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Steve Cozen's war with Philly ethics laws
Submitted by MrLuigi on Tue, 02/24/2009 - 5:34pm.
So thanks to Marcia Gelbart, it turns out the law firm Cozen O'Connor is trying to overturn Philadlephia campaign contribution limits in order to raise the $448K in legal fees that Bob Brady owes them from the mayoral primary. They want him to be able to get the money in bigger than $20k a year lump sums, in fact no limits whatsoever after an election is over. They are determined to push their viewpoint through the courts.
"We'll keep seeing you until we win," Cozen afterward told Ethics Board chairman Richard Glazer, one of first attorneys, incidentally, recruited by Cozen to join his firm. "You know that."
Cozen appeared with a recent colleague of the judge he was appealing to.
Joining him in the courtroom was James Gardner Colins - a member of the firm since last June and previously a 23-year member of the Commonwealth Court. Colins said it was his third appearance before his former colleagues.
Sounds to me a little like someone thinks big law firms are accountable to noone including Philadelphia voters and the laws they and pass into the City Charter.
To be perfectly clear this is only about changing the law, not about getting the money. Asked if he would sue Brady to recoup the money, Cozen said this.
"Why would I do that? Bob is a friend of mine," he said, noting that he is a member of the congressman's finance committee. He also said Brady is in a position to help Philadelphia given his high-profile post as chairman of the House Administration Committee.
"So if Bob is allowed to raise the money and can, that's fine," Cozen said. "And if he can't, I'll forgive the debt."
Am I the only one this irks?
Why would any lawfirm, other
Why would any lawfirm, other than public lawfirm such at the DA's or Solicitor's office, be accountable to Philadelphia voters?
Lawyers have well established duties to protect the interests of clients. We are accountable to the Supreme Court of the state who license us. Public/voter accountability would hinder an attorney's advocacy on behald of clients and interfere with our professional duties.
Lawfirms are accountable to clients and are businesses that are accountable to individual partners. There is no expectation that the work we do is free.
The Court of Common Pleas determined Cozen didn't have standing to maintain the suit. From my understanding, that is a legal issue that has been appealed. Cozen, as both a law firm, and as a collective partnership of attorneys is entitled to exhaust its legal rights and, provided they are not acting in bad faith under the laws of Pennsylvania in maintaining a legal argument, are simply being zealous advocates for itself, which is a collection of partners. Attorneys are required to be zealous advocates.
Lawyers represent private interests
but they are also are supposed to obey and respect the law.
The law that passed said $20k limits in a year - period. Thats what City Council passed and what voters voted to ratify, unequivocally. If Cozen wanted to change that and make that $20k a year limit go away after the election is over, he could have lobbied to change the law while it was in Council. He still has the right to organize petition drives till the cows come home to try and lobby Council to introduce yet another change to the Charter more to his liking. Regular voters, however, don't automatically have the option of hiring ex-judges for the intent of overturning laws through the gift of the schmooze.
His "legal issue" from what I can tell is that he's an individual used to flexing a certain ammount of power in the bad old ways of doing things, voters supported changing those bad old ways and he's basically a poor sport and bad loser. What you are calling him exercising his "legal rights", I call using legal clout and influential colleagues to make an end run around the expressed will of the people about how elections in this town should be run. To me its thumbing his nose at voters who picked ethics reform for a reason and saying "important people like me know better".
If Cozen really wants to let millionaires lend themselves money up front before an election and then once they win face no limits whatsoever in how much money they collect from a single source to "repay" themselves after they win the election, well I would suggest he really backed the wrong horse because it sounds like exactly like a policy guaranteed to have elected Tom Knox. So I think Cozen is both wrong on the law and what I would call "democratic ethics" but also profoundly wrong strategically.
If you can name a single substantive issue with how the law was passed, other than that Steve Cozen doesn't like what it said when it did pass, I would love to hear it.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
It's not about obeying or
It's not about obeying or respecting the law, Sean. Rather, it is about the role of the legal system and what lawyers do.
Lawyers challenge laws and their interpetation all the time. That is what we do. No law is perfectly clear, perfectly drafted or outside of the realm of legitimate argument regarding application.
Respect for the law is something akin to discussing criminality. It is not "disrespect" for a private party or private interest to challege a law. Rather, I would argue if lawyers (or their clients) were unable to challenge the laws passed by legislatures, that would be a world I wouldn't want to live in. The legislature, particularly City Council, is not above challenge. Neither are the laws they pass. The judical system is a third and co-equal branch of government and lawyers (and clients) are the ones who bring cases that make the law.
Let me put it this way, whatever the motivations of Cozen O'Connor are, to my knowledge, there is no allegation that they are abusing legal process (except for the one you're making). Thus, there is no real allegation (aside from your own) that Steve Cozen is not obeying the law or respecting the law. Rather, the issue is whether Cozen O'Connor, as a private creditor (creditors have rights, by the way) has standing to challenge a Board of Ethics ruling or interpretation of a statute that arguably creates a Catch-22, unable to collect to pay the debt and unable to forgive the debt without a legal issue potentially arising.
Lot's of folks oppose the hand bill law that council could pass. Does that mean that lawyers should refuse a client to feels agrieved by such a law simply because it would be disobeident or disrepectful? Of course not.
Well, that is kind of what you're saying.
Also, I challenged one aspect of what you wrote:
Can you find me a single statute or rule of attorney conduct that says lawyers (and thus lawfirms) are accountable to voters?
You cannot.
But you still have not laid out a substantive flaw
and neither has Cozen. He's just saying he's going to keep trying to fly what I believe he knows is a weak legal argument but backed by the faces of prominent colleagues until some judge decides to weigh chumminess over the clearly stated intent of the law. Cozen says as much in the article.
You don't need to convince me he has a legal right to do so, but I'm still going to go out of my way to call it what I think it really is - Steve Cozen acting like a sore loser on ethics laws. I am going to attempt to use shame because realistically the man should be ashamed for what he's doing. There is raising substantive legal issues and then there is throwing legal spaghetti against the wall over and over again hoping you can use clout along to make it stick.
Beyond all of which, I stand by my strategic argument that the changes he's proposing would not have helped Bob Brady a lick but have Tom Knox's name written all over it - i.e. its not just throwing around legal clout as means to legislate by other means but its also profoundly bad strategy.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Have you read the briefing?
Have you read the briefing? I haven't.
Can you tell me what the issues on appeal are? What the legal arguments in support and against are?
I would say that if you read the briefs, you'd at least understand the argument being made by Cozen. If you haven't read the brief and are going off a 750 word article about the case, generally, your argument is substantively flawed.
In any event, I will agree that going into the courtroom with a former sitting judge strikes me as funny. Not uncommon, but funny.
We'll keep seeing you until we win
Not the words of someone who sincerely thinks the intent of the law is on his side. Rather the words of someone who thinks he can change the intent of the law through the exhausting practice of throwing around clout.
No, I have not read the brief. We both only have the article and the man's own words to go by and based on that his own words are to my ears incredibly damning. If you or anyone else wants to dig up the briefing and show some substance, have at it.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
So, I would imagine that
So, I would imagine that since your not interested in actually reading the briefs, you would agree that your analysis is really only about Steve Cozen and what you think of him and has nothing to do with the merits of the lawsuit?
I would imagine he would have won already
or at least could come up with something more quoteworthy explaining the grave injustice he's protesting. The fact that the sum of the argument he could come up with why the law should change to not limit "repayment" contributions after the election was that he doesn't think it should be that way is pretty apparent.
If he or you or anyone has an argument why "campaign loans" repaid after you win are substantively different from contributions up front - other than its a safer investment for the guy seeking to buy influence - please advance them.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
It's not a matter of law but of political morality
Of course the firm has a legal right to challenge a law so that it can get paid.
But the quesiton is whether it is a decent thing, a moral thing to challenge a good law in order to serve one's own self-interest. Don't we expect more of people? Shouldn't we expect more of law firms?
I'm sure I'm not the only person here who regularly and consistently votes against my own narrow economic interest. What Sean is asking Cozen to do is to think about the common good not his economic self-interest.
It would be pretty sad if that request is thought to be unreasonable.
Shouldn't we expect more of
Marc, what happens if Cozen forgives the debt for the common good?
Then, it is could be akin to an $400,000.00 in-kind contribution that may be illegal under the same law.
Where is the morality there?
Gaetano, Cozen doesn't want the money
He wants to change the law to preserve an order of things where he's a VIP without adapting. Read the article. He says in no uncertain terms he would never even ask Brady for the money under the law as it now stands.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
I don't know if you know
I don't know if you know this, but the Ethics Law has not stopped Steve Cozen from being considered a "VIP."
Of course
No, I'm not so plugged into legal circles as to be star-struck which is maybe why someone like me might be more willing to broadcast publically to someone like Cozen about what a jerk he's being IMO on this. But yes, with or without changing the law he's a VIP - which to my mind makes it even more egretious. Would it really be so awful for Brady to repay him with money he got $20k a year per source at a time? Its not like Brady's not an influential member of Congress and the head of a major city's political machine or anything.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Its not even economic self-interest
or not directly.
He could care less about Brady's legal fees. He says so in the article. He's never going to ask Brady to repay him following the ethics laws as they are.
He wants to overturn the ethics laws as they are because he clings to a business model where his firm was extremely influential under the old model and he can't imagine adapting to the new one. He's more like the head of GM coming to DC demanding yet more relaxation for emmissions standards and tax cuts for SUV's because "dammit it's hard to compete with Japanese on fuel efficiency".
It's pathetic really.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
And to be clear, the issue is the client not the law firm
To be clear, the issue is not with the law firm as lawyer. It is with the law firm, or Cozen himself, as client. A law firm has an obligation to represent their client. Cozen as an individual and the law firm as a client doesn't have an obligation to seek to overturn a good law for his / it's own financial benefit.
Good article but the last two paragraphs smell funny
Dear Mr. Cozen, this stinks and is not standing up for any reasonable interpretation of good election law.
“You are a coward when you even seem to have backed down from a thing you openly set out to do”
Mark Twain
Also to be perfectly clear, Mr. Cozen, do you think that should you prevail in the courts that the city won't just pass a law clarifying that campaign contribution limits are for after the election as well? That was clearly the intent of the law the first time voters approved it. Why do you think they won't approve it again?
The end result of your court case here would be to empower rich and corrupt politicians even more than they are under no limits whatsoever. If you are a billionaire, you will feel even freer to dump every last cent in because you will make it all up in contributions from aspiring city contractors on the day after the election. If you are a corruptable politician, the contractor or developer trying to corrupt you gets a better loyalty return by arranging to "lend" the money to the candidate up front and then pay back that "loan" as a contribution after the election is over.
So if Steve Cozen has his way we will only elect corrupt millionaires to office. Awesome.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.