News Clips

“Instead of giving favors or gifts directly to a candidate, there’s an opportunity to give those things to a person the elected official cares about,” said Khalif Ali, executive director of the good government group Common Cause PA. “That’s what I call a potential loophole.”

“We are particularly concerned with ensuring that Pennsylvania communities are protected and that all Pennsylvanians, but especially Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, and other voters of color have an equal opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice,” said Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania.

Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania — a nonprofit that advocates for government accountability — said at Monday’s news conference that he’s concerned about diminishing confidence in democracy. “We cannot our legislators to forget about the verdict and what happened in Philadelphia,” he said. “We needed to enact these laws yesterday.”

In the wake of the last massive City Hall scandal in the early 2000s, a wave of reforms followed, including restrictions on pay-to-play contracting, campaign finance limits, lobbying disclosure, and ethics oversight. But as this trial made clear, glaring vulnerabilities remain. To move forward, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania should start with reforms in three key areas.

The controversy over the ad underscores how Pennsylvania’s partisan judicial elections can be just as contentious as campaigns for any other office.

Khalif Ali, the director of the good government group Common Cause Pennsylvania, said of the self-funded campaigns that “the most glaring problem is the fact that not everyone can do that.” “The judge that can fund his or her own campaign with $100,000 or more certainly doesn’t understand or can empathize with the story of someone who has lived in poverty their entire life,” he said. “There could be a struggle to represent the interest of someone in poverty.”