Loophole

City officials need to get rid of a loophole in Philadelphia's campaign-finance law that lets deep-pocketed donors skirt contribution limits. This legal end run nullifies the city's rules that prohibit a political-action committee from giving more than $10,600 to any individual candidate each year. The campaign-giving limits, which Mayor Nutter supported as a City Council member, are designed to minimize the potential impact on city policy by any one donor or political committee.

The Haddon Township Board of Commissioners introduced an amendment Tuesday night to strengthen the township's rent-control ordinance. Officials said the amendment, if approved, would close a loophole used successfully last month by a landlord in an appeal for a hardship rent increase. Commissioner Gerald DeFelicis said the amendment would require certification by the rent-control officer that the building was inspected and found to be in compliance with township building codes no more than 90 days before the application for the hardship increase.

The Federal Communications Commission will seek to close a loophole that has kept Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers games off satellite TV in Philadelphia and given a huge competitive advantage to Comcast Corp. An FCC official said the agency would circulate an order today that will close the "terrestrial loophole" that allows Comcast to withhold Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia from DirecTV and Dish Network. The five-member regulatory board could vote on the order in January. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says the loophole should be closed to level the competitive playing field among pay-TV companies, a commission official said.

When lobbyists spend thousands of dollars on legislators, buying them football tickets, expensive dinners and trips to Florida golf resorts, nobody has to report that money as long as the lawmakers and lobbyists don't "expressly" discuss pending legislation. That loophole in New Jersey's lobbying law is supposed to be closed when the legislature follows a blue-ribbon ethics panel's recommendation that all the money spent earning the goodwill of legislators be publicly reported - whether or not legislation is discussed.

Delaware motorists who refuse breath tests or blood-alcohol samples automatically lose their driver's licenses for a year. It's the law. Yet about 30 percent of Delawareans arrested for drunken driving now drive straight through a legal loophole and back onto the road, months before they should be allowed, according to Frank Carver, chairman of a state task force that is revising the law. The loophole exists in part of the 1982 drunken-driving law...

Your editorial "Flawed law" (Aug. 27) highlighted several problems with Pennsylvania's gaming law. In particular, it hit one of our most serious flaws in state government as a whole: the loophole that allows lawyers to sidestep the revolving-door ban from state employment to private industry and back again. This issue has plagued us since the Supreme Court decision in Gmerek v. State Ethics Commission, which held that the court has the "exclusive authority to regulate the practice of law. " Attacking the Lobbyist Registration Law, the plaintiff challenged the authority of the State Ethics Commission to regulate the conduct of lobbyists who happened to be lawyers.

The Maple Shade Township Council last night unanimously adopted an ordinance to strengthen a law prohibiting the drinking of alcoholic beverages in public. Mayor Joseph P. Dugan said the ordinance, an amendment to the township code, would deter drinking in parking lots, which he said was a problem. "Young people have been drinking beer into the wee hours of the morning and leaving (the beer cans) there for someone else to pick up," Dugan said. The new ordinance eliminated a loophole in the township code.

Organized labor flexed its considerable muscle yesterday and showed why it's still formidable at hardball lobbying when City Council gave initial approval to a bill that would close a loophole used by building contractors to evade prevailing wage laws. The bill, sponsored by Councilmen James Kenney and Richard Mariano, targeted agencies like the Office of Housing and Community Development and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation that use a mixture of public funds but often work with private companies.

City Councilman John F. Street yesterday introduced legislation aimed at closing a loophole in a 1988 law that could permit buyers of certain upscale condominium developments to escape millions in real estate tax payments. Intended exclusively for owners of units at the Rittenhouse condominium- hotel, the legislation, which granted a five-year tax break to condo buyers at the development, has been found by local tax assessors to apply to three other new luxury developments in the city.

WHAT IS the so-called "Florida loophole," and why is it such a bone of contention in Philadelphia? Under reciprocity agreements with Florida and some other states, Pennsylvanians can get nonresident permits from those states through the mail to carry concealed weapons, even without a Pennsylvania permit. Philly cops say it allows people who have been denied a gun permit in Philadelphia to circumvent local authorities. But gun-rights advocates say that it's necessary, because the Philadelphia Police Department is much stricter on applicants than other counties in the state.

By Patrick Meehan Imagine yourself a victim of sexual assault. After finally summoning the courage to speak out and report your attacker to authorities, you're forced to relive the attack through months of depositions, testimony, and questioning by defense attorneys hoping to discredit you. Next, a jury returns a guilty verdict against your attacker. But then, weeks later, that verdict is suddenly and irreversibly overturned, without any justification or rationale. Your attacker is set free, and you're not even told why. That's exactly what happened to an American woman working in Italy.

SEVERAL Philadelphia gun owners with nonresident permits from Florida to carry a concealed weapon say that when state Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Friday that she was closing the so-called Florida gun loophole she also should have promised to look at why so many Philadelphians sought permits from Florida in the first place. "The only place that this seems to become an issue, which they are not saying, is in Philadelphia," said firearms instructor Richard Oliver. "It's just a Philly problem, because to get the Philadelphia permit is so crazy.

The days when a Pennsylvania resident can legally carry a concealed firearm using a Florida permit appear to be coming to an end. "The Florida loophole is officially closed in the state of Pennsylvania," Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Friday as she stood beside Mayor Nutter and other city leaders in North Philadelphia. Her words drew cheers from the crowd but were received less warmly among Republicans in Harrisburg. Since September 2001, Pennsylvania and Florida have had a reciprocity agreement that required Pennsylvania to recognize all of Florida's concealed-carry permits.

FOR ABOUT 4,000 Pennsylvians who obtained a concealed-carry permit through the so-called "Florida loophole," time's up. State Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Friday announced that Florida has agreed to close a controversial policy allowing Pennsylvanians to obtain a gun permit through the mail. Under the revised reciprocity agreement, those holding Florida concealed-carry permits in Pennsylvania must now be legal residents of Florida. About 900 residents hold such permits in Philadelphia.

The Florida gun loophole, which allowed Philadelphia gun owners to skirt the city's strict handgun-carrying rules, was closed today by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane. Florida gun permit holders in Pennsylvania now must be legal residents of Florida. The loophole allowed about 900 city residents to carry a weapon in Philadelphia if they had a mail-order permit issued by Florida. "Our state's gun traffic and permits should never be bypassed," said Kane in a statement.

Small-business owners may be closer to losing an advantage they've enjoyed during the e-commerce boom: being exempt from collecting sales tax in states where they're not located. And they worry they'll have to spend more money in the process. Under federal law, a state or local government cannot force a company to collect sales tax on a purchase - whether that purchase was made online, by phone, or through mail order - unless the business has a physical presence in the state or locality.

When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decreed that the state's new voter-ID law required "liberal access" to acceptable identification, Montgomery County commissioners took it literally. Starting Wednesday, a county-run senior care facility will distribute free IDs to any county resident who wants one. The commissioners detailed Monday what will be required to obtain a "Parkhouse Voter ID Card": Applicants must affirm that they are U.S. citizens who live and are registered to vote in Montgomery County, and show one document with their name and address, such as a utility bill, bank statement, or paycheck.