Bala Cynwyd investors donate $1.5M to Williams

Three Bala Cynwyd investment moguls who say they share State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams' passion for charter schools and education reform have given his gubernatorial campaign as much as $1.5 million.

The eye-popping amount, given through political action committees that support charter schools and school choice, elevates Williams to a legitimate contender for the state's top office and could make school choice a major issue in the election.

The money came from Joel Greenberg, Arthur Dantchik, and Jeff Yass, managing directors and three of six founders of the Susquehanna International Group, a Bala Cynwyd investment firm formed by college friends in 1987, according to its Web site.

Efforts to reach Greenberg, Dantchik, and Yass for comment were unsuccessful. The Susquehanna group's office referred questions to Joe Watkins, who runs one of the PACs that donated to Williams.

The three businessmen "clearly have a strong interest in school reform and school choice and a number of these options that provide students with the best possible opportunities," Watkins said, citing vouchers, charter schools, and private schools among the options.

Watkins runs a newly formed political PAC supportive of school choice that donated $250,000 to Williams.

Williams, (D., Phila.), has long been a proponent of charter schools. He is founder and board president of the Hardy Williams Charter School in West Philadelphia, founded in 1999 and named for his father, and is a board member of the World Communications Charter School in Center City. He also advocates public-paid vouchers to be used for private education.

The three donors gave $750,000 through Democrats for Education Reform, a New York City PAC that was formed in 2007 and has given to the campaigns of President Obama, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, and other candidates around the country.

An additional $500,000 came from the same donors through the Make a Difference PAC, and Watkins said the three were "strong contributors" to still another PAC - Students First, of which Watkins is a director. That group gave $250,000 to Williams' campaign.

Students First, formed within the last six months, is a strong proponent of all types of school choice, including vouchers, Watkins said.

The donations are staggering even in a state with no limit on how much a person or PAC can donate to a campaign, said Barry Kauffman, executive director of the political watchdog group Common Cause Pennsylvania.

"It sounds like we're approaching, if not in, historic territory," said Kauffman, a longtime observer of state politics. "To suggest that these people would not have influence on the candidate, if elected - that's just preposterous. . . . They put him on the map."

But Williams' campaign spokesman, Mark Nevins, said the three Bala Cynwyd businessmen had given not because they expected anything if Williams became governor but because they shared his passion for school reform.

The Susquehanna partners, who are brokers of financial products, "will not benefit in any way" if Williams becomes governor, Nevins said. "They do no business with the state."

Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform and no relation to the candidate, said the trio wanted to donate through his organization rather than in their own names to make a strong statement about education. The three "felt very strongly about education reform and very strongly about the prospects of Sen. Williams and his leadership," he said.

The plug for charters comes while nine of Philadelphia's 67 charter schools are under criminal investigation and while the city controller has called into question the financial and management practices of several others. The state legislature is considering an overhaul of the charter law.

Joe Williams said: "We do think charter schools ought to be held accountable. What we worry about is talking about stopping creation of new choices." His group doesn't support vouchers for private schools as part of its platform, but there are members of the board who favor it, he said.

"Our official position is we agree that vouchers are controversial, but you shouldn't be kicked out of the Democratic Party for supporting them," he said.

Candidate Williams already has begun using the campaign money to buy TV ads. On Wednesday, he began running a series of three 30-second commercials introducing himself in media markets around the state.

With the exception of Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, none of the other Democrats running for governor has raised more than about $1 million in months of making phone calls and meeting with groups across the state.

Going into the stretch drive of the May 18 primary campaign, Montgomery County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel reports having only $101,500 in his campaign bank account. Auditor General Jack Wagner has $675,000, Williams $1.5 million, and Onorato $6.7 million.

The Democrats for Education Reform PAC was incorporated in Pennsylvania in the last month, Joe Williams said. It has chapters in some other states, including New Jersey. "Typically, we link donors directly to candidates," he said.

Key movers in the group were hedge-fund managers who served on charter school boards in New York City and got tired of being typecast when they spoke in support of school choice, Joe Williams said. "People assumed they were Republican, and they got pretty frustrated with it," he said. Democrats also support these issues, he said.

A lot of the group's donors come from the hedge-fund and finance world and want to spur more charter schools and other school choice, he said.

They also support teacher evaluations, data-driven decision-making, mayoral control of schools, and programs such as Teach for America, which puts college graduates into America's understaffed public-school classrooms to teach for two years, he said.

Like other PACs, Democrats for Education Reform had to file its own campaign-finance report with the Department of State in Harrisburg by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Department spokesman Charlie Young said the report had not arrived as of late Wednesday but could still be considered to have met the deadline if it was postmarked by Tuesday.

The Make a Difference PAC report also had not been received by Wednesday, Young said. Nevins said it was mailed Monday.

Other contributions Williams received included $10,000 from a PAC long associated with the late Carol Campbell, leader of a group of black Democratic ward leaders in Philadelphia that Williams now heads, and $6,500 from five lawyers at Ballard Spahr, a Philadelphia firm that formerly employed Gov. Rendell and that has done legal work for several state agencies.

State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), who has endorsed Williams, donated $5,000 to him from his own campaign fund. Williams also got $5,000 from the partnership that owns the Philadelphia Eagles and $10,000 from Dawn Chavous, his campaign manager, who is president of the charter school Williams helped found.