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The Money Keeps Rolling In as Candidates Disclose Contributions
Gina Passarella, Peter Hall and Amaris Elliott-Engel
09-26-2007
The money is flowing in this year's race for two open Supreme Court seats, and a large portion of it is coming from a 527 group headed up by Philadelphia trial lawyers.
The Committee for a Better Tomorrow, whose treasurer, Mark Tanner, is the current president of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, donated $632,000 to Supreme Court candidates, including the retention campaign of Justice Thomas G. Saylor.
The committee gave a total of $707,000 when Superior Court candidates are included in the mix. These donations were for the latest reporting cycle, which is from June 5 to Sept. 17. Candidates had to file contribution data with the State Department by 6 p.m. yesterday.
According to campaign contribution records on the Pennsylvania Department of State's Web site, this was the first cycle in which the committee donated to any of the candidates. A 527 group has to file its own disclosure reports, according to the Web site www.opensecrets.com, but it is not limited by certain contribution caps. These groups are often issue-based advocates that support a cause without supporting individual candidates, the site said.
Supreme Court candidates Seamus P. McCaffery and Debra Todd, Superior Court judges running on the Democratic ticket, each received $225,000 from the committee. Republican candidate and Superior Court Judge Maureen Lally-Green received $107,000. The committee did not donate to Republican candidate Michael L. Krancer, according to the Department of State's site.
Saylor received $75,000 from the committee this cycle. The committee donated $75,000 in total to the Superior Court campaigns of Democrats Christine Donohue and Ron Folino, an attorney and judge from Allegheny County, respectively.
Tanner, of Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner & Weinstock, said the committee is the PAC of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, which he said has been around for a long time but isn't always as active as it was this cycle.
He said the group is bipartisan and feels that judicial elections are important. The group talks with its members and the committee reads through prior opinions of some of the candidates and makes its decisions from there, he said. The committee looks for candidates that are in support of fair and meaningful access to the courts and who support the rights of victims at trial.
"We avoid that appearance of impropriety when single lawyers or judges write [individual] checks," Tanner said.
In terms of Krancer, Tanner said the group just didn't know enough about where he stood on certain positions because there weren't as many opinions for them to read.
Tanner said the PAC waited until after the primary to make any donations for this election cycle.
G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics & Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, said that while that is a "huge amount of money" for one PAC, trial lawyers have historically donated to judicial campaigns.
Madonna said he doesn't get the sense that there is some sort of conspiracy that is benefiting trial lawyers once the judges are on the bench.
While the group has done nothing illegal or unethical under the current rules, he said, "that's a poster child case for why there ought to be limits."
Madonna said Tanner's argument that the PAC avoids the appearance of impropriety does hold some merit.
"That's far better than individual law firms giving large sums of money," he said.
Maureen Lally-Green
Lally-Green raised more than $458,000 in the latest reporting cycle. In total, Lally-Green has brought in just under $830,000 for the year.
The party-endorsed candidate took about $166,000 of this cycle's donations from lawyers, law firms or political action committees related to the legal industry.
The biggest contributor was the Committee for a Better Tomorrow. It donated $70,000 at the end of August and $37,000 in September for a total of $107,000.
Other large donors to Lally-Green included former K&L Gates Management Committee Chairman Charles J. Queenan Jr., who donated $10,000. Pittsburgh-based law firms DeForest Koscelnik Yokitis & Kaplan and Cohen & Grigsby PAC donated $5,000 each, and McErlane & Frank donated $6,000. The PA Future Fund PAC, led by Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young Chairman William R. Sasso, gave $5,000.
Debra Todd
Todd raised $370,871 through her campaign committee during the June 5 to Sept. 17 reporting period. Todd brought in a total of $710,511 over the course of the year.
In the latest cycle, Todd collected $48,200 from organized labor groups or union-affiliated PACs including a $25,000 contribution from the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers Committee to Support Public Education.
In addition to the contribution from the Committee for a Better Tomorrow, which was by far her largest, lawyers, law firms and law-related PACs also contributed at least $69,500 to Todd's campaign committee.
Notably, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel in Philadelphia contributed $5,000, Cohen & Grigsby in Pittsburgh contributed $2,500, Eckert Seamans contributed $2,500 and Swartz Campbell in Philadelphia contributed $2,000.
Edwin H. Beachler III, of Caroselli Beachler McTiornan & Conboy in Pittsburgh, gave $10,000; Daniel Berger of Berger & Montague in Philadelphia gave $5,000; Nancy H. Fullham, of McEldrew & Fullham in Newtown Square, Pa., gave $5,000.
Todd also received contributions from state legislators. Sen. Constance Williams, D-Montgomery, and Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, each gave $1,000.
As of publication time, Saylor, McCaffery and Krancer had not filed their reports.
Other Big Donors
John M. Templeton Jr., president of the John Templeton Foundation, was a big donor to the Republican Party across both the Supreme and Superior Court races. He gave $30,000 to Lally-Green. He gave Dauphin County Common Pleas Court Judge Bruce Bratton and Allegheny Common Pleas Court Judge Cheryl Allen, both Republican candidates for Superior Court, $40,000 and $35,000 respectively. His donation to Allen made up almost all of her $41,785.
The Templeton Foundation focuses on donating to groups that share its scientific and philosophical background.
Superior Court Candidates
Bratton received $86,005 in contributions and receipts.
Besides the $20,000 donation from Templeton, Bratton also received $5,000 - $1,000 Aug. 9 and $4,000 Sept. 14 - from the Pittsburgh-based law firm Eckert Seamans PA Government PAC; and $5,000 from the PA Future Fund PAC.
Allen received $41,785 in contributions. Besides the $35,000 Templeton donation, most notably she received $1,000 from the PA Future Fund PAC and $1,000 from Robert Gleason Jr., chairman of the state Republican Party.
No other Superior Court candidates had filed their reports at the time of publication.
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