Join Seventy, Young Involved Philadelphia and our panelists Tom Ferrick, Philly.com’s The Next Mayor project and Holly Otterbein, Citified for analysis on how campaign contributions are shaping the 2015 city elections. We'll also take a look at Crowdpac, a new tool to evaluate candidates, make (and track) donations, and complete a sample ballot to take to the polls!
On May 8 the candidates and independent expenditure groups have to report their fundraising totals and sources to Philadelphia’s Board of Ethics. It’ll be hot news for the politically attuned. To help sort out who’s giving what to whom, and what it all means, we’ve asked two of the city’s best political reporters, Tom Ferrick and Holly Otterbein, to join a conversation you won’t want to miss.
Beyond the breaking news, we’ll also get in to the big picture. What’s it all mean? For instance, Tom Ferrick contends that if the intent of the city's campaign finance law was to banish big money from politics, it has failed. Big money is back, simply wearing a different hat. SuperPACs have turned running for office into a tale of the haves and the have-nots - with candidates without SuperPAC support as the have-nots.
Newsworks.org’s, Dave Davies counters, “One thing that occurs to me is that it's hard for an independent expenditure group to do a moving and positive ad for a candidate because it can't coordinate activities with the candidate.” If that is the case, Davies wonders when the super PACs or the candidate's campaigns start running negative ads? It's hard to imagine a mayor's race without them, but going negative in a multi-candidate race can be a tricky proposition: candidate A attacking candidate B could end up benefiting candidate C or D.” So does that negate the strength of the SuperPAC influence?
It should be a great discussion moderated by Seventy’s CEO, David Thornburgh. We hope you can join us.