Given that Mariano 1) has no other real income and 2) has never had an evident sense of shame, I'd be shocked if he gave up his salary. He's been open that he needs money, badly. Who, exactly, will push him out the door, anyway? Mayor Street? Seems unlikely, given their alliance and friendship.

Does he even have to resign if he's convicted? I think he can continue to serve while behind bars, right?

Councilman,

i have searched thoroughly through this blog. i don't see any recent attacks or bloggers questioning you. please, point me to the blog that attacks you and/or questions you. if none exists, then i think that you should be more secure with your practice to win, maintain and work in office.

Aren't most of the people convicted professionals (e.g., upper middle class folks, businesspeople). What are the underlying class issues?

Ben,

You raise a very difficult issue. Most liberals believe that setting relatively low limits on campaign contributions is the best way to limit the impact of the rich and connected on politics. Most political scientists, however, believe that low limits on spending actually hurt representatives of the working class.

Here is why: Members of the working class don’t make campaign contributions. In fact, very few people—perhaps less than half of one percent—make campaign contributions. So campaign contributors tend to be upper middle class or above. And the majority of those folks are not on the left, at least on economic issues. The only way for liberal candidates to match the expenditures of conservatives is to rely on big contributions from labor unions and some of the very rich (e.g. Charles Stewart Mott the GM heir who bankrolled George McGovern or George Soros) who are liberals.

It was for this reason that the political reforms enacted after the 1972 election, which limited campaign contributions in presidential elections to $1000 were thought by most political scientists to hurt democrats and, especially, liberal democrats. Democrats only began catching up with Republicans in federal politics when they pioneered the use of soft money.

Unfortunately, by the 1990s, the Democratic rush to get big contributions to make up for the Republican advantage in $250 to $5000 contributions lead the party to start taking money from corporate PACs. One consequence is that some Democrats began moving rightward. (There were, of course, other reasons for this phenomenon.)

What is the solution? There is no perfect one and I don’t have time right now give a detailed answer. But I don’t see any solution if we don’t have (1) partial public financing of political campaigns with governments matching very small donations and (2) dramatically reduce costs of campaigns by governments forcing the TV stations to make time available for advertising and by reducing the cost of mailing for political campaigns.

New York City has shown that you can have public financing of political campaigns in a city. What New York has not found a solution for is the independent spending of a very rich candidate. There is a solution: Opponents of self-financed political candidates who reject public funding, as Bloomberg has done, should receive matching funds from the public treasury.

This is why I love this blog. What starts as an entry about Councilman Mariano’s charges blossoms into a lively debate on campaign finance reform.

Having had to actually raise money for a short-lived campaign a few years back, I have an opinion or two on the subject and thought I’d weigh in. I honestly have very mixed feeling about limiting the amount an individual can give to a candidate. And here’s why:

Marc is absolutely right that campaign contribution limits hurt us liberals. Right-wing candidates who are backed by bankers, brokers and captains of industry find it easy for a $20,000 or $50,000 donation to be “spread out” in $1,000 increments among family members, colleagues, partners and associates. These guys easily get around the limits.

Grassroots liberals, who often do not have these close ties with the corporate community, have to rely on good-hearted progressive individuals like Dr. Bayard Storey, Francis Vallay, the late Ernesta Ballard and others who can be quite generous in their own right but do not come from a corporate network. When you’re not from the world of dollars and cents, It’s just harder to keep up.

Just ask Babette Josephs (an incumbent faced with no limits) who found it difficult to keep up with a challenger with deep roots in the corporate community. That's not to say one person is a better candidate or a better choice--its just different.

Are these limits designed to keep people honest? I happen to think that money corrupts people who are already inclined to be corrupt. I always used to say if Jesus Christ himself moved to Philly and cut me a contribution check for 50 grand, I’d have to tell him the only thing he was buying was a better government -- nothing else is for sale. But the fact of the matter is, some folks would easily sell their souls for a lot less – maybe even ten separate checks of $1000 a piece.

Additionally, the limits on campaign contributions hurt challengers more than incumbents because many incumbents already have members of their political tribe with various PACS. Some even have a network of PACS so that the limits placed on PAC contributions end up being meaningless to them. Regular people – ordinary citizens who want to seek public office—do not have the luxury of such set-ups.

When I ran for office I needed money badly -- for flyers, palm cards, for staff, for computers, signs -- just the basics. With no massive network of corporate big wigs or lawyers ready to empty their wallets for me, a friend of mine who lives in Washington Square West introduced me to two brothers in real estate. Those two men gave me enough in contributions to carry my campaign for weeks. It allowed us time to set up 26 house parties (which brought in, on average, about 3 thousand dollars each). But without those two men helping me in the beginning, I would have never gotten off the ground. Again, when my ballot position was challenged, members of labor helped me secure enough money to keep fighting the challenge all the way to the PA Supreme Court. Without their help, my campaign would have died on the vine many weeks earlier. The point is—had I been forced to raise the $15,000 in legal bills in $1,000 increments, it would have been impossible. My base is middle class folks and young families—not bankers and lawyers –and $1,000 is a ton of money for them. So in that case, these limits would have killed us.

The philosophy behind these limits makes sense. But in practice, I think it’s not all that it’s cracked to be.

I like the idea of public matching funds for campaigns but I suspect a majority of our representatives in local government would tell us we simply couldn’t afford it.

This is an extremely difficult issue but I think everyone’s heart is in the right place on this.

And for the record, if Jesus Christ DID move to Philadelphia, I think he'd live in Bella Vista....or at least the first council district. It sure would make the annual Procession of the Saints more exciting.