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Sunday, July 06, 2003

By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Few people knew that Joan Cleary raked in a record-breaking $139,502 in campaign contributions this spring.

Or that the Democratic nominee in Allegheny County Council District 6 received almost all of her contributions from a single source, her labor union.

But a lot more people might have known if the county posted campaign finance reports on its Web site, www.county.allegheny.pa.us.

Council President Rick Schwartz, D-Plum, has put forth a bill that would bring campaign financial reporting into the computer age in county government.

Under his proposal, all campaign finance reports for candidates for county offices would appear on the Web, effective in 2007. Reports that candidates submit electronically, instead of on paper, would go up on the Web site starting in 2005.

He introduced his proposal even before Cleary entered the County Council race.

"It's a good-government issue," Schwartz said.

Currently, anyone interested in viewing campaign finance reports must go to the County Office Building.

A coalition of organizations, including local chapters of the League of Women Voters, NAACP, AARP and Common Cause, is advocating that the county make the reports available on the Internet.

"We have pushed for that very strongly," said Jean Burke, president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh.

"There is so much cynicism about the political process," she said. "The more we can open it up, the better for everybody."

Brian McDonald, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, acknowledged that Pennsylvania's site needed a search engine and database.

"We do see that there is a need to have it upgraded," he said. "It's definitely something that is under consideration and will be taken care of at some time."

Schwartz's proposal, which he intends to put to a vote this summer, does not specify whether the county's site would include a searchable database.

The general concept of putting the reports on the Web has bipartisan support at the county level.

County Chief Executive Jim Roddey, a Republican, already offers his campaign-finance reports in electronic form to members of the media. His campaign manager, Kent Gates, welcomes Schwartz's proposal.

"Roddey would sign that bill immediately," he said.