New Leadership. New Direction. A New Philadelphia.

Michael Nutter Statement

I am here today to denounce the attempt by some City Council members to repeal campaign finance reform in Philadelphia.

The sponsor of this legislation, Councilman Kenney, has said that he is doing this because a poll released yesterday showed that one candidate had moved up in the polls after spending a million dollars on TV ads. 

But we should not be governing by panic.  We should not be making public policy in response to panic.

This one poll involved 262 residents who were interviewed over a three day period.  Fifty-eight residents expressed interest in one guy and all of a sudden, City Council wants to repeal years of effort to achieve campaign finance reform in Philadelphia.

This is a little like the Eagles asking for a rule change 10 minutes into the first quarter.  Why don’t we just conduct a campaign based on the candidates’ records?

It’s not as if we didn’t understand that this might happen.  When City Council considered campaign finance legislation, they included a so-called “millionaire’s exception” to allow for wealth candidates spending their own money.

Since then, we have all been playing by those rules.  I have agreed to limit myself to the limits set by City Council – as have the other candidates.  And all of the candidates have sought to portray themselves as reformers, as people who want to change the way we do business in the City.  They all jumped on board the Committee of 70’s reform agenda.  But now all of a sudden, when some of the candidates can’t raise money, they want to gut ethics reform so that they can receive large checks.  This is the exact sort of behavior that the campaign finance measure was designed to get rid of. 

Some members of City Council don’t think that their candidate can win when playing by these rules so they want to change the rules.

Well, that’s known as “fixing the game” and it should not be allowed to happen.

Philadelphia residents should be outraged by this back-door attempt to return to the shameful past that led to campaign finance reform. That reform was in response to over 25 indictments – and still counting- by the US Attorney’s office, which uncovered evidence of kickbacks and other actions by City officials trying to help large donors.  The legislation proposed today will put Philadelphia back into this shameful past of being “corrupt and contented.”

Philadelphia citizens should not be fooled by this legislation and they should not believe anyone who tries to spin it as “reform.”  And any Mayoral candidate who supports this legislation cannot claim to be a “reformer.”

Let’s instead have a campaign based on records. Let’s stop playing with the rules and start having a real campaign based on the issues.

Last Updated: February 1, 2007