Josh Shapiro spoke on campaign finance reform (and other issues) at ADA annual meeting. He made a good case that a reform agenda (transparency in gov’t, campaign finance reform) is essential to advancing an economic justice agenda—necessary but not sufficient.

Shapiro appeared optimistic that the state legislature would pass the bill sponsored by Dwight Evans to give Phila authority to craft its own campaign finance laws. He stressed the importance of getting campaign finance reform on the state level, and noted that right now it would be perfectly legal for a candidate for the state legislature to accept a million dollar check.

Shapiro wants to work towards creating uniformity in campaign finance laws on the federal, state and local level. He argued that the focus should be on rolling reporting (that is, as soon as a contribution is received it is reported) as well as on contribution limits.

From an email from Shapiro posted on Above Average Jane http://www.aboveavgjane.blogspot.com/

During our Commission deliberations, I offered a campaign finance reform proposal that would limit campaign contributions and require more disclosure and transparency by:

• Capping contributions from individuals and political action committees (PACs) to candidates at $2,300 and $5,000 respectively. This would bring state races in line with the limits set for federal races like congress.

• Allowing candidates to exceed those caps by a factor of three only when their opponent spends more than $250,000 of his or her own money.

• Requiring that candidates file campaign finance reports to disclose the amount and who they receive contributions from at least quarterly in a non-election year and 9 times in an election year. Under current state law, candidates need to only file once in a non-election year and a minimum of 5 times in an election year. This will make sure the public knows who gives what to whom, when they give it and how much is contributed.

• Mandating disclosure of all contributions greater than $50 within 24 hours of receiving the contribution during the 30 days before the primary or general election.

This common-sense, bipartisan proposal will improve our politics in Pennsylvania , clean up elections, limit the possibility and appearance of corruption in our system and level the playing field so there is more competition.

Now that the primary is over, it’s time for progressives to focus on campaign finance reform. True, we are not out of the woods yet. Fattah is appealing the Commonwealth Court decision to allow Phila. to craft its own laws and the Evans’ bill has not yet been passed. (If the Evans’ bill passes, I assume that Fattah’s lawsuit would have no merit.)

Assuming our right to determine our own campaign finance laws is established, it will be time to move to the next phase –public financing-- and also to begin the long struggle for contribution caps and public financing on the state level. When we decide who to support in state house races in 2008, this should be one of issues on which we base our decisions.

One of the main victories of progressives in last primary was the way we rallied to prevent the gutting of the campaign finance laws.

I’ve had a quite a few conversations among friends about the poor showing of progressive candidates for city council. (Maria of course was notable exception.) True enough, the council races were a disappointment, but the way progressives closed ranks to protect our fledgling campaign finance laws was a real victory for the progressive agenda. Now we need to build on this.

And back to Josh Shapiro: we need to contribute to progressives who represent suburban districts as well as to our own Philly legislators. We can’t vote for them, but we can support their campaigns

I first met Josh Shapiro at a Take Back the House fundraiser organized by Ken Weinstein a few years ago. I was impressed with Shapiro then and am even more impressed now.

I think it’s time to shift our focus to campaign finance reform and the upcoming state legislative races. The progressive community has limited resources and it not easy to decide how best to use them. The presidential race will also increasingly take up our time and money.

So any thoughts on how best to advance campaign finance reform ?