Both sides failing to meet rules on donors

THROUGHOUT the campaign for governor, candidates Tom Corbett and Dan Onorato have called for more transparency in state government and politics.

But when it came time last week for the two candidates to file reports on their own recent fundraising, running upwards of $9.4 million, neither was willing to provide the state or the news media with clean, computerized lists of the people, businesses and political-action committees bankrolling their campaigns.

As a result, the state had to send hundreds of pages of paper filings to a private data-entry contractor to be punched into a computer, at taxpayer expense. Just six days before the election, the candidates' reports are not yet available to the public on the Department of State's campaign finance website, www.campaign

finance.state.pa.us.

The voluminous reports provide more evidence of the shortcomings in state election law, allowing individuals, businesses, unions and political-action committees to contribute tens of thousands of dollars to Pennsylvania candidates with scant disclosure of their identities and financial interests.

State law requires all Pennsylvania candidates to identify the occupation and employer of anyone making a campaign donation bigger than $250.

Corbett, who's raised the most money, largely complied with the requirement. Out of 1,260 large individual donors identified in his latest report, he provided occupations and employers for all but 37, a compliance rate of 97 percent.

Onorato had 620 large individual donors, but he managed to provide occupations and employers for barely one-third of them, just 218.

Onorato listed 58 contributors as "self-employed" and 344 as "information requested" - suggesting that the campaign had contacted the donors to ask them where they work.

Among the people for whom Onorato failed to provide an occupation or employer: former Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street, a $500 contributor; businessman and onetime gubernatorial hopeful Tom Knox, who gave $5,000; restaurateur Stephen Starr, who donated $5,000; trial lawyer Leonard Barrack, one of the region's biggest Democratic donors, who gave $20,000; two top aides to Gov. Rendell, Gary Tuma and Donna Cooper, who gave $500 each, and Albert Boscov, CEO of Boscov's Department Stores, who donated $25,000.