DNC host committee can keep its finances private for now, judge rules
A Philadelphia judge ruled Monday that the public does not have a right to know who is funding the Democratic National Convention or how the money is being spent until after the event.
A Philadelphia judge ruled Monday that the public does not have a right to know who is funding the Democratic National Convention or how the money is being spent until after the event.
"The decision of the Host Committee to withhold information about its donors and their contributions until the end of September may well be unwise, and certainly does not promote the value of transparency, but nothing in the law requires otherwise," Common Pleas Court Judge Abbe F. Fletman wrote.
Her 10-page decision rejected freelance journalist Dustin Slaughter's motion that sought to force the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), the public agency that guaranteed the Philadelphia 2016 Host Committee a $15 million line of credit, to release the committee's fund-raising reports.
Those reports were to be filed quarterly with the agency, and therefore were subject to public disclosure, the state Office of Open Records ruled in June.
But the committee argued that the fund-raising reports were "confidential proprietary information" that could affect negotiations with vendors.
The committee has said it will release its donor list and expenses 60 days after the convention, the deadline set by the Federal Election Commission.
David Pittinsky, the host committee's attorney, argued that federal election law supersedes Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law and therefore the entire argument was moot. Fletman agreed.
"Mr. Slaughter's Right-to-Know Law request is clearly intended to accelerate [federal election law's] disclosure requirement in connection with the Democratic National Convention and presidential election," Fletman wrote. She said that law bars such a move.
The federal regulation governing political convention host committees says that the deadline to file fund-raising reports with the FEC is 60 days after the last day of the convention. But it does not say reports cannot be filed earlier than the 60-day deadline.
Fletman said Slaughter and his attorney were not persuasive in why the documents are needed before or during the convention.
"Counsel first argued that attention is on the convention now. Presidential elections, however, traditionally gain steam after Labor Day," Fletman said.
Slaughter's lawyer, Chapin Cimino, disagreed with the ruling. On Monday she said: "Although the court did not agree, we believe that the only viable time for that discussion is now."
Slaughter said he cannot afford to appeal the case. He called Fletman's decision "a huge loss for the public and to the very notions of transparency and accountability."
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