It’s certainly been a week in Philly politics. The Sixers and the new arena proposal ended up being the topic of discussion for three-straight days, starting with an alleged Jeff Brown ethics violation that made the front page of Tuesday’s Inquirer:

The short version of a complicated story is that Brown is accused of coordinating with the super PAC that received this mysterious sports team’s money, which the Inquirer later reported was the Sixers.

Here’s the most relevant portion of that write up:

In a lawsuit filed Monday alleging mayoral candidate Jeff Brown illegally coordinated with a political action committee backing his campaign, the Philadelphia Board of Ethics noted the group’s anonymous donors included a “professional sports team” that gave $250,000 to boost Brown.

The filing didn’t name the team, but sources told The Inquirer the donation was not made by the Phillies, Eagles, or Flyers. The Sixers did not respond to repeated requests for comment on whether the NBA franchise donated to the outside group, also known as a super PAC.

….

David Maser, a lawyer who organized the For A Better Philadelphia political action committee and a related nonprofit with the same name, has also recently worked as a consultant for 76ers ownership in relation to the arena proposal, according to an email from Maser to stakeholders in the project that was not included in the lawsuit and was obtained by The Inquirer.

You get the gist, right? Let’s do a numbered/list format:

1) The average sports fan is probably not familiar with Philadelphia politics and campaign finance rules, beyond knowing that both are a total joke, but the overarching takeaway here is that the Sixers are being accused of making anonymous donations that were moved to a specific mayoral candidate in an effort to sway the election. You might pause and think “who gives a shit?“, since money has been influencing politics forever (and as proof, this story really did not take off), but the reason they were getting ripped is because people were connecting the dots on their own and throwing out this allegation that they were trying to buy off a candidate. That’s exactly what Helen Gym accused the team of at Tuesday night’s forum:

2) Candidates CAN receive money from super PACs, they just can’t “coordinate” with them. Jeff Brown can take in a million bazillion dollars this way, but he’s restricted from steering the donations. So, for example, if it was revealed that Brown went to someone and said something like, “hey, push $250k into this super PAC, and it’ll find its way to me” then that would constitute the violation. Right now there’s no smoking gun (and there likely won’t be), just sourced Inquirer reporting.

3) The way Philadelphia campaign finance law works is that donations to the mayoral candidates are capped at $6,200 for individuals and $25,200 for organizations. Those dollar amounts come in the form of public contributions, which are then logged in city records. Super PACs, however, can push unlimited dollar amounts above that limit, and the donations are able to remain anonymous because of a loophole where they pass the money through a nonprofit. That’s what we call “dark money” in political terms.

4) These kinds of infractions aren’t necessarily rare. District Attorney Larry Krasner was hit with two ethics violations in two different election cycles and still won both times.

5) The Super PAC in question here has apparently put a few million dollars worth of dark money into the race, so the Sixers alleged contribution would appear to make up a relatively small portion of that. The entirety of it may not even have been fully spent.

6) Most of the mayoral candidates have waffled on the arena topic. It’s a very difficult one for them to navigate, because the Sixers have promised that the entire $1.3 billion dollar project will be privately funded. If they were asking for taxpayer money, this thing would have been shot down immediately, but no politician with half a brain would outright dismiss a private investment like that, especially during a time when the city is going through a rough patch and could use a shot in the arm. That’s why I refuse to believe that the Sixers would make this anonymous and shady push for Jeff Brown, because I think an overwhelming majority of the candidates actually do support the proposal. They’re just not willing to say it outright, because they’re politicians.

My best guess is that the Sixers donated to this 501(c)(4) thinking the money was going to be used for a variety of generic election purposes (like a get out the vote campaign or some shit like that), and not funneled to a specific candidate, or any candidate at all. I don’t have any inside knowledge on that, it’s just what my spider sense is telling me, because the whole thing feels a bit “off.” It doesn’t pass the smell test.

7) Jeff Brown might be cooked anyway. He got the FOP endorsement and had a rough answer on Tuesday regarding Philly trash and the City of Chester. 

8) My personal take is that Gym will be the only candidate that keeps an active anti-arena stance through election. The others are bullshitting because they know the arena project is popular among the trade unions and other voter-influencing groups. Gym has much more to consider since she’s an Asian woman with past connections to Chinatown and fought to keep the Phillies stadium out of the neighborhood. Her daughter has taken part in anti-arena protests, and sharing that stance is consistent with the type of grassroots/community politician she’s been for a long time now. She has much more to lose by coming out in support of the arena project.

9) There is absolutely a chance this thing gets approved with Jim Kenney still in office. He can punt the project to the next mayor or accelerate the process, and doing the latter is plausible, especially with recent news that the city is launching an independent study of the arena proposal.

10) $250k to $350k is a drop in the bucket when you look at how much cash some of these candidates have raised. Various PACs have pushed millions to various mayoral options, who can also self fund. Allan Domb loaned his own campaign $5 million just a few months ago. Five million! That makes the Sixers’ alleged contribution look like chump change. And there’s money coming from everywhere, not just Phila. The Inquirer did another recent story revealing that at least $2.1 million in public donations came from outside of Philly proper AND the suburbs.

11) For what it’s worth, the Inquirer editorial board endorsed former city controller Rebecca Rhynhart for mayor, so you’re always going to have these people who come out and say “well media outlet X is just in the bag for candidate Y.” They’ll call any non-Rhynhart story a “hit piece” by default.

12) The Democratic primary is in May and the mayoral election is in November. The Sixers wanted to have arena legislation introduced by June, which likely is not going to happen. Fall is more realistic.

But how does this even work?

Well, the first thing that happens is that the Sixers lawyers draft the arena legislation, which is reviewed by the city’s law department to ensure it’s legal, accurate, proper, and all of that. Councilman Mark Squilla, whose district occupies the arena site, then wants a public hearing and 30 days notice for the community to review the proposal, which he confirmed on a recent Crossing Broadcast appearance. The next step is that the council president refers the bill to council committee, which then schedules a public hearing. If the arena legislation comes out of committee with approval, it goes to full council for two votes, then is presented to the mayor for signature.

 

Crossing Broad has no official stance on the arena proposal and no preferred candidate in the mayor’s race. Good luck to the candidates!