-- for the things that are a bit below the surface. I've used this example a bit before and it might be slightly off point, but when I covered this Chamber as a reporter 30-some years ago, there were roughly 40 reporters from print and electronic media assigned to this building. Today that number is far smaller. And so to me, that is one kind 164 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 of indicator of how the media has moved away from coverage of municipal issues and coverage of municipal elections. All that said, I don't think that a jawboning will necessarily convince any particular news organization, my jawboning or yours, will convince them to behave a lot differently. They're commercial organizations and they're going to act like commercial organizations, and at the moment, they see a district councilmanic race, for instance, as not being worth a great deal of time or space. So I feel as if we should all, as Bill Miller said earlier, all work to alter that somewhat, but in the meantime, I'm looking for a bit of a shortcut toward a more level playing field, and my gut instinct is that public financing will help get us there. Now, a closer look at that by the Committee of 70 and down some of the routes that you suggest may take me in a 165 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 different direction, but right now, that's my gut instinct.
Thank you. Councilwoman Tasco, you're next anyway.
Oh, okay. Let me just go back to that, because, see, what happens, the media -- go back to a district race, and you think it's unimportant, but then the people get elected and you spend all the time as to why they got elected, and the media never paid any attention to the race, gave it any interest, any coverage in terms of 166 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 the issues in the district, what's going on in the district, what do people think about the person that's running, none of that, but then we get here, of us, 6 however we got here, and nobody paid any 7 attention to it. And then public finance 8 is going to level the playing field? The 9 thing is going to stay the same. Because 10 in the district, my opponent may have the 11 same amount of money, but what goes on in 12 the district is between us, the local 13 debate, the local discussion, the 14 outreach to the community. And we get 15 elected, or whoever gets elected, we come 16 here and then we say, Well, they were 17 influenced by money, but you all never paid any attention to the race. I hear you saying you would look at it differently now that you're out, but we still have those people sitting up on Broad Street with the same mindset. And the question I have is, I seem to feel that the media has a need to influence the outcome of the races. I 167 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 mean, if you look at Ed Rendell, the election is not until November the 7th. He is on television, and he's going to spend an inordinate amount of money to stay on television so that people will see all the good works he's done and so that he can win that election in November. He's going to spend an obscene amount of money, because there's no 11 public coverage. There's no public -- he's got to do that, because, really, the media has set the stage that if you're not on television, you're not important. You're not important. So he didn't have enough money to buy the TV time, so why should I vote for him? He may be the best candidate, but he couldn't get on television. He wasn't in the newspaper and I didn't see the ads in the local paper, but he may be the better candidate. And then, of course, you get the guys like Bloomberg and others in Philadelphia with their own money. There 168 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 are no controls. And those of us who are struggling to try to raise that little $2,500 that none of us ever raised, the most we've ever gotten was a thousand, if that much, is just -- the reason I put this resolution in so we could have this discussion, because it appears that everybody in the Council, everybody in government is corrupt, and that's why I asked the lady from New York had they done an analysis of who is doing business in New York even though the guy didn't take public dollars. We're going to look at that. So the next step you might want to do is run for office and then you'll really see what it's like.
If I could just zone in on one -- you raised a number of issues here, but I'm particularly 169 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 concerned or I would particularly react to the issue of lack of coverage of races for seats like these. If you're running for Governor and you're a credible candidate, you can raise a great deal of money and there's a greater chance that you can take care of yourself there. But here I am very concerned about the -- especially its races for Council tend not to be on the radar screen of the print media much and of the electronic media not at all, and so that is particularly obvious to me now that I view it from the outside.
I guess the one question about all of this, because we're looking at the ability or some way to change the culture, the political culture, how do you counter greed? How do you deal with greed? Because you have to look at some of this stuff around pay-to-play to basically reduce the greed. No matter what you do in terms of trying to clean up the 170 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 process -- and maybe we should. I'm not saying we shouldn't -- there's always going to be somebody out there who is greedy.
Yes, but a lot of what you've done, the campaign finance law, assuming it holds the changes in the contract-awarding process and so forth, and now this new public discussion on public financing, I think can begin to create a different culture.
I don't want to cut you off, but there will always be a way or some effort made to go around the law. When the SEC changed the rules and said investment bankers can't give money to politicians, they gave to their favorite charity.
Yes. I don't think we can outlaw greed, but I think culture change can sometimes come quicker than we imagine. I believe one of the next witnesses, Marc Stier of Neighborhood Networks, raised a public 171 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 finance issue with me on election night last November, and I thought, Hey, it's going to be a very, very long time before the City of Philadelphia gets around to talking about that. Now, I still think we're a long distance from deciding is there a good plan and getting some public support from that, but if someone said to me that within that short a period of time, last November to April, that we would be having a hearing on public finance, I'd be shocked. So given the right kind of leadership and the right kind of discussion, I think that culture change can come more quickly than we can imagine.
Well, you have to give the spark to this hearing to my friend, Dwight Evans, who pushed me to do it.
Through 172 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 his leadership and who raised it with me months ago in terms of having the discussion. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman. I note that you mentioned that years ago many more -- you didn't say how many, but maybe we have half the number of reporters assigned to this building as many years ago. Whatever the number is, it brought to mind, do you agree that we have many more local newspapers, neighborhood papers than before?
Yes, and they're doing a much better job than they did before.
How do you think they influence this whole issue?
The whole issue of publicity, campaign 173 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 finance reform and -- maybe I'll go, as Wilson Goode says, where I'm going. Where I'm going is that we do have a lot of neighborhood papers, but you also have in many instances the neighborhood official gets the money, who can get the most ads for the papers. So it's not always -- sometimes and ofttimes you have objective printing, but ofttimes people get advertising who can pay the freight as well.
Right. Some of those neighborhood papers are credible and honest and some are not, but, again, I'm not sure that we can legislate changes in that, but we might be able to create a system, or at least it's the Committee of 70's hope that we can help recommend the system that would bring down the cost of campaigns and make them more equitable.
And I will note in that regard that now, as you know, in the state, both the state reps 174 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 and the state senators, have their own newspapers. We do the best we can here locally, but obviously we can't afford to -- we're just the poor City Council. We can't afford to pay for the kind of -- I do the best I can. I think we try to do a fair job, but you can't keep up with the demand or what you would like to get out about what happens here and your goals and the program you're involved in. We just can't finance them. Councilman Rizzo.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the time to do this for us today. One of the things that's always interested me is the fact that our City Charter positions many of us here locally that the playing field isn't really level. If a state rep wants to run for 175 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 higher office, they can do it and retain their position as a representative or a state senator. We here in this City based on the Charter are not permitted to run for higher office without resigning the position. Do you have any thoughts on possibly the effect that that alone could have on what we're discussing today, if any?
Well, of course, it's a somewhat different issue, but I hope that in addition to looking hard at the issue of campaign finance reform, the Committee of 70 is also able to look hard at the Charter, which is now more than a half century old and I think some of the ideas that may have made sense in 1951 now have -- the downsides are more obvious. In a personal sense, and I can't speak for the organization on this because we haven't had an opportunity to really think about it or talk about it, 176 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 but in a personal sense, I'd say that I happen to see more downside in the resign-to-run rule or, for that matter, the two-term limit, which is often paired in the public mind, the two-term limit, on Mayors. I see more downside today than I do upside. So that's a comment as a long-term observer, not as the President of the Committee of 70.
I agree with you totally, that there's an unfair advantage right from the beginning wherein people that you've talked about today, the six, maybe there's seven, maybe there's eight, who knows, but --
That there's an unfair advantage if a state rep can come in here, run for Mayor and retain the job that they have, because after -- 177 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 if you don't understand what we do, during a campaign, we're probably more active here than we are off the election cycle. So I don't see it being anything that can be damaging or that nobody is earning their money by being able to keep their job. I think it's antiquated and I think it really needs your organization to look at it, and we need to do what we need to do to possibly change that unfair situation, as I refer to it.
At the end of the day, one thing we really want to do is generate more and better candidates, and, again, in my personal view, the resign-to-run rule discourages that, and it's just that simple.
You're welcome. Are there more questions or comments? (No response.) 178 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070
Panel 3, Mr. Brett Mandel, Philadelphia Forward. Is David Corbett, Democracy Matters, here? And is Marc Stier, Dr. Marc Stier from Temple University, here? Is there anyone else after this panel who would like to testify who is not on our list? (No response.)
Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
Thank you. My name is Marc Stier. I'm the Secretary of Neighborhood Networks, but today I'm actually going to be testifying mostly as a political scientist who studied 179 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 democracy and theory in practice for about 30 years.
That's all right. I answer to both. So I'm really testifying as an academic. I've submitted my testimony. Unfortunately, because I'm testifying as an academic, not a political activist, it's a little longer than it otherwise would be, but I'm just going to quickly summarize a couple of points. Before I do, I want to thank Councilmembers Verna and Tasco for introducing this resolution to hold these important hearings, and also before I forget, I want to answer a question that Councilwoman Tasco raised earlier. She asked the woman from New York what their budget was and how much of that budget was spent on public campaign financing. I looked it up as I was sitting here. 180 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 The budget Mayor Bloomberg has proposed for New York starting in 2007 is $52.2 billion. So the money that they spend in New York on public campaign financing is less than 0.1 percent of the total budget. I just wanted to say that.
Say that again. The percentage? What was your last statement?
Less than 0.1 percent of the New York City budget is spent on their public campaign financing system.
Now, I have two observations about politics and then I want to give three reasons why public financing is a good idea. The first observation has already been talked about. It's pretty obvious. Political campaigns are expensive. As a number of people have mentioned today, they're getting more expensive, and the main 181 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 reason they're getting more expensive is because the media is becoming more important, and paid media is becoming more important, because free media is spending less time covering our elections, covering our candidates, giving our candidates an opportunity to reach out and tell the voters what they believe in and what they stand for. I think that's a serious problem, but I don't think there's an easy solution to getting our media to pay more attention to politics. The second point, in making the second observation, I'm actually going to disagree with some of the previous witnesses. A number of people have said isn't it terrible how much money we spend on politics. Frankly, I don't think it's that terrible. It may be obscene how much money we're going to spend in the gubernatorial elections, but I really don't know that it's that bad that we spend a lot of money in local elections. 182 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 If you think about it, American business spends tens of billions of dollars every year to advertise soap and toothpaste. They spent in the City of Philadelphia probably a billion dollars on advertising. Is it so wrong for us to spend a significant amount of money on political advertising and political communications so that our candidates can get out their message, very important message to the public? Perhaps if we spent more money on politics rather than less, voters would know as much about what politician they like as about what toothpaste, and I'm not really sure that they know more about the politicians than they know about the toothpaste. The real problem seems to me is not how much money we spend, but where the money comes from. And I think there's three good reasons why we should be trying to change the system from a system of private financing to a system of public financing. 183 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 The first one has been talked about in the City quite extensively, and that's the pay-to-play problem, the problem of people giving campaign contributions and then seeking contract subsidies, tax breaks, below market value properties and other benefits from the City. Democracies undermine, and the costs of government are increased when public decisions are influenced by individuals who spend large sums of money, contribute large sums of money to our politicians. Now, I should point out, Council the last few years has really gone a long way towards reducing this problem. We know there's Councilmember Goode's campaign limitation law. They have the laws that were enacted last November that limit campaign contributions from people who do business with the City. I think all those laws are great steps forward. However, I 184 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 think they would be complemented by public financing of campaigns. We all know, and I think Councilwoman Tasco was pointing out, greed is a part of human nature and it's very hard to create a system of campaign limitations, limitations on expenditures or blockages on people who do business with the City contributing money that's totally effective. There are ways in which these limitations and expenditures can be gotten around legally and, in some cases, even illegally without detection. I think the best way to strengthen the limitations we've already put in place is to have public financing of campaigns with extensive public support for and reduction in the role for private finance. So that's the first reason to deal with the pay-to-play problem, although I don't think it's the most important. I think the second one is even more important. I think you see in this 185 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES.
060070 country there's a real ideological tilt in our politics in favor of the wealthy and against the poor and the working people. Only a very small proportion of Philadelphians can give $100 to a political campaign, let alone $2,500 for an individual or $10,000 for a capital business. When campaigns are financed by private contributions, the well-off have an enormous advantage in our system, and they are much more likely to get the year of politicians than poor and working people. I want to just mention on a national level how important this is. We've heard a lot of people talking about the greater inequality in our economy in the whole country today, and that's, to my mind, a very serious problem. 5 percent. The family income of middle fifth of all incomes went up 15 percent. The family income of those in 186 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 the top one percent of incomes in this country has gone up 201 percent. Now, economists have put forward a number of explanations of that. Some say it's the event of new technology that's changed the job structure. Some say it's globalization. But I think there's one telling reason to think that none of those explanations are the fundamental ones. If you look at European countries, you will see that inequality has not increased anywhere near the extent it has increased in the United States today. Government in many European countries is publicly financed. Elections are publicly financed. There's strict limits on campaign expenditures. It seems to me governments in Europe have taken steps to reduce inequality and we have not taken those steps in this country as a whole in large part because our system of government is financed by private individuals who are mostly very wealthy people. 187 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 Now, do campaign contributions play the same role in Philadelphia? I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure. We live in a Democratic, with a big D, City in which our representatives are really more inclined to care about the poor, to care about working people than, say, the people who serve us in Harrisburg or the people who serve us in Washington. Tip O'Neill's famous saying that all politics is local is certainly true in Philadelphia, where the gap between our Councilpeople and their constituents is fairly small. Yet, if you look at some of the problems that afflict the working people in the City today, one might reasonably wonder whether our political system is tilted towards wealthy contributors. Do we give an equal education to everyone in the City or do poor neighborhoods have poorer schools than rich neighborhoods? Are the playgrounds and recreation centers in poor neighborhoods as good as they are in 188 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 rich neighborhoods? Does L&I enforce rules and regulations as quickly or as stringently in poor neighborhoods as they do in rich ones? Have we been concerned about the impact of taxation on poor people as we have on the rich? Have we done enough to ensure that working people have the same access to capital to start buildings as rich people do in our City? Different people might answer these questions differently, but it seems to me that Philadelphia benefits sometimes the have's more often than they benefit the have nots, and one possible explanation of that is politicians, even well-meaning politicians, hear a lot more from people like me, who have some money, who give a lot of contributions, than they do from poor people who don't have the money and don't make the contributions and often don't know where to find their politicians. Not their own fault, but because of the nature of the system in which we live. 189 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 So that's the second concern, the inequality in our political system. The third is the quality of opportunity for candidates, and I think this is something, Councilwoman Blackwell, you've pointed to a couple of times today.
As I point out at the beginning of my testimony, political campaigns cost a lot of money. The more money they cost, the more difficult it is for candidates who don't have a lot of money themselves or don't know people with a lot of money to run for office, and I think that's a serious problem. One of the wonderful things about local politics is that it is in fact more diverse than state and national politics. Council is a wonderful institution that in many ways it's very representative of the people of Philadelphia. That's true in terms of ethnic and racial diversity and, to some extent, even in terms of diversity of a class. 190 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 Most of the people I know involved in politics, no matter where they are now, are at most one or two generations removed from the working class. So I don't think we've lost touch with our roots. The question, however, is, can we maintain this diversity in the future when political campaigns are becoming ever more expensive. And I really fear that's going to be more and more difficult and that the only way to correct this imbalance is to create a system of public financing of campaigns that magnifies the role of very small donations. When you have a system of the way they do in New York where someone can give $5 and that's matched five-to-one by the City, that is really magnifying the impact of poor people and diminishing the impact of rich people. We could even go further than that. We could match small contributions ten-to-one and match larger contributions 191 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 only three-to-one and go even further in maximizing the power of people with less money in the City. So I conclude that if we want to keep our local democracy intact, we need to move sooner rather than later to replace our system of private finance of political campaigns with public finance. We need to do that to create a level playing field for those who seek contracts and other benefits for the City. We need it to reduce the pay-to-play problem. We need it to guarantee that the voice of the poor is always heard in this building, and we need to do it so that qualified people from all walks of life, from all ethnic and racial groups and from every social class has an opportunity to serve the people of Philadelphia. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Stier. Any comments or questions? 192 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 (No response.)
Hi. I'm sorry I had to go out during your testimony. I just want to ask a question. Has there ever been a time in this Council that we did not pay attention to the voice of the poor?
No. I think I made clear that we do better in Philadelphia than they do in Harrisburg and we do certainly better than they do in Washington, particularly under the current control of Congress. I think there are a lot of people in Council who are seriously concerned with the problems of the poor. They deal with them all the time. My fear, however, is that when I go to fundraisers, as I do for a number 193 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 of people sitting in this body, most of the people I see are not people who are in dire straits. They're often in a pretty good situation.
But that's who we're talking about. You're talking about public finance and you're talking about the grassroots people, the people in neighborhoods giving you money. Now, I think Ed Goppelt in his Hall Watch said I had one of the most democratic reports because I do $25 campaigns. I don't make any money. You can't make money with $25. You got to spend to have the 16 event. 17 So part of this, you all are 18 not being realistic in terms -- and we 19 appreciate dollars from everyone, but 20 when I need to raise money, I have got to go to people who can give me a hundred, and there are not too many of those. I'm a District Councilperson.
So you 194 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 come to a party for the people, right? A party for the people cost me $25. I don't make any money because it costs me $20 to give the event, but it's an event to include the people in my district to come to an event, be with the elected officials and have a nice time. But if I counted on that to get my message out to the public, I would not get anything. But it's part of what I do. So being realistic, there are people who do give, and you need to have a broad spectrum of contributors, those who are grassroots, those who are middle income, and then you need the money also from the high donors. Because when I get ready to do that literature, the printer says it's $1,500 or $15,000. And the other thing you will find when you get here, just like the state's reps, you get all those slit brochures four or five times a year. How many have you gotten from your Councilperson? None. 195 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070
Because we don't have the money for it. And if I had to pay for it, it will cost me $50,000 to mail to 154,000 people. Where am I going to get the money from?
Let me give one example. As you say, I go to the party for the people every year. Suppose that $25 were matched by the City four-to-one. All the sudden, an event in which --
-- people who can afford to come to an event and only pay $25, that's magnified, and someone like you who does reach out to everyone in your district and tries to have events that includes everyone, your campaign finance situation would be much improved, and that means there's less need for you to go to people with a hundred or $500,000.
I like the 196 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 $500,000 people. I do have a few rich friends. I do want them to give me some money. I do have people, because I think everybody ought to contribute to the public trough. But this is for discussion, so where I am on this is not reflected in my comments.
Thank you for coming down to testify. I appreciate it. 197 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070
Thank you. Mr. David Corbett, are you next, Democracy Matters?
Yes. My name is David Corbett. I represent students at Temple University. We have an organization called Democracy Matters. It's a national organization with over 88 campuses on a national scale, and here in Pennsylvania we have campuses at Temple, Bryn Mawr and Bloomsberg. I've written a testimony here and I'd like to read through it, and then I'd also like to address some of the questions I've heard. I think what we're talking about here is an investment in democracy. I think that's very important, and we have a broad base of --
We like your title. We agree, democracy does matter.
When the United 198 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 States Constitution was signed in 1787, government representation then was limited to white males. Later in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution allowed other races the right to vote. Later still in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution allowed females the right to vote. The United States has come far in fulfilling its ideals, but we have a long ways to go, a lot of progress. In this democracy, there are essentially two means by which citizens are able to hold elected representatives accountable: The vote, and the second mode of influence, the reason we're here today, is through contributions to candidates' electoral campaigns. The high cost and vital influence of advertising have led to an escalation of competitive fundraising and fundamentally changed the way politicians must run their campaigns. It is this change that deeply concerns both myself and my fellow 199 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 Temple University students. Candidates have to spend too much time raising money. No one has an infinite amount of time to give. When a representative is forced to raise campaign funds, they end up spending most of their time talking to people who have more. Otherwise, they would never raise a competitive amount. The five to one hundred dollars that most citizens can afford is just not going to get the job done. Yes, there are representatives that have name recognition. Yes, there are representatives that are wealthy and, yes, there are some who have friends with lots of money. However, most people don't have name recognition and most people in this City of Philadelphia are not rich. Once in office and aware that they will need funds for reelection, elected officials must take the needs of their donors into consideration. It's 200 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 not that we're saying elected officials ignore the needs of those with less money. It's just if they are to be reelected, they have to spend most of their time working on legislation that benefits those that are donors. As Representative Peter Kostmayer asserted, You get invited to a dinner somewhere and someone gives you some money. And then when you get a call a month later, are you going to say no? You're not going to say no. So it does buy access. The public is aware of the role of money in politics today. Continually, we're seeing the national media expose the Jack Abramoff scandal, and before that, the DeLay scandal and, of course, recently with contractors and Councilman Rick Mariano. The deplorably low level of voter participation in recent elections is what we are counting here at Temple University that's devaluing and overshadowing campaign contributions. In talking to Temple University students, 201 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 their biggest concern was that, I don't have a say in government because I don't have money to give, where our representatives coming to Temple University talk to us and they said, We don't have money to give, that's why we don't have a voice in government. If we are to restore the public trust, if representatives are to remain accountable and responsive to every member of the public and if we truly believe that each and every voter is entitled to an equal share of both power and responsibility, then the only option is to remove private contributions from the equation and commence the full public funding of elections. Other cities have progressed before we have, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon and, yes, some cities have a matching system, New York, Los Angeles. And in these systems, candidates who prove a broad constituent support can receive public funds for running for office. 202 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 Democracy is only healthy with active participation of all its citizens, and the financing of elections through private money is an obstacle to this.
Temple students care about this issue because, as I said, we feel our voice is overlooked by the sizable contributions. Now, I will agree that New York's matching system and Los Angeles's matching system is a step in the right direction. However, there is still that influence of that one for every four or one for every two, and that's the concern that us as students are concerned with. We don't want that influence there. We want a full financing of elections. Now, in terms of -- I think we mentioned about -- I think someone mentioned about Massachusetts. I think the problem there that was denied by the Supreme Court was that it was actually forced. Under Supreme Court law, we cannot force people into this clean election system, that it must be open for 203 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 people to opt into. However, as we've discussed, the Supreme Court has decided that it does look extremely bad that people can give money to campaigns and the people know it as corruption. And so they've put limits, but they haven't said completely no to the influence of money. 1 percent. It is an investment in democracy that we are talking about. In terms of success, as I mentioned, Portland, Oregon and Albuquerque, New Mexico just passed this legislation. So no one has run under it, but they will in the next election cycle. In the State of Arizona as comparison, ten out of the 11 state-wide offices were run on complete full public 204 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 funding of election. That includes the Attorney Governor, Lieutenant Governor. And in Maine, people who won and ran, in the Senate 83 percent and 77 percent of the House. Of course, that's a state-wide, but it shows that it is working in other states and other cities. I would like to end with a quote from -- this is a republican from the Arizona Corporation Committee, and here's what they said: "I am not a novice campaigner. Having run for office successfully four times under traditional campaign financing and in 2000 under Arizona's clean election law, the comparison is stark. Clean elections empower the constituency, gives voice to thousands of voters, expands opportunities and enhances democracy. Clean elections is about grassroots one-to-one politics, the way it used to be, instead of high dollar media campaigns financed by huge contributions from the world's well-healed clean 205 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. " And I have heard that we are coming a long ways. Maybe this won't happen tomorrow, but I think the clean election system is a very needed system, especially at a time with all the scandals to restore voter faith, confidence in the system and make it able for anyone to run for Mayor, Council, Controller. And that's why I'm here today, and I represent students at Temple University.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
How many of your students at Temple University are registered to vote in Philadelphia?
I don't know the exact number. I think we've done voter registration drives and most people say 206 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 they are registered to vote. I will agree, at Temple University we do have a lot of people coming from Lancaster and outside the City, but most of them, and more so in the future years, are expected to live on campus and in here in Philadelphia.
But most of them are not here during the primary, in our primary election?
Any of them. Our primary is usually around the third Tuesday in May and most of them are gone by that time. It doesn't mean they shouldn't have a voice. They're all here in November, but to interact with the local elections, they're not here.
I would argue that. A lot of students do stay here and work in the City for the summer, and many, like myself, from other states have decided to stay here in Philadelphia for what they have found. 207 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070
Okay. I'd like to ask Marc a question. I know Brett has to testify. I'm looking at this book, and I haven't read it. Just glancing at it. And they have the maximum public funds for Mayor in New York is $3 million. Now, I think the election costs in Philadelphia would be still similar to New York because New York is even smaller in terms of land. They have more people, but the cost is the same in terms of the media, what you have to do. I mean, what impact -- because in my earlier statement, I talked about the public having to decide if they want to fund candidates or fund services. I mean, that may be a part of the discussion and whether or not we could afford $3 million to give to a Mayor's race, plus all the Councilmembers who are running, plus all the other offices running, what the cost would be, and I think Michael did ask Zach to look at a model and what the cost 208 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 might be for the City of Philadelphia.
I have to agree with you. If there's one really good argument against public financing is that the City has so many needs, should we be spending the money on elections. I think there are two answers to that. One is, preserving our democracy, making it stronger is something worth paying for and something everyone in the City would benefit from. And I think, second of all, to some extent, at least in the past when pay-to-play has been so important, we've been financing our campaigns publicly anyway. We've just been doing it in a hidden way. If a government contractor makes a campaign contribution and then bills the City more, we're paying for it. And if there's a system that's a well-known system that the only way you get, say, bond work as a lawyer is that you make campaign contributions, then all the bond lawyers are going to be billing 209 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 the City more to get that work, and which means there's more expenditures.
They'll also get billed more on those contractors in the Procurement Department, because it costs more money to do business with the City.
We ought to be trying to figure out how to reduce that cost. To the extent we reduce the impact of pay-to-play, the City, I think, will save money and probably as much money as it's going to cost to run a public financing system.
Thank 210 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 you. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, our next witness will be Brett Mandel.
Madam President and members of City Council, thank you for providing this forum to discuss public financing of municipal elections in Philadelphia. I am Brett Mandel, Executive Director of Philadelphia Forward, and I come to speak in favor of this concept. Unless we restore integrity in our government, Philadelphians will continue to question for whom is our City run. I'll cite two polling numbers for you that have been taken in the last year. In May 2000, the issue PA asked, 211 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 whether you trust local government to do what is right, in Philadelphia, 76 percent answered "only some of the time" or "never." That was 50 percent higher than anyplace else in the state, the state-wide average. Temple University and the Philadelphia Inquirer asked Philadelphians, How much political corruption would you say there is in Philadelphia. Forty-six percent answered "a lot." In a very real sense, it can be said that we already have a form of public funding of municipal elections. As Marc suggested, funders use political involvement to access government contracts, then recycle some of the public's money from those contracts as political contributions. The citizenry will either pay up front through some form of public financing of municipal elections or it will continue to pay in the end through the inflated cost of government, made more costly by funders 212 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 who count on governmental largesse to pay for their political activities. As this discussion continues, you can count on Philadelphia Forward to help inform our constituency for change about this issue and any specific mechanisms for public financing of municipal elections that emerge as proposals through the legislative process. Philadelphia Forward will be pleased to provide any additional input in the development of specific proposals, and I pledge our organizational resources and my personal time to help this legislative body in any way to move this issue forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Any questions or comments from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Do we have anyone else that would like to 213 4/26/06 - WHOLE - RES. 060070 testify on this resolution? (No response.)
Do we have anyone else that would like to testify on this resolution? (No response.)
Seeing no one, this Committee will stand in recess until June the 5th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you all very much. Thank you. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 2:00 p.m.) - - - 214 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on April 26, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)