Electricians Local 98 sues over ethics review
The political-action committee of the city electricians union has gone to federal court to block the city Board of Ethics from a detailed review of the $2.4 million it spent in last year's elections.
The political-action committee of the city electricians union has gone to federal court to block the city Board of Ethics from a detailed review of the $2.4 million it spent in last year's elections.
The Board of Ethics wants to see detailed vouchers for virtually all of the PAC's expenditures.
Pennsylvania's campaign-finance law says that political committees must maintain vouchers for all expenditures of more than $25, and must make them available for public inspection on written request.
But the union's Committee on Political Education (COPE) contends that the state law is overly broad and violates the group's constitutional rights.
Shane Creamer Jr., the Ethics Board's executive director, said he was prohibited by law from describing what the board is looking into.
Over the past year, most of its investigations have focused on efforts to circumvent the city's limits on campaign contributions.
Under business manager John Dougherty, the union - Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - has become one of the biggest players in city politics.
Its PAC expenditures last year were exceeded only by those of the five top candidates for mayor.
The union's biggest donations went to judicial candidates - more than $240,000 to state Supreme Court candidate Seamus McCaffery and $120,000 to Bobby Mulgrew, a union employee who won a seat on Philadelphia Traffic Court. Those are considered state offices, and therefore not subject to the city's contribution limits.
But the union also poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into local races, where maximum PAC donations were set at $20,000 for mayoral candidates, $10,000 for Council candidates.
The union's campaign-finance reports indicate that it spent much more to help some candidates - more than $140,000 for instance, to buy hats, shirts, emery boards and "propaganda" supporting Tom Knox, the millionaire businessman who finished second in the mayor's race.
That would be legal, under the city's campaign-finance ordinance, as long as the union expenditures were totally independent from the Knox campaign.
The vouchers sought by the Ethics Board could shed light on whether there was any coordination between the union PAC and the candidates' campaigns.
Last year, Dougherty himself was one of the plaintiffs trying to get the city's campaign-finance ordinance thrown out by the state Supreme Court. The court upheld the contribution limits by a 6-1 vote.
Now Dougherty is among the candidates running against state Sen. Vincent Fumo in the April 22 Democratic primary.
Dougherty was unavailable for comment yesterday on the new lawsuit, as other union officials and spokesmen tried to shield him from the fray.
"The COPE Fund board made the decision to pursue legal action against the Ethics Board, not John Dougherty," said a prepared statement from the fund's treasurer, Mike Hnatkowsky, the union's assistant business manager.
"We're tired of John getting attacked for purely political reasons. We're also tired of efforts to prevent our membership from being involved in the electoral process."
The union's lawyer, George Bochetto, called the Board of Ethics "overzealous."
"Their constant refrain is, 'We're not telling you what we're looking at, just give us everything.' That's inappropriate."
