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HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2023 inauguration and the celebrity-studded ball that followed it cost more than $4 million, but the identity of the benefactors who paid the bill has remained a secret.
Now, through a first-of-its-kind analysis, Spotlight PA has identified a portion of those donors, which include influential lobbying firms, unions, and corporations with interests before the commonwealth’s government.
A fundraising pitch prepared by Shapiro’s inauguration committee and reviewed by Spotlight PA promised high-dollar contributors face time with the governor.
“VIP tickets to the Inaugural Celebration include access to the VIP lounge through the evening,” fine print on the document states. “A clutch with Governor-Elect Shapiro and Lt. Governor-Elect [Austin] Davis will be held in the VIP lounge at the start of the event.”
Unlike some states, cities, and the federal government, Pennsylvania does not require top elected officials to disclose who contributes to celebrations held to mark their entrance into office. Shapiro has declined to do so voluntarily.
The Democrat’s inaugural committee told the IRS that it raised $5.4 million from Dec. 1, 2022, to Nov. 30, 2023, but not the sources of the money. Using other nonprofits’ filings and campaign finance information, Spotlight PA identified where 15% of that total came from.
In an email, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said private fundraising for an inauguration is “completely customary,” and that the celebration “rallied folks from all walks of life all across our Commonwealth to celebrate the beginning of an Administration focused on fighting and delivering for all Pennsylvanians.”
But campaign finance experts said the limited transparency goes against the spirit of laws designed to quell the influence of money in politics.
“When private dollars are supporting a public official or a candidate, there's always going to be a question about whether those private dollars are influencing or putting undue influence on the decisions that that elected official is making,” Aaron McKean, a senior legal counsel with the Campaign Legal Center, told Spotlight PA. “That's the whole reason for having limits on contributions and transparency.”
Federal tax filings also show that the Shapiro inaugural committee donated money not spent on the celebrations to Team PA, a nonprofit that bills itself as a public-private partnership to bolster Pennsylvania's economic development.
Team PA, which keeps its donors secret, frequently pays for Shapiro to attend high-profile sporting events. The organization is also collecting donations to restore the governor’s mansion after an arson attack.
Donating leftover inaugural money to Team PA, Bonder said, follows the lead of “previous administrations.”
Spotlight PA was able to identify one previous governor who donated inaugural dollars to the group: Shapiro’s Democratic predecessor, Tom Wolf.
In an email, a Wolf spokesperson said that leftover funds from the governor’s inaugural committee “were contributed to Team Pennsylvania in order to fund economic development work and Governor’s Residence operations and decor.”
“There is longstanding precedent for governors to work with Team Pennsylvania to fund those areas that should not come at a cost to the taxpayer,” the spokesperson added. They did not say how much Wolf contributed to the group.
Shapiro’s inaugural committee was organized as a 501(c)4 nonprofit under federal tax law, which means it is not required to reveal its donors.
However, state law requires political committees — like those that lawmakers use to raise money or unions use to give it — to reveal their spending, and federal law mandates that nonprofits note how they spend their money on annual tax forms.
A Spotlight PA analysis using these publicly available documents revealed the source of 15% of the money Shapiro’s inaugural committee received. Among the contributors were lobby shops, trade unions, universities, and corporations.
Labor was by far the largest donor class, totaling $535,000. Checks came from a wide range of unions, including ones for police and corrections officers, the construction trades, and health care workers. The carpenters’ union provided the single biggest check, $150,000.
According to a sponsorship document viewed by Spotlight PA, the committee offered packages of perks for donations between $5,000 and $150,000. The latter donation level came with a “limited-edition commemorative gift” and eight photo ops with Shapiro, as well as access to a pre-inaugural VIP reception, the swearing-in ceremony, and the inaugural celebration.
Firms registered to lobby the state government also donated, according to campaign finance records, including law firms Eckert Seamans and Duane Morris, as well as Harrisburg lobby shop Versant Strategies. Clients of the three are diverse and include agriculture, energy, real estate interests, as well as the School District of Philadelphia.
Other donors identified by Spotlight PA include Erie Insurance, Motorola, Sheetz, the state’s orthopedic surgeons association, and a horse breeder’s trade group. Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pennsylvania also chipped in.
The source of the remaining 85% of Shapiro’s inaugural funding remains unknown. A spokesperson for Shapiro declined to provide the information.
Stronger rules outside of Pa.
Shapiro has been previously asked to disclose the donors to his inauguration, but refused, saying, “We’re going to follow all of the laws required with reporting and disclosure, and that’s the approach we’re going to take.”
But in Pennsylvania, where loose ethics and campaign finance laws have frequently drawn criticisms from good-government advocates, there’s no statute addressing this particular fundraising.
Other state and local governments require the disclosure of donors or limit how dollars are spent, McKean told Spotlight PA.
That includes Philadelphia’s city government, which mandates the disclosure of inaugural donors and imposes the same donation limits it places on political committees — $3,700 from an individual and $14,800 from a political committee.
Even in the absence of such rules, statewide elected officials have embraced transparency in the past. Wolf voluntarily capped donations to his inaugural committee at $50,000 and disclosed the name of every donor who gave more than $500.
He raised $2.7 million for his 2015 opening soiree, including cash from a number of the same donors as Shapiro did eight years later.
“There's no reason why we can't do this,” McKean said. “The question is whether officials are actually interested in doing it.”
Leftover funds
Shapiro’s committee spent $4.3 million on four days of festivities, according to the IRS report. The headlining event was held at Rock Lititz in Lancaster County, a rehearsal space often used by national touring artists, and included multiple music acts, including Smokey Robinson, as well as a Shapiro-branded dance floor and a smorgasbord of catered eats.
Approximately $1.1 million was left over, and the majority — $750,000 — went to Team PA.
Founded in the 1990s by former Gov. Tom Ridge, the group has accepted state contracts to conduct economic studies and underwritten a handful of foreign trade missions. In recent years, it’s also served as “fiscal sponsor” for a number of state commissions, such as one overseeing the governor’s mansion; this title effectively gives Team PA oversight of the commission’s bank accounts.
Shapiro and his administration operate under a self-imposed gift ban, which says that no executive branch employee shall accept any gift from anyone seeking to obtain “business or an outcome” from the commonwealth.
Despite this, Shapiro and other top officials have attended multiple high-profile sporting events on Team PA’s dime, including two Super Bowls.
Team PA CEO Abby Smith previously told Spotlight PA that Shapiro’s tickets are paid for out of the Pennsylvania Growth Partnership, one of the funds the organization oversees. Bonder, the Shapiro spokesperson, has previously argued that the group and its bank accounts paying for tickets don’t violate the gift ban because of Team PA’s “decades-long history of collaborating with the state,” and that it is “completely incomparable to a private actor.”
It is still not clear who solicits money for, or donates to, the Pennsylvania Growth Partnership, or who decides which events Shapiro attends at Team PA’s expense.
Smith said when Team PA gets requests to use money from the various funds it manages, it approves them and cuts a check. However, Bonder has previously said that the governor “does not have sole discretion” over funds in the Pennsylvania Growth Partnership.
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