Lines drawn in city campaign-finance battle

City Councilman and mayoral hopeful Michael Nutter may join forces with a local political watchdog group in a legal battle against other potential mayoral candidates.

Nutter and the watchdog group Committee of Seventy have both filed lawsuits against candidates who they say have violated campaign-finance limits.

Nutter was previously a target of the committee's suit, but the group agreed to drop him from it if he agreed to abide by limits on campaign fundraising, which he said he'd been doing all along.

Committee of Seventy lawyer John Harkins said that the intent of the lawsuit is to clear up controversy surrounding recent campaign-finance legislation.

The debate stems from a law that restricts the size of donations that candidates for public office can accept. The law does not specify, however, who counts as a candidate.

"We're trying to get clarity as far as what's an acceptable donation by whom," he said. "Until you have clarity, you have an unstable situation. ... It's not a level playing field."

Nutter declared his intention to abide by the limits as early as February, and said he was surprised to find himself a defendant in the committee's suit.

"I'm just glad I'm out of the lawsuit," said Nutter, who is suing four other potential candidates.

The five remaining defendants in the committee's lawsuit have filed their responses to the litigation.

Some are arguing that they aren't considered candidates under city campaign finance laws, while others are questioning the constitutionality of a city law that they say conflicts with state legislation.

Gregory Harvey, a lawyer for potential mayoral candidate Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), who is a target of both suits, said that his client has only taken contributions for his exploratory committee, which mainly studies policy positions.

"He hasn't accepted any campaign contributions," Harvey said. "That's all."

Harvey added that it would likely be several months before the exploratory committee came out with an opinion on whether the current Democratic congressman should run.

Another defendant in both lawsuits, union leader and mayoral hopeful John Dougherty, went a step further in his response.

In addition to questioning the constitutionality of the city campaign limits, Dougherty filed a request for an injunction against Nutter that would force him to resign from City Council because of his candidacy, citing a separate rule in the city charter.

Dougherty gave Nutter a resignation deadline three weeks ago, but Nutter ignored his demand.

"I'm doing my job, that's all," Nutter said in response.

Larry Ceisler of political consulting firm Ceisler Jubelirer LLC said that though the lawsuits were unlikely to succeed in court, they were filed to bring attention and clarification to current campaign finance laws.

"A lot of other candidates are also going to abide" by the law, Ceisler said. But "not only was [it] done incorrectly, but it is full of loopholes."

Dougherty's lawyer, George Bochetto, said that Dougherty would be happy to return any donations over the limits if the law was ruled applicable in this instance, but added that he hadn't received any donations that would fall under the law in the past six months.

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