New Campaign Finance Proposal Becomes Political Hot Button

The Zimmer administration introduced a new package of campaign reforms on Thursday afternoon, including a new law that would limit the amount of money certain political action committees can donate to a candidate. It would put limits on a procedure known as "wheeling," where money is moved from one donor to another to avoid campaign finance restrictions.

But by adding the language to an already existing "pay-to-play" ordinance and targeting city council president and mayoral opponent Beth Mason specifically, the mayor has angered her critics and turned the proposed change into a political issue.

As an example of actions the new law would prevent, the mayor mentioned Mason’s $13,400 donation to Fourth Ward Councilman Tim Occhipinti in November’s special election. Mason created a candidate committee through which money was donated to Occhipinti’s campaign. An individual is allowed to donate up to $2,600 to one candidate. But a Political Action Committee—as the law stands now—is allowed to donate a maximum of $8,200.

By using the political action committee to donate more than an individual is allowed to donate, Zimmer and Councilman Ravi Bhalla said, Mason circumvented the law and took advantage of a loophole. Zimmer added that it violated “the spirit of state law.”

Under Zimmer’s proposed legislation, political action committees that are more than 75 percent self funded (as Mason’s committee was during the November election) cannot donate more than $500.

Donations from political action committees, Zimmer said, hide who really donates the money. “People need to know who is influencing these elections," she said.

Mason defended her actions, saying “everything I’m doing is legal. I’m supporting someone in my own city.”

But the mayor's proposal is drawing criticism from others outside the Mason camp, because it is being proposed as an amendment to the city's existing "pay-to-play" law. That ordinance, which is reviewed every three years, prevents people and organizations that donate money to campaigns from receiving any monetary reward in return, such as contracts or zoning variances.

Alice Crozier, the president of People for Open Government, the group which originally worked to pass the pay-to-play legislation, wants to keep the two issues separate.

POG, of which Mason is a long-time member, created the pay-to-play ordinance in 2004. By adding the anti-wheeling law into the ordinance, Crozier said, the issue is taken into the electoral arena. “We don’t want to be there,” Crozier said.

But Bhalla said that combining the two issues is not unusual, noting that some of the townships and counties that were looked at in drafting the ordinance—Marlboro, Dumont and Atlantic County—also include anti-wheeling laws in their pay-to-play ordinances.

The mayor’s opponents have pointed the pay-to-play finger at her and accused her of hypocrisy, saying that she has made board appointments to supporters who have donated money to her campaign. But that is different from pay-to-play, explained POG's president Crozier, because the donor doesn’t receive a monetary reward. In an instance of pay-to-play the donor has to receive a substantial monetary benefit.

Councilman Bhalla has also been accused of skirting the pay-to-play restrictions. 

In May 2010, the Star Ledger published a story . Bhalla made a $2,500 donation to a political action committee affiliated with Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a day before the city of Newark awarded his law firm a $60,000 contract for legal work. The Star Ledger article stated that the donation didn’t technically violate the law, but did so “in spirit.”

When asked about the pay-to-play allegations on Thursday afternoon, Bhalla said that he “did not circumvent the law.” But Mason, Bhalla said, did, adding that “it’s pretty clear that she did with her left hand what she couldn’t do with her right.”