Judge orders halt to mailings

WEST CHESTER >> The political organization that sent mailers to voters in the 157th Legislative District accusing the incumbent state representative there of misusing taxpayer dollars will have to halt future such mailings, and let those who received the mailings know that what was said was not true, a Chester County judge ruled Wednesday.

Common Please Court President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody ruled that the assertion that the Pennsylvania Fund for Change made in three mailings that were sent this month and last stating that state Rep. Warren Kampf had been “living large on thousands of dollars in per-diems,” which are the taxpayer-

funded payments state legislators can receive for each day they serve in the state Capital, was false.

“Mr. Kampf could have chosen to have received the per diem expense dollars, but he chose not to,” Cody said at the conclusion of the three-hour long hearing on Kampf’s request for an injunction against the group, which he asserts is made up of plaintiff attorneys in the workers compensation field angered at his support for reform of the state’s system. Cody said Kampf’s decision to be paid only for legitimate expenses he had incurred, instead of a blanket payment, was “appropriate.”

She said that the group would now have to send out mailings in the 157th District

telling voters there what Republican Kampf had actually done. “People need to be told the truth. (The mailings) were inaccurate, misleading to get people to not vote for Mr. Kampf.”

Kampf’s attorney, Guy Donatelli of the West Chester firm of Lamb McErlane, expressed satisfaction with Cody’s ruling. “I’m delighted for Warren and for his campaign,” Donatelli said outside Cody’s courtroom. “And I am delighted for the people of the 157th District that they get to see what a great person their representative is.”

On the other hand, one of the attorneys for the Fund for Change group said that its position “still hasn’t changed” — that Kampf had received “tens of thousands of dollars” in reimbursements from state taxpayers during the four terms he has served in office.

“Those are the facts of the

case,” said attorney Shelly Chauncey of the West Conshohocken law firm of Lowey Dannenberg, representing the group. “The matter is just a parsing of words.”

Indeed, the group’s lead attorney, Gerald Lawrence, argued to Cody that the words “per diem” that were used in the mailings simply refer to the “per day” expense reimbursements that Kampf sought over the years. “The rules are a per diem system,” Lawrence said.

But Cody agreed with Kampf that the words “per diem” in this context carry with them a pejorative meaning for those interested in politics in Harrisburg. They are regarded, Kampf testified, as evidence of corruption in the state capital, where legislators would in the past be paid daily for expenses they had not incurred, such as meals or lodging.

“We are talking about

truth here,” Cody said.

On Friday, Kampf, of Tredyffrin, filed a petition seeking a restraining order against the Fund for Change. He asked the court to order the group to stop sending the mailings with accusations about per diem payments, to collect as much as it could those that had been sent, and to publish a retraction acknowledging that what it had stated was not true.

In questioning by both Lawrence and Donatelli, Kampf was adamant that not only had he not taken the flatrate per diem payments, but that he had campaigned on not doing so in an effort to provide a transparent face for his constituents.

“I made a very clear statement that I was not going to take them,” he said in response to Donatelli’s questions. “It was definitely something I told the people of the

157th I was not going to do.”

When Lawrence asked him how much he had been paid in per diem expenses during his four terms, Kampf corrected him. “I never did it, and your client said I did, three times.”

Kampf also asserted that the perception that he had taken those questionable payments had had an impact on his campaign. People approached him on the street, he said, and expressed amazement at the amount of negative publicity they were hearing and reading about his work in Harrisburg.

But he agreed with Lawrence that he had no tangible evidence how much the mailing had cost him in terms of voter support. “No one had put the mailings in front of me and said, ‘Did you do that?’ My constituents are actually quite nice to me.”

Lawrence had argued to Cody that Kampf had not met

his burden as showing that he had suffered any irreparable harm from the mailings, and that his clients should not be forced to spend “time and money” to send out new mailings before the election, as Cody ruled. It was wrong, he said, “to force a party to conform to speech” they disagree with.

Cody gave the two sides until Thursday to determine whether a follow-up hearing will be necessary to keep her from issuing a preliminary injunction.

Kampf, in his petition, also contended that the mailings were sent with the knowledge of his opponent in the Nov. 6 election, Democrat Melisa Shusterman of Schuylkill, and were made in order to aid her campaign. The mailings do not mention her candidacy at all, although she is cited as Kampf’s opponent on the Fund for Change website.