Is this even legal? I don’t know, but let’s just lay it out there.
There’s this Philly guy, see? His name is Jimmy Cauley. Dis Cauley guy was involved in the campaign of one Jeff Brown, a Shop-Rite owner who spent a bleepload of money on advertising in his run for Mayor of Philadelphia:
Brown’s campaign and a “super PAC,” an independent group supporting him, have already spent more than $2 million boosting his candidacy on the small screen. The ad buys have changed the shape of the race and given him a leg up by building name recognition at a time when few potential voters are aware of who’s running.
The Philadelphia Board of Ethics is investigating campaign finance activities related to mayoral candidate Jeff Brown, according to a person who was approached by the board as part of the probe.
Victoria Perrone, a Philadelphia-based campaign finance compliance consultant, said she was interviewed this week by Shane Creamer, the board’s executive director, about her knowledge of the early efforts by Brown’s team to organize its strategy for the mayor’s race.
Perrone said she is not working for Brown’s campaign or any groups supporting him, but had a discussion with Jimmy Cauley, who is now Brown’s campaign manager, about possibly joining the team roughly a year ago.
She said she declined to join the team supporting Brown last year because she at the time was working for two other politicians who appeared likely to join the race. But she said she was also unsettled by Cauley’s questions because he asked if she had experience with a variety of types of campaign finance entities, some of which would be prohibited by law from coordinating with each other.
“I basically mentioned that I’m not sure that’s totally kosher,” Perrone said. “During the conversation, I said I would not be able to do all of these committees at once because that [would be] a problem.”
Well, guess who has launched an ‘independent’ PAC with the official aim ‘to accept contributions and make expenditures in support of the election of Lieutenant Governor Bethany Hall-Long for Governor of Delaware’? Dat same Philly guy. Jimmy Cauley. His listed address on the Department of Elections website? 1811 Chestnut Street, #305, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.
The name of the PAC? The First State Forward PAC. Just filed with the Delaware Department of Elections on May 30. I thought PAC’s had to function independently from candidate campaigns. Am I wrong? If not, I think what Jimmy Cauley is doing is illegal.
Since he flooded the airwaves with commercials for Jeff Brown who, BTW, finished fifth in the Philly Democratic Mayoral primary in 2023, I would suspect he’s gonna try something similar for BHL.
Yes, Brown had his own Super-PAC, and Cauley was his campaign manager. The name?:
For a Better Philadelphia is an independent expenditure committee, which is a type of political group that is allowed to accept donations that are larger than the city’s contribution limits so long as it does not coordinate with a candidate. This year, the contribution limits are $6,200 for individual donors and $25,200 for organizations.
Shane Creamer, executive director for the Board of Ethics, said Brown coordinated with the groups because he “engaged in extensive fundraising” for the nonprofit arm of For A Better Philadelphia. Creamer said the board told the super PAC on March 30 to stop making expenditures while it investigated that alleged coordination.
“This, I think, arguably is the worst type of coordination, where the candidate is directing donors directly to the outside spending group and getting money to the spending group directly — in this case to a ‘dark money’ group so the public doesn’t even know it’s happening,” Creamer said.
For A Better Philadelphia is the first organization to play a role in a Philly mayor’s race while exploiting a loophole in the city’s campaign finance laws that allows super PACs to keep their backers secret by funneling its money through nonprofits.
Here’s the deal that was reached in the Brown/Ethics Commission case. Although Brown and his dark money PAC later sued the Ethics Board.
Now we have a case of an independent PAC being upfront in that its sole purpose is to back BHL. I think it’s illegal. I think it’s up to the State Board Of Elections (fat chance of that) and the Attorney General’s office to stop this before it starts.
What do the Legal Eagles think?