Sixers

Philly Mayoral Candidate Accused of Coordinating with Super PAC that Received Money from Local Sports Team

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Apr 10th, 2023 · 2:37 PM EDT

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Meantime in Philly:

Major news in the Philly mayor's race. The ethics board is seeking an injunction against the super PAC backing Jeff Brown, saying he coordinated with the group by fundraising for it.

Lots of details in the filing, including that the PAC got $ from a Philly sports team. Story tk

— Sean Walsh (@sbcmw) April 10, 2023

Stop the presses! There’s corruption and rule breaking in Philadelphia politics.

Walsh, Anna Orso, and Chris Brennan co-authored a story that’s up at the Inquirer’s website, which details the infraction but only says this regarding the sports angle:

“The board also said a local professional sports team that is not identified in the court filing contributed $250,000 to the nonprofit and that “an entity controlled by one of the sports team’s collaborators had already contributed $150,000″ to the nonprofit.”

People are making the assumption that this mystery team is the Sixers, because of the highly-politicized downtown arena proposal and the role that the new mayor might play, regardless of whether the approval phase lingers beyond the Kenney administration. Most of the candidates have totally waffled on the arena topic. Brown (the ShopRite guy), doesn’t have anything on his website about the arena but apparently said this in March:

Last night, Helen Gym, Rebecca Rhynhart, Jeff Brown, Allan Domb, and Maria Quinones Sanchez were asked if they supported the 76ers Arena, yes or no:

Jeff Brown says yes.

The rest of them couldn't give a straight answer.

Politics, politicking.

— Ernest Owens (@MrErnestOwens) March 28, 2023

That’s why you see people connecting the dots here, even though the team isn’t named in the filing. It could be the Flyers, Phillies, or Eagles. It could be the Philadelphia pickleball squad. Those corrupt bastards!

Of course, it’s not news that a sports team would be a political donor. This has been happening forever and there’s a good 2016 article from The Guardian with donor info for all of the local franchises Back then, Josh Harris, David Blitzer, Jeff Lurie, Brian Roberts, and Dave Montgomery donated to various Democratic, Republican, and bi-partisan campaigns and PACs. In this case, the real question is whether or not the mystery sports team played a direct role in this violation of Philadelphia campaign finance law, which we obviously don’t know at this particular moment.

Walsh has a courtroom thread going here if you want to check it out:

I'm in court, where the Board of Ethics is seeking an injunction against the super PAC and related nonprofit backing Jeff Brown for mayor.
The PAC and related nonprofit — both called For a Better Philadelphia — are being represented by Ballard Spahr.
Will thread updates here.

— Sean Walsh (@sbcmw) April 10, 2023