Officials spend thousands in campaign funds to pay tabs at restaurants, bars
“Anytime I have meetings at night, I’m at Cappy’s [Cafe]. It’s the same bar that I have hung out [at] since 1989,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.
This likely comes as no surprise to anyone who has visited the Shadyside bar and has seen Mr. Peduto in his signature corner seat. The news is how he sometimes pays the tab: using his campaign donors’ dollars.
And he is not alone: Mr. Peduto was joined by Allegheny County Treasurer John Weinstein, County Controller Chelsa Wagner and City Council President Bruce Kraus in spending thousands of dollars
from campaign accounts on meals last year, according to their annual disclosures filed in January.
According to Neil Makhija, an attorney who teaches campaign law at the University of Pennsylvania, and who ran unsuccessfully for state House as a Democrat in Carbon County in 2016, Pennsylvania campaign law says little about the appropriate uses of campaign money, other than that it can be spent “for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election.” The law also demands that candidates disclose “the purpose for which such expenditure was made.”
“If you had one weekly campaign meeting at the bar and charged the tab for your campaign volunteers and members, that would be of course justified,” said Mr. Makhija. He added that when use of campaign funds gets “to the point where this is just his day-in-day-out personal expense of eating by the candidate, then it gets closer to just being a personal expense.” That would not be consistent with the law, he said.
The single biggest campaign spender was Mr. Weinstein, who billed $22,524 in restaurant tabs to his campaign account, not including catering bills. His campaign raised over $350,000 last year. He last faced re-election, unopposed, in 2015.
“They’re all campaign-related, every one of them. I spent a lot of time and effort throughout the course of the year, getting ready for running for re-election this year,” Mr. Weinstein said.
“I’ve met with a lot of business leaders, union leaders, party officials, elected officials, municipal officials … .” he said. “I’m asking them for support.”
According to his disclosures, the longtime treasurer billed his campaign for everything from a $7.85 tab at Uptown Coffee in February 2018 to a $714.71 October “Campaign — Meal” at Calabria’s Restaurant in Castle Shannon, and on several occasions his expenditures include three restaurant meals listed on the same day.
“Primarily I go to Eat’n Park the most. They’re convenient,” Mr. Weinstein said. His campaign covered 22 Eat’n Park tabs last year, with Calabria’s a close second, at 16.
Other officials did not itemize meals out on their donors’ dime, but had similarly large expenses for which their campaigns reimbursed them. County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s campaign reimbursed him more than $9,000. Ms. Wagner and District Attorney Stephen Zappala’s campaigns also reimbursed them to the tune of thousands, while city Controller Michael Lamb and county Sheriff William Mullen got more modest reimbursements.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has requested receipts for those expenses, but has not yet received them.
Officials said many of their restaurant, bar and coffee bills were for campaign meetings, whether with potential voters, donors or campaign staffs.
“It could be constituents, it could be donors, it could be other people wishing to seek my support for campaigns they might be doing,” said Mr. Kraus, whose most common campaign meal expense in 2018 was at Nicky’s Grant Street, where his campaign spent $848.59 on 25 meals. In addition to one $5,000 event at Alla Famiglia, Mr. Kraus’s campaign spent over $4,000 on food and bake sales, per his disclosures.
Some officials said many of the meals covered by their campaigns were for government business: They opted to spend campaign money over taxpayer money when they were taking out staff or meeting with developers.
“I can’t use government money for politics, but I can use my [Political Action Committee] to pay for government meetings, and I would much prefer meeting [at Cappy’s] than at a restaurant Downtown where the developer’s buying my steak,” said Mr. Peduto.
Such practices may be good for the general fund, but could send an unintended message.
“Campaign money is for the purpose of influencing an election. I don’t think an official would want to concede that their governmental work is for the purpose of being elected,” said Mr. Makhija. “If they need budgets [for expenses], they certainly can advocate for changes there.”
Mr. Peduto said that previous mayors had $10,000 expense accounts paid for by the taxpayers. “When I took office, I cut it up and I have not used it at all.”
“The fact I have a semidive bar as my go-to location is quite different than mayors in the past who were either having dinners at Morton’s or the LeMont, or which I feel to be worse, were having lobbyists and others pick up their tab at the Duquesne Club,” he said.
In 2018, Mr. Peduto expensed Cappy’s tabs to his campaign more than once a week, on average, totaling $3,169.44 in campaign expenditures. In some cases, there are multiple Cappy’s tabs reported in a single day.
“It’s not Mar-a-Lago. It’s its own little place that has a small kitchen, affordable food, and it’s a place I feel safe and secure,” said Mr. Peduto. He also regularly goes on his own, he said, and in those cases he pays for himself.
Mr. Peduto said his go-to menu items include the BP3 pizza — with banana peppers, pepperoni and bacon — and the Italian hoagie. He said the kitchen will also make him a chili casserole that’s not on the menu. For Cappy’s drinks, it’s usually a boilermaker: a Miller Lite and a shot of Maker’s Mark. While some of his expenditures were for Friday nights, he does not do karaoke.
For the first four years he was mayor, Mr. Peduto said that he, then-chief of staff Kevin Acklin, and then councilman Dan Gilman, who is now Mr. Peduto’s chief of staff, would meet every Sunday night at Cappy’s. Sometimes they would be joined by campaign staff.
Mr. Peduto’s campaign spent a total of $6,683.14 on dining out in 2018 — not counting large party catering tabs. The charges ranged from as little as $8.14 to as high as $398.70 and were listed as “food” — or sometimes “travel,” as is the case for a few meals in San Francisco; Bonn, Germany; and Edmonton, Canada.
The mayor’s campaign also reported spending $856.50 on Aramark foods at Pittsburgh Penguins games.
Ms. Wagner, whose campaign spent $1,597 on what are described as events, $6,159 on meetings, and $6,783 on reimbursements to the candidate, had a similar explanation to the one offered by Mr. Peduto.
“I am very cognizant of the function of my office, as watchdog of Allegheny County taxpayer money, so we do not use any taxpayer funds when we have casual gatherings that foster a positive staff culture and provide for the important sharing of ideas in informal settings,” she wrote in an email.
She also uses campaign funds for “business related expenses,” including “limited mileage reimbursements, travel, and meetings,” she added.
Ms. Wagner’s campaign travel spending included expenditures in New York, Chicago and New Jersey. She said in an email that three of her reported expenses at the Ace Hotel named the wrong Ace Hotel. They were at a conference at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, Calif., not in East Liberty, she said.
Her campaign’s biggest itemized meal expense was $1,473.95 at Fogo De Chao, a Downtown Brazilian barbecue restaurant, for a retirement dinner for one of her county staff members, Jann Chirdon, she said.
Like Mr. Peduto and Mr. Kraus, however, Ms. Wagner paid for many small bills with campaign money as well: the campaign covered 13 charges for less than $10, mostly for meetings at coffee places.
While elected officials argue that using campaign accounts is better than using taxpayer-backed expense accounts, Mr. Makhija sees some perils to that approach. Candidates already depend on donors to fund campaign commercials, mailings and staff, he noted.
“When you get to the point where your campaign account is covering your personal expenditures, it’s a whole other level of dependency,” he said.
City and county officials all make significantly more than the county median household income, which was $56,333 from 2013 to 2017 according to the Census Bureau’s five year estimate. Mr. Kraus made the least of the group, earning $66,371 in 2018, while Mr. Zappala led the pack with $179,298.91. Mr. Lamb made $73,917, Mr. Fitzgerald $89,999.94, and, Mr. Peduto $111,843. The county sheriff, controller and treasurer all made $103,246.00 last year.
Mr. Lamb did not recall the $340 reimbursement listed in his 2018 campaign finance report, but said, “Typically if I’m reimbursing myself, I’m reimbursing myself for a ticket that I purchased for an event. If I went to a community event where there was a charge … or a lot of times I’m going to party functions, I’ll write a personal check and reimburse myself from the campaign.”
Mr. Lamb said he does not like doing lunch or dinner meetings. “I’d rather if we’re going to have a meeting, let’s have a meeting.”
But he does hold campaign fundraisers at restaurants: Every year, he said, he does one at Mullaney’s Harp and Fiddle, in the Strip District. In 2018, that event cost his campaign $5,060.
According to Mr. Lamb, the state’s “really lax” laws have little effect on campaign spending. Instead, he said, “The thing that keeps us from doing a lot of the spending that you’re talking about is the need to save as much money as we can for the campaign.”
Mr. Fitzgerald said his reimbursements are “mostly mileage” and the annual Pennsylvania Society political retreat in New York City. He has his campaign reimburse him instead of paying directly out of the campaign account because “it’s more convenient that way,” he said.
Mr. Mullen said his reimbursements are mostly for charity events. “I’ve never paid for dinner or for drinks from my campaign account,” he said.
Mr. Zappala did not respond to a request for comment regarding his reimbursements.