Our Philadelphia

Findings

How much has the gaming industry given during this string of successes? For 2001-08, this study found a total of

• $4.4 million in contributions from the gaming industry, including donors with an ownership stake in one or more of Pennsylvania’s 14 licensed gaming facilities, and other donors who have promoted legalized gambling in the state, among them out-of-state casinos, slot machine manufacturers, and horseracing associations.
• An additional $12.3 million in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists licensed to represent the state’s 14 gaming facilities. These contributions are included because the expansion of legalized gambling, and the resulting court cases and license applications, has created a significant source of business for lawyers and lobbyists.

Recommendations

Pennsylvania should take the following steps to limit the role of campaign contributions in shaping elections and public policy, and to make information about these contributions more readily available to the public.

1. Contribution Limits. Pennsylvania is one of the few states that does not limit campaign contributions to candidates for statewide office and its state legislature. To protect the integrity of its legislative, regulatory, and judicial processes, Pennsylvania should limit contributions from both individuals and PAC’s to candidates for state and local offices. A recommended limit for General Assembly candidates would by $500 per election cycle. For statewide offices, limits should be tied to the limit set by the Federal Election Campaign Act for Federal candidates, which is currently $2,400 per cycle. Donors should also have an aggregate limit on contributions made to all candidates during an election cycle.
2. Better Disclosure. The state’s campaign finance database is not easily searchable and search results are not sortable, so that a search for gaming interests which might take a few hours with the more sophisticated databases used by New York or Maryland, for example, takes far longer in Pennsylvania. Electronic files obtainable from the Pennsylvania Department of State list donors alphabetically by first name, for the most part—a disastrous approach if the point of disclosing campaign financing is to show the influence of different interests over elected officials. For example, if donor “John Jackpot” and his family own a stake in a gaming facility, the public needs to be able to easily find donations from people with the last name “Jackpot,” not people whose first name is “John.”
3. More frequent disclosure of campaign contributions. Pennsylvania should require the quarterly disclosure of campaign contributions during non-election years. Citizens should not have to wait for as long as twelve months to learn about the influence of campaign contributions from key supporters of legislative and regulatory efforts. In election years legislative candidates should be subjected to the same disclosure schedule as statewide candidates – adding a report due on the 6th Friday prior to an election.
   
4. Voluntary Disclosure of Gaming Contributions Made Since Ban On Gaming Contributions Was Overturned. The state legislature is now considering whether to allow video poker machines in bars, and whether to allow table games at the state’s casinos. Because the state ban on gaming contributions was overturned in April, and contributions made since April aren’t required to be reported until January 2010, all members of the state legislature and statewide officials should disclose gaming contributions they have received since April—before voting to further expand legalized gambling.
5. Judicial Reform. The June 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal makes the strongest case yet that campaign contributions to judges threaten the public interest, especially when a judge is asked to rule on a matter affecting one of his or her contributors. Since passage of Pennsylvania’s Gaming Law in 2004, the state supreme court has issued numerous rulings favorable to casinos—most recently its decision to overturn the ban on contributions from donors with ties to casinos. Because of its ties to organized crime, the gaming industry and its contributions have been perceived as a particular threat to government integrity. Yet a mere ban on gaming contributions was not enough and could never be enough to fully protect the public interest. Pennsylvania must take this opportunity to protect judges from all undue influence by switching to a system of merit selection. Until merit selection is adopted, the state should adopt voluntary public financing for judicial campaigns, with low mandatory contribution limits and voluntary spending limits.

Detailed Data Downloads

To learn more, download the full report files.

• Payout.pdf

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