For years before he was indicted last month, Electricians union leader John J. “Johnny Doc” Dougherty plugged into a renewable source of political power and became one of the last of the great unelected bosses in America.
Week after week, small-dollar donations withdrawn from the paychecks of members of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers piled up in the bank account of the union’s main political action committee, Committee on Political Education, or COPE.
From 2002 through 2018, the union collected just under $41 million to invest in helping elect allies to local, state, and national offices, according to an Inquirer analysis of Local 98 member contributions to the political committee. The yearly haul has increased sixfold over the last decade.
“The ability to generate that kind of money from that many people compared to other potential players in the political funding sweepstakes puts them head and shoulders above others,” said David Thornburgh, head of the Committee of Seventy, the Philadelphia government watchdog group.
“The power of payroll deduction is, [donors] don’t miss $5 per week or $10 per week as much as if you have to cut one check,” he said.
Under the leadership of John Dougherty, Local 98 of the electrician’s union has collected millions from its members through payroll deductions, using the funds to help elect allies to local, state, and federal offices.
Annual contributions to Local 98 from its members
SOURCE: Analysis of Pa. campaign-finance reports
Staff Graphic
The 159-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury entangled only one elected official — Councilman Bobby Henon — and didn’t charge anyone with making or receiving improper campaign donations. For a probe that took at least two years, it also gave barely a nod to the breadth of the influence and impact that Local 98 and its leader have amassed.
Dougherty’s perpetual money machine, combined with the bodies he can put on the street for get-out-the-vote operations, has helped elect senators, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, judges, mayors, City Council members, and ward leaders for the Philadelphia Democratic machine. Local 98 was a major backer of Gov. Tom Wolf, for instance, giving him slightly more than $1 million in contributions and support between his 2014 and 2018 campaigns. The union is credited with making Jim Kenney mayor.
Perhaps the crowning moment came in 2015, when union money helped Democrats take control of the state Supreme Court by electing three justices, including Dougherty’s brother, Kevin, whose campaign got $1.5 million.
Amid the critical 2018 midterm elections, the justices ordered that new congressional district boundaries be drawn after ruling that the existing districts were gerrymandered unconstitutionally to benefit Republicans. Democrats flipped four seats in Pennsylvania on their way to taking control of the…
