Our Philadelphia

Lieutenant Governor, PA

Scarnati's Top Donors, 2001-2008

1	PA Future Fund PAC	$90,000
2	Committee For A Better Tomorrow	$71,000
3	Pennsylvania State Education Association	$52,400
4	Comcast	$43,500
5	Allegheny Power PAC	$32,750

About Scarnati's Top Donors

PA Future Fund PAC

PA Future Fund PAC

Committee For A Better Tomorrow

The Committee For A Better Tomorrow is the PAC for the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. After learning that this PAC had given $1 million to State Supreme Court candidate Jack Panella (D) for his 2009 campaign, Panella’s opponent, Republican Jane Orie Melvin, criticized Panella for engaging in “pay to play” politics. In a 10/27/09 interview with WHYY radio, Orie Melvin also said that justices should recuse themselves from cases involving major campaign contributors. Yet Orie Melvin received at least $125,000 from the Committee For A Better Tomorrow for her own campaign. One way for Pennsylvania to get its judges out of the business of ruling on cases involving campaign contributors would be to establish a system of merit selection. It’s bad enough that major campaign contributors enjoy special access to members of our state legislature. But what recourse does the average citizen who can’t afford to write four- and five-figure checks to political candidates have if their legislature and judiciary are both beholden to their top contributors? For example, a 2009 study by Common Cause/Pennsylvania found that 3 of the top 21 recipients of campaign contributions from casinos from 2001-2008 were state supreme court justices.

Pennsylvania State Education Association

According to its website, “PSEA includes 1,199 local associations, representing teachers, education support professionals, health care professionals, higher education professionals, retired educators and students. We represent teachers in 483 of Pennsylvania’s 501 school districts.” PSEA’s legislative agenda in Harrisburg includes boosting teacher salaries and reserves in their pension fund, boosting school funding, providing for cost-of-living adjustments for PSEA member salaries, expanding opportunities for early retirement, and opposition to a bill that would curtail teachers’ rights to strike. Recent legislation to limit teacher strikes was introduced by State Sen. Robert Mellow after teachers at a school in Lackawanna County struck 4 times in 18 months. If Mellow's bill becomes law, no contract dispute would last into the school year. By the end of summer, teachers and school boards in conflict over contracts would present their cases to a team of arbitrators, who would decide which side's proposal was most fair. The panel's decision would be binding.

Comcast

"They have PR firms and strategy consultants that they can pull into any given issue very quickly," said Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, in a May 17, 2009 Philadelphia Inquirer article about Comcast’s strong lobbying arm."If Comcast decided to get in front of the 435 members of the House, they could do that in a week. I don't think I could do it in a year." And if Comcast can personally lobby every member of Congress in a week, imagine how easy it is for them to make their case to the Philadelphia City Council or the state legislature. In Congress, they have lobbied against the Shareholders Bill of Rights, which would give corporate shareholders the ability to reject executive compensation packages, like Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’s annual salary of $25 million. Meanwhile, across Pennsylvania, Comcast has lobbied against opening up markets to competition from other cable companies. On what issues has Comcast lobbied the Philadelphia City Council? It would be nice to know. Unlike New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and many other major cities, Philadelphia does not require lobbyists to register and disclose the issues on which they have been lobbying.

Allegheny Power PAC

Allegheny Power PAC