The primary elections in Pennsylvania demonstrated again that widespread calls for change aren’t having much impact in Harrisburg.
The failed gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Anthony Hardy Williams did serve one useful purpose – it highlighted the need for campaign-finance limits in Pennsylvania.
The state has no restrictions on the amount of money that individuals or political action committees can donate to a candidate for public office. It’s a perennial embarrassment.
But this spring, State Sen. Williams (D., Phila.) took the disgraceful custom to new heights. He pulled in more than $3.3 million from a single group – Students First, a Wynnewood-based PAC consisting of a handful of wealthy businessmen who are promoting school choice.
Those donations from one PAC made up the bulk of Williams’ campaign fund. They included a single donation of $1.6 million and represented the largest political contributions from a single source in state history.
The fact that Williams finished third is irrelevant – without his school-choice sugar daddies, the little-known legislator wouldn’t have registered as a blip on the election radar.
Candidates should not be so beholden to a few big-money donors. It creates the perception that large donors can buy access, while the voices of average citizens get drowned out.
Williams wasn’t the only candidate to take advantage of the state’s relatively lawless campaign-finance system. Both parties’ nominees for governor, Democrat Dan Onorato and Republican Tom Corbett, received six-figure contributions from individual donors.
Last month, a state House committee controlled by Democrats unanimously approved donor limits of $5,000 per individual and $10,000 per PAC for candidates for statewide office. It’s a needed step, but the prospects for the legislation in the Republican-led Senate are dim.
And don’t look for leadership on this issue from Gov. Rendell, who seems downright confused. In the past, Rendell has vacuumed up all the large donations he could; then he proposed donor limits after he could no longer run for governor. But last week, Rendell called the mammoth donations to Williams “very appropriate.”
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