than calendar year.
• We need a clear process from the Board of Ethics where they outline how they decide whether to release settlements before or after elections.
• We need a reworking of a confidentiality clause that everyone seems to have so much trouble with.
• We need to make it so that if you double the campaign spending limits with a big self-donation, a la Tom Knox and then Dan McCaffery, that you cannot then have that donation paid back as a loan.

But, what we don't need to do is to take steps backwards, and to use this as an excuse for what City Council really wants to do: get someone friendly and compliant to head the Board of Ethics.

Our campaign finance laws and its enforcement body have taken us in the right direction. Ousting Creamer is not the way to keep that going.

Bob Brady's campaign bills make the news again today (not to be confused with the Steve Cozen suit against the Ethics Board), as the Board of Ethics has filed a petition for Contempt against two men, one of whom is Tom Nocella, a Municipal Court Judge.

According to the press release from the Board of Ethics, a PAC was set up by the late Carol Campbell by taking in money from judicial candidates. The PAC, called the Appreciation Fund, did not follow campaign finance laws, and was ordered to pay $39,000 in penalties. The Ethics Board alleges that, instead of paying those penalties, the PAC made illegal payments on behalf of Congressman Brady's own PAC.

In effect, the PAC told the Ethics Board they didn't have money to pay their fine, but in the meantime, were actually paying off Brady's debts. And, to top it off, they allege that Judge Nocella, before he was a Judge, facilitated this and made demonstrably false statements about it.

Needless to say, asking for Contempt against a sitting Judge is a big deal. And this is the second time in as many months that Congressman Brady is in the news for campaign finance stuff. Not good.

The press release from the Board of Ethics is below.

If you read YPP semi-regularly, you know that John Dougherty and his union (Local 98) have been trying to overturn Philadelphia and Pennsylvania (and really, all of the US) campaign finance law. A couple weeks ago, one reason why they were trying to hide how they spent their cash became a little clearer.

It is not clear whether they are dropping their objections to our campaign finance laws, but this is promising:

...Despite a months-long legal battle, Ethics Board Executive Director said during a meeting today that on Monday a union official contacted him directly and invited him to come to the union's Spring Garden Street offices and review the vouchers. Creamer, and another staffer, did that for two hours yesterday.

Today - actually, during the ethics board meeting - two yellow envelopes containing still more vouchers arrived at the ethics board's Sansom Street offices.

So what do the vouchers reveal? Creamer won't say because he's not done looking at them. But he did say: " We hope their present level of compliance and cooperation will continue."

Good to see.

Against the backdrop of Local 98's constitutional lawsuit to overturn the city and state's campaign finance disclosure requirements (oral arguments on the motion to dismiss were heard in federal court last week) and ongoing wrestling over enforcement (see, e.g., Tommy St. Hill's 'stolen' laptop), this Thursday the American Consitution Society and Cozen O'Connor's Adam Bonin are hosting a talk on the future of campaign finance reform.

Can Campaign Finance Reform Actually Work?

"Post-Watergate reforms of the federal campaign finance system appear to be threatened by increasingly expensive campaigns and the usage of independent organizations, like 527's. Here in Philadelphia, we have just gone through our first Mayoral election governed by campaign finance limits. What system will actually work to reduce the influence of amassed wealth on the political process, is reform even necessary, or do we need to rethink federal and state campaign finance systems from scratch?"

We are joined by two guests with unique perspectives on this topic. In over thirty years of practice, Robert Bauer has represented national party committees, candidates, political committees, individuals, federal officeholders, corporations, trade associations and tax-exempt groups on various issues of campaign finance law, including serving as counsel to two presidential candidates. Through his work on The Committee of Seventy, Philadelphia's principal political reform organization, Zack Stalberg has worked to make government more efficient, fair and transparent by promoting reforms to demand ethical conduct of public officials and promote governmental efficiency.

Featuring:
Robert Bauer, Partner and Firmwide Chair, Political Law Practice, Perkins Coie LLP
Zack Stalberg, President and CEO, The Committee of Seventy

Date: Thursday, June 5, 2008
Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Cozen O'Connor, 1900 Market Street

There is no cost to attend this event. CLE credit availability pending (1.0 hrs). Cost of CLE credit will be $25. Contact: Adam Bonin, abonin@cozen.com.

I'm going, because I am a dork. And because I really want to but have never met Zack Stalberg. And because it's good to learn about campaign finance law before the current Supreme Court makes it a historical memory.