Lobbyists say such donations can lead to access, but the state’s weak transparency laws make it nearly impossible to trace influence.

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HARRISBURG — Power plant operators, gambling magnates, charter school backers, and trade unions are among the interests that gave almost $18 million to Pennsylvania’s top lawmakers last session, ahead of debates over policies that affect their industries.

Big donations influence who gets access to critical decision-makers, according to lobbyists versed in the way power works in Harrisburg.

“The expectation is that [a check] opens the door to a private conversation,” said one Harrisburg lobbyist. That conversation, like a meeting in the state Capitol office with the legislator or their top staff, could involve asking for a given bill to advance, change, or stall.

Added a political operative: “We know electeds pay attention to the people who write the big checks. That doesn’t mean we influence them, but that our names are known. It helps get meetings at a minimum.”

Donations don’t guarantee that lawmakers will give these monied interests what they want. Still, research shows Pennsylvania politicians may be more likely to be influenced by campaign money because they operate in a system that incentivizes prodigious fundraising.

Campaign money has the biggest impact on legislatures that are competitive between the major parties, are full-time, are without term limits, and have large districts, according to Lynda Powell, a University of Rochester professor emeritus and expert on the subject.

Pennsylvania’s 253-member legislature meets the first three of those standards.

Tracing influence, however, is nearly impossible. Pennsylvania lawmakers excluded their emails and daily schedules from disclosure, meaning the public does not have access to information about who they meet with or what they discuss behind the scenes.

At stake are the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that the governor and lawmakers decide how to dole out each year to public agencies and private contractors, and the fates of thousands of pieces of legislation on everything from school voucher programs to how cities set up bike lanes.

What gets to the governor’s desk, and in what form, is often hammered out in closed-door meetings rather than in public. And it’s in those private conversations where influence is exerted.

“We are often talking about an invisible or relatively invisible action — a bill that is not introduced or is not advanced out of a chamber or a sentence that is not included in a bill,” Powell said in an email.

This entrenched mixing of political fundraising and policy negotiation isn’t unique to Pennsylvania, but good-government advocates say the commonwealth’s uniquely lax campaign finance laws make it worse.

They argue it also creates a perception that government works for the well-heeled few, rather than the many who don’t have the money to be noticed.

Many states limit how much an individual or committee may contribute. A handful also regulate when contributions can be made, banning them during legislative sessions.

Pennsylvania does neither.

“The governor runs for election, judges run for election, legislators run for election,” Eric Epstein, a longtime state Capitol watchdog, told Spotlight PA. “And they’re all trying to do the work tethered to a never-ending fundraising mindset.”

Good-government advocates aren’t the only ones who dislike this coziness between state lawmakers and campaign funders. A Franklin & Marshall poll from August 2023 found that 93% of Pennsylvania voters agreed with the statement: “The influence of money in politics is a threat to our democracy.”

But under both complete Republican and later divided control, the Pennsylvania legislature has snubbed those concerns, taking no steps to meaningfully halt the flow of money into politics.

Different goals, similar impact

In a first-of-its-kind analysis, Spotlight PA categorized who donated money to the governor and top 10 lawmakers in 2023 and 2024 by industry.

Quarterly disclosures already show how much power players with critical business before the state spend on lobbying. This new analysis shows how much they put into the campaign accounts of lawmakers with the most power to pass or block their priority legislation.

In total, the lawmakers raised $42.2 million from Jan. 1, 2023, through Dec. 31, 2024 — $17.1 million by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, and $25.1 million by the legislators. Those checks ranged in size from a single dollar to $2 million and were written by a wide array of individuals and interest groups.

Of that, $10.1 million came from political action committees directly funded by, or individuals with a stake in, the education, energy, gaming, or transportation sectors, all of which top the legislature’s to-do list this session. These interests donated another $7.6 million to the caucuses’ political committees.

These donors have different political goals, but their money all has the same political effect: creating a financial incentive for lawmakers to stick to their guns in high-pressure policy debates.

“Given our system of checks and balances, monied interests often simply want to preserve the status quo they have achieved,” Powell told Spotlight PA.

Some donors give for financial reasons. Highway builders make money when the state invests in roads and bridges, which legislators are considering boosting this year alongside public transit funding. Almost all of the $3.8 million donated by the transportation industry came from trade unions, construction contractors, and engineering firms.

Casinos and horse racing stakeholders want to protect their share of a $6 billion market against competitors in a heavily taxed and regulated industry. Enemy No. 1 are unregulated skill games, slot-like machines that have proliferated in Pennsylvania bars, restaurants, and convenience stores in recent years.

Casinos want to see skill games taxed at the same level as slot machines — around 54% — if not banned completely. Skill games manufacturers and operators say they’re willing to be taxed but at a much lower level.

This year, Shapiro pitched a 52% tax on the gross revenue of skill games, up from his 42% proposal in 2024. GOP leaders in the state Senate are also interested in regulating and taxing the games, per a January memo to colleagues, though they’ve yet to formally introduce a plan.

The renewed, bipartisan push comes after casinos gave $550,000 to top legislators. The largest single donor was Neil Bluhm, an Illinois casino magnate who chairs the parent company of Rivers Casino in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. He donated $100,000 to Shapiro in September 2024 and another $115,000 to legislative leaders in the following months.

“As chairman of one of Pennsylvania’s biggest taxpayers and employers, Mr. Bluhm has financially supported candidates of both parties for political office in Pennsylvania for a number of years,” Dennis Culloton, spokesperson for Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming, said in a statement.

Shapiro also accepted $25,000 from Operators for Skill PAC last July. The group, which represents skill games interests, donated another $433,000 over the past two years to support top lawmakers “who prioritize small businesses and the survival of veterans’ organizations and volunteer fire companies,” a spokesperson told Spotlight PA.

For other donors, the dispute is as much an ideological slugfest as an investment. Take public education: Donors connected to K-12 schools were the biggest contributors to legislative leaders and campaign committees, with teachers’ unions, charter school operators, and private school backers doling out $8.9 million.

The largest pro-public education donor was the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which gave $1.2 million almost entirely to Democrats.

PSEA spokesperson Chris Lilienthal said the union “has the opportunity to meet with legislative leaders and advocate for pro-public education policies not because of any contributions made … but because this association represents 177,000 educators, support staff, and other professionals who teach and meet the needs of Pennsylvania’s public school students.”

Another $7.4 million can be traced to Jeff Yass and Michael Karp, wealthy businessmen who support alternatives to public schools. They donated to lawmakers and campaign committees straight from their bank accounts or through a string of PACs, and primarily back Republicans.

Yass is a crusader for less government and wants Pennsylvania to use taxpayer money to send children to private schools. The latter is supported by state Senate Republicans and Shapiro, though the governor ultimately vetoed such a proposal in 2023 facing Democratic opposition.

“There is no possible way a govern­ment monopoly could be a better approach to schools than market competition, particularly­ for poor children,” Yass told Philly Magazine last year. “It’s a civil rights issue.”

Karp founded Philadelphia’s Belmont Charter School and is also a prolific donor. In 2019, the state legislature awarded Belmont a special designation that allows it to seek waivers for academic testing and other requirements. Opponents said Karp’s donations and the timing of the legislative change raised questions, The Inquirer reported. Karp denied any connection.

Neither Karp nor Yass responded to requests for comment.

Karp donated almost $1 million to support state House Republicans last session. State Rep. Josh Kail (R., Beaver), who led the caucus’ political arm, said he’s talked to Karp but that Karp has never made a policy ask.

“The conversations with Michael are usually philosophical and broad. The guy is a genius,” Kail told Spotlight PA. “Sometimes it’s out of my depth, but I try to hang on.”

Kail added that a donation says more about a shared ideology and vision for the commonwealth than about specific returns.

That claim is cold comfort for good-government advocates.

“Who cares if they already agreed with you or if the money changed their mind?” Michael Pollack, executive director of March on Harrisburg, told Spotlight PA. ”You’re just putting people into power who agree with you, so you’re still hand-picking over the will of the voters.”

Eroding public trust

Spotlight PA spoke to 18 current and former legislators, lobbyists, and other Capitol sources, nearly all of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly about lobbying and fundraising.

Most agreed that a campaign check can lead to access.

To see that access in action, look no further than the frequent, private political fundraisers at bars and restaurants in Harrisburg, or the even pricier ones that require travel outside of the capital city. A relatively small check, say $500, gets a donor in the door, where they will likely get a few minutes of face time there with the recipient to say hello and broach a subject.

In February 2025 alone, lawmakers or caucus campaign committees held 28 fundraisers in locations including a Harrisburg coffee shop, a Williamsport cigar bar, and a Pocono train ride, according to a calendar maintained by a lobbying firm.

One former lobbyist said the biggest returns come from attending events outside of Harrisburg.

“It’s the more extravagant ones that get you value,” they said, like small events in lawmakers’ districts or out-of-state sojourns for a golf outing. Those also require deeper pockets to attend — in both the minimum ask on the invitation and the travel costs to show up.

All lawmakers included in this analysis who responded to requests for comment denied that campaign donations buy either access or influence.

>>READ COMPLETE LAWMAKER RESPONSES TO THE ANALYSIS

A Shapiro spokesperson said, “This slanted notion is completely out of touch with reality when it comes to how Governor Shapiro leads this Commonwealth.”

A spokesperson for state House Democratic leadership said “meetings are scheduled based on availability,” and that “no person or organization takes precedence.” A spokesperson for state Senate Democrats said that “at political fundraisers, political activity and campaigns are discussed as a matter of course.”

“Any constituent or group is invited to schedule meetings and advocate for their desired legislation with our members on official time,” the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson for state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) said major contributors, including those who want to free “low-income kids from failing schools, know it’s vital that the Senate stay Republican.”

She added, “If a lobbyist has an issue important to Pennsylvania that needs to be discussed, that lobbyist doesn’t need to attend a fundraiser — they need to call the official office and set up an appointment.

“Any lobbyist worth their salt knows that.”

It’s impossible for Spotlight PA to report who lawmakers meet with and how much of their time is spent with campaign donors and lobbyists. State lawmakers exempted their public schedules from release when writing the state’s open records law in 2007. And unlike previous governors, Shapiro has declined to voluntarily release his, citing security concerns.

Lobbyists agreed that even when donations lead to access, that doesn’t always produce results. Such a quid pro quo is illegal under state and federal law.

But even when lobbyists and lawmakers mind the law, the public’s faith still suffers.

Even the appearance of an arrangement in which monied interests get preferential treatment is enough to hurt belief in government. “The interest in safeguarding against the appearance of impropriety requires that the opportunity for abuse inherent in the process of raising large monetary contributions be eliminated,” cautioned the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1975 ruling upholding federal campaign finance limits.

Good-government advocates in Pennsylvania make the same point today, arguing that the access big donors have to lawmakers makes it easy to conclude that interests — and constituents — with less money have less influence.

“If you don’t think government can do anything for you, [that it] doesn’t care about you, it erodes the public trust in our institutions, in our own power as citizens,” said Lauren Cristella, president and CEO of the Philadelphia-based Committee of Seventy. “And that is horrific for democracy.”

Cristella acknowledged that the debate is nuanced. One person’s special interest is another person’s advocate, she said.

But a lack of campaign finance restrictions, she argued, leads to endless fundraising, which begets high spending on campaigns, which drives up prices for TV ads, text messaging, and social media. “Then the very limited resource of time gets wasted” as elected officials chase after donors instead of focusing on policymaking.

“You want people who are passionate about issues and representing their community, not people who are really good at fundraising,” Cristella said. “Those are two different skill sets.”

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