Lehigh County Executive Tom Muller added his proposal Monday to a growing collection of local campaign finance reforms following news of an FBI probe into Allentown’s contracts and political donations.
Taking a page out of Philadelphia’s campaign finance law, Democrat Muller said he will lobby the Republican-majority county commissioners to cap how much candidates can raise from individual donors and how much they can spend on the campaign trail. As of now, the county has neither.
“I believe Philadelphia got it right, and I think it’s time the county got it right,” Muller said in an interview with The Morning Call.
Under the proposal, candidates would not be able to accept each year more than $2,500 from a single person or $7,500 from an individual political action committee. Once the money is in hand, the candidate would face annual spending limits, ranging from $125,000 for county executive candidates to $7,500 for commissioner candidates running for specific districts.
Muller’s proposal would have a dramatic impact if approved as is. Four Republican candidates running as a slate this November spent $44,232 between them and their PAC even before the May primary. Under Muller’s plan, they could spend no more than $50,000 total.
Muller said he started kicking around the idea after he and former Commissioner Scott Ott spent approximately $200,000 each in their 2013 battle for the executive’s office. He abandoned the effort after relations soured between himself and the 7-2 Republican controlled-board of commissioners, but he revisited it after Republican Commissioner Vic Mazziotti proposed crafting legislation that would bar campaign donors from seeking business with the county in some instances.
“The bottom line is we ought to stop this nonsense,” Muller said of the escalating costs of campaigns.
It’s unclear how much support the proposal has among the board of commissioners. Democratic Commissioner Geoff Brace said he would introduce it so it could be discussed in conjunction with Mazziotti’s proposal. Brace and Muller both stressed that no one in county government has done anything untoward or illegal in their fundraising efforts in recent years.
“Everybody has played by the rules,” Brace said. “I don’t know if the rules are necessarily serving the voters and the public.”
Commissioner Lisa Scheller, one of the largest donors to local Republican campaigns in the past few years, didn’t see it that way. Muller presented charts to the media outlining the donations she and her husband, former Lehigh County Republican Chairman Wayne Woodman, have made in the past three years, and she said Muller was clearly targeting her.
“I feel that limits on the contributions are a suppression of speech,” Scheller said. “I think there’s a lot we can do to engage in reform here in Lehigh County before we have a conversation about limitations.”
Federal law could be on Scheller’s side. While the U.S. Supreme Court has supported limiting how much individual donors and PACs can provide a candidate, the spending limits could violate the First Amendment rights of candidates who want to spend their own money. The Philadelphia law gets around this by increasing the amount of money other candidates can spend if candidates surpass specific spending benchmarks. Muller’s one-page outline did not include that language.
“[Spending limits] are more questionable in terms of the constitutionality,” said Chris Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College. “The courts have said generally you cannot cap someone unless there is some sort of agreement [among candidates].”
Muller acknowledged there could be legal challenges and said he would understand if the proposal gets reduced to a resolution, which would have no binding authority. Should that happen, he would hope candidates could work under an honor system and agree to self-imposed limits in campaigns.
“Both sides of the hallway should make a stand that we want spending and fundraising under control,” Muller said, referring to the fourth-floor offices of the administration and board of commissioners.
Neither Mazziotti’s nor Muller’s proposal has been presented in bill form. Both said their concepts are being vetted by the law department, and issues such as punishment for violating the reforms need to be reviewed. Both men said they were also open to negotiating parts of their proposals.
Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez has implemented new policies barring employees from receiving gifts from people who do business with the city. Allentown City Councilwoman Jeannette Eichenwald has endorsed legislation in the city identical to Mazziotti’s proposal.
