Mission accomplished

Philadelphia's political insiders have serious concerns about the city's campaign-finance laws. They say one restriction in particular, affecting contributions from companies doing business with the city, limits their political participation and perhaps the overall role of money in the mayoral race.

In other words, it's working.

The array of criticisms deployed against the rule makes a remarkably strong, if inadvertent, case for its wisdom. "Leaders of law firms, corporations ... are being disqualified from participation in city elections," City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who considered running for mayor, told The Inquirer's Chris Hepp. Comcast executive and avid fund-raiser David Cohen noted: "It takes almost anyone of any size who has any city contract out of the city fund-raising environment."

The horror!

The restriction at issue applies to companies with city contracts that are not subject to competitive bidding. Those firms, including their officers and owners, may not give more than a total of $11,500 to a single city candidate in a year. The rationale is that such contributions look to all but the most naive among us to be a quid pro quo at the expense of taxpayers.

The complaints about this reasonable rule are particularly ill-timed amid reports of a continuing corruption investigation that has already brought about the resignation of Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord, who acknowledged shaking down potential donors to his gubernatorial bid by threatening their prospects of doing business with the state. Philadelphia's penchant for such pay-to-play politics was the motive for then-Councilman Michael Nutter's proposal of the campaign-finance reform in 2005 - and the voters' overwhelming approval of a change to the City Charter. As Nutter told The Inquirer more recently, "These rules are there for a purpose, because of serious corruption issues in the not-too-distant past in Philadelphia."

Besides vague arguments about the rule's vagueness, one favored critique is that the restriction will force our corporate citizens to find more underhanded ways of spending their money on politics, such as through opaque third-party entities. One has to appreciate the brazen amorality of the contention that these good-government reforms leave the city's political movers with no choice but to circumvent them.

That said, experience at the federal level shows that political donors do find ways around campaign-finance restrictions. But that doesn't mean we should give up on all attempts at regulation, inviting the sort of influence-peddling free-for-all that is exemplified by Harrisburg and emerging in Washington. On the contrary, those truly concerned about "dark money" should look for ways to control it or at least make it more transparent.

As to the suggestion that the city's laws are responsible for the mayoral campaign's relatively subdued fund-raising (a tragedy mainly for local broadcasters and political consultants), the same rules were in effect when another group of candidates raised millions eight years ago.

It's as ridiculous to contend that high-powered executives and attorneys are being denied the right to participate in local democracy. Since the limit in question applies only to firms with no-bid city contracts, anyone's zeal to participate need only overcome his desire for public money. Perhaps some of the civic-minded professionals in question can find more clients who are eager to pay for their services in the absence of a monetary inducement.