Anti-corruption efforts can have unseen results

We need more competition and transparency in Philadelphia government and politics, not less.

How sad that Lincoln Steffens' 1904 description of Philadelphia as "corrupt and contented" still rings true more than a century later.

With every election cycle, Philadelphians are subjected to a depressing display of corrupted pols. The last year alone featured cases involving Traffic Court judges, members of the state legislature, and even our former state treasurer.

I am disappointed in these elected officials, and also by the well-intentioned but flawed response to these ethics violations.

Don't get me wrong. Reforms can be good, but there are sometimes unintended consequences.

On the plus side, Philadelphia has an Office of Inspector General as well as solid protections for whistleblowers. The next mayor should continue both. Nothing could be more important to challenging the corrupted and contented than to commit ourselves to identifying and punishing city employees who violate the public trust.

But let's also be sure our ethical limits are designed for our collective safety and not to ensnare. Under today's code, city employees must decline a complimentary gala invitation from a nonprofit or a scholarship for an educational exchange. Those rules make sense, but employees may also be required to go Dutch on a first date and report a birthday gift from an acquaintance. Can we agree that's going too far?

Campaign-finance reforms are another area that needs rethinking. Rules intended to constrain the undue influence of big-money donors to city campaigns are, in fact, setting the stage for less transparency and accountability than there was before the reforms. Donation limits for candidates are fine, but we must beware the power of third-party political action committees to set the agenda for a mayoral election.

Based on the most recent campaign-finance reporting period, it is clear the current candidates for mayor have raised meager amounts of money, especially when one considers the millions spent in previous election cycles. The top fund-raiser claims to have raised a little more than $450,000. I don't blame the campaign-donation limits for that amount. After all, under the same rules, Michael Nutter raised more than $6 million for his two campaigns. No, the issue is transparency.

If you donate to a candidate, your name and the amount must be disclosed. But donate to certain third parties, which can't directly work with campaigns but which can promote issues and produce attack ads, and you can remain anonymous. Thus, our campaign-finance reforms only increase the influence and power of individuals and entities that organize to make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates they support.

I get why the reforms were passed. After the era of pay-to-play, the city needed to do what it could to restore public confidence in government. Caps on individual and corporate giving were a way to downplay the role of money in elections. No more six-figure gifts from one donor to a campaign.

Or so we hoped.

There likely will be six-figure gifts in this year's mayoral race, but they won't be going directly to the campaigns. They will be given to third-party organizations.

In fact, independent expenditures could match, if not exceed, what candidates spend on issues messaging or character assassination. And in many cases, we won't know who is behind the expenditure until after the election, if ever.

For example, remember the Philadelphia Phuture Fund, which sponsored campaign mailers denouncing Council at-large candidate David Oh in 2010? Information was not immediately available on the PAC before the election, but after final financial reports were submitted, we learned it was closely tied to Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

At least with campaign mailers and advertisements, voters can eventually learn who is behind the effort. But another form of independent expenditure remains outside campaign-finance rules: organized, Election Day operations fueled by "street money." Generally the purview of organized labor, individuals - sometimes compensated, sometimes not - are sent to work the polls on behalf of candidates.

Philadelphia elections can be won or lost based on the strength of a street operation. Yet, a $2,000 donation to a candidate from a law partner can be disclosed and attributed to his firm's maximum contribution allowance, but a $50,000 organized street operation is disregarded under campaign-finance rules.

If we are to increase transparency and accountability in our city elections, the next mayor must revisit Philadelphia's ethics and campaign-finance reforms. We must ensure that we are not entrapping the innocent and unsophisticated while emboldening the clever and sophisticated.

Some actions the mayor will be able to take alone, but others will require Council support. This won't be easy, but it will be worth the effort.