Philly’s ethics board usually flies under the radar. That changed with its lawsuit against a super PAC backing Jeff Brown.

J. Shane Creamer Jr. has been the executive director of the Philadelphia Board of Ethics since its inception almost 20 years ago, and he knew the 2023 mayor’s race would present one of the agency’s greatest challenges.

The Democratic primary featured an unusually large and deep field of candidates, and it was just the second open mayor’s race since the advent of super PACs, independent political action committees that can raise money in amounts that exceed the city’s contribution limits so long as they do not coordinate with candidates.

The regulation of super PACs is almost nonexistent in federal elections. But in Philadelphia, the ethics board actively enforces its campaign finance rules, and in December, Creamer and board chair Michael H. Reed published an opinion piece in The Inquirer to remind everyone.

“We were planting a flag in the ground and really trying to warn people that Philadelphia is different,” Creamer said in an interview Thursday. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. Frankly, we were concerned we were going to be overwhelmed with issues with multiple super PACs.”

» READ MORE: Inside the Board of Ethics’ case against the super PAC supporting mayoral candidate Jeff Brown

The board ended up spending much of its time dealing with one super PAC, For a Better Philadelphia, which raised about $3 million to boost ShopRite proprietor and first-time candidate Jeff Brown in the mayor’s race.

The board’s investigation into the group had an obvious effect: It upended the mayor’s race and damaged Brown’s chances of becoming mayor. But it also exposed to scrutiny the choices of the small but important city agency that plays a role in every Philadelphia election but is often invisible to voters.

Creamer said he initiated the investigation into the super PAC on his own accord. He declined to say what sparked his interest.

The board’s investigations typically end in settlement agreements with the offending parties agreeing to pay fines and admitting fault. When it became clear that the PAC wouldn’t agree to a settlement, Creamer ran out of patience.

At 9:18 p.m. on April 3, he sent a pointed email to the PAC’s lawyer and another ethics board lawyer.

“Times up. These are bad people who are not negotiating in good faith,” Creamer wrote in the email, which was acquired by The Inquirer. “[W]e are prepared to go to court to expose the most massive scheme to circumvent the city’s contribution limits in 17 years. I consider negotiations over. I don’t trust you.”

One week later, the ethics board sued.

Ethics agencies and law enforcement often try to stay above the fray and avoid playing public roles in campaigns. The board’s decision to go public with its case reshaped the mayor’s race and pulled the agency into the political arena, with Brown and his allies questioning its impartiality.

“They wanted to influence the election, and they did,” said Matthew A. White, an attorney for the super PAC and its related nonprofit of the same name. “I think they specifically were targeting Jeff Brown.”

Creamer said that the five-member board, which is made up of mayoral appointees, errs on the side of taking action on campaign finance violations as soon as it can because it “would leave footprints either way.”

“If we were in a position to take action to address violations either through a settlement agreement or suing somebody in court and did not take that action until after the primary, we’re influencing the election,” he said. “This board has always chosen to take that action when it can, when it believes that it has sufficient evidence of probable violations.”

Creamer, who is 61 and lives in East Falls, grew up in Overbrook. After graduating from the Villanova School of Law, he worked for 13 years at the Duane Morris law firm before joining then-Mayor John F. Street’s administration as assistant secretary for education.

Public integrity laws are often forged from scandal, and Philadelphia’s ethics rules and the current incarnation of the board are a result of one of the most high-profile episodes in the city’s long history of corruption investigations: the discovery of an FBI listening device in the mayor’s office during Street’s first term.

Then-City Councilmember Michael A. Nutter, a Street antagonist, passed legislation that led to the creation of the board as an independent and well-funded city department. Nutter went on to win the 2007 mayor’s race, the board’s first major test since adopting campaign contribution limits.

Creamer initially led the board’s staff on an interim basis before becoming its permanent executive director. It was a natural fit.

Being a good-government crusader is something of a family tradition for Creamer, whose late father, J. Shane Creamer Sr., was a Pennsylvania attorney general and first assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia. Like his son, the elder Creamer helped establish a watchdog agency, the since-disbanded Pennsylvania Crime Commission.

“He was a reformer, and he wanted to make things better,” Creamer said of his father. “He had an idealism and a belief that government, when directed well and carefully with the right policies, could be a great change agent for the better.”

Philadelphia now boasts unusually strong public integrity laws, with strict rules on campaign finance, conflicts of interest, city employees’ political activity, financial disclosure for top officials, and lobbyist registration — all of which the board either oversees or has a hand in.

“It’s amazing Philadelphia has created this board that I think is one of the strongest in the nation,” Creamer said. “It’s had a profound impact on how not only elections are run and campaigns, but also on how the city government is run.”

In early March, Brown was riding high.

With a string of notable endorsements and ubiquitous TV ads pitching him as an altruistic businessman and political outsider who could clean up City Hall, Brown appeared to have vaulted to the top of the field in the mayor’s race.

Many of those ads were paid for by For a Better Philadelphia, which the board at that time had already begun investigating in connection with potential illegal coordination with Brown.

The Inquirer reported that the board was looking into campaign finance activities related to Brown on March 15. His opponents pounced and called on the ethics board to wrap up its probe speedily so voters could learn about the allegations.

Two weeks later, the board sued the super PAC, alleging Brown illegally coordinated with the group by fundraising for it in the months leading up to entering the race.

Brown and the super PAC admit that he raised money for it before launching his campaign. But they contend that the relationship cannot be considered illegal coordination between a campaign and PAC because Brown had not yet announced his candidacy.

The ethics board interprets its regulations to mean that no coordinated activity can occur within the 12 months before an election, regardless of when somebody becomes a candidate. That question is central to the still-ongoing case before Common Pleas Court Judge Joshua Roberts.

The lawsuit became public the day before the first televised debate. Brown’s opponents piled on him during the forum, he made other unforced errors, and his candidacy never recovered. He called the probe a “political hit job” and implied the board was out to get him.

“This is about the political establishment not wanting the change that we so desperately need,” he said after the debate. “This has not been tried. When it gets tried, I will win.”

» READ MORE: Why Rebecca Rhynhart’s second-place campaign for Philly mayor still beat expectations

White has maintained that it was inappropriate for the board to take the extraordinary step of going to court when its settlement agreements are usually handled administratively. The PAC, he noted, had already agreed to stop spending money to influence the outcome of the primary by the time the board sued.

Brown has since threatened to sue the board. He said on Wednesday that he hasn’t decided whether to proceed with legal action and is waiting for the board’s case against the super PAC to finish unfolding in the courts.

Brown’s comments in the wake of the lawsuit put the board in the uncomfortable position. But Creamer defended the board’s actions and pointedly responded to Brown.

“The allegations in the board’s emergency petition for injunctive relief is based on facts and evidence,” Creamer said in April. “We know what Jeff Brown did last summer. What facts and evidence is Jeff Brown’s accusation against the board based upon?”

George Burrell, a former Council member and member of Street’s administration, said he thought the ethics board acted appropriately but questioned Creamer’s decision to engage in a public back-and-forth with Brown.

Burrell said Brown’s claim that he was being persecuted for being a political outsider rang hollow because the board has a long track record of going after established incumbents. But the board engaging with Brown, he said, made it seem as if it were no longer above the fray.

“They went about doing what they needed to do in an ethical and an appropriate way,” Burrell said. “I think that they should have avoided the public commentary. You do yourself a disservice whether you’re right or wrong when you get into public conversation.”

Others have applauded Creamer and the board for being clear about what was going on with the case instead of letting voters try to figure it out based on what little information had leaked.

» READ MORE: Cherelle Parker breaks bread with mayor's race rivals

Patrick Christmas, policy director with the good-government group Committee of Seventy, said he was alarmed by Brown’s comments attacking the ethics board and did not question Creamer’s decision to respond.

“We were most troubled by the campaign rhetoric [implying] that a trusted city institution in Philadelphia was wholly political,” he said.

Christmas added that it was appropriate for the board to make its case publicly by filing suit so that voters wouldn’t be in the dark.

“What is lamented sometimes in ethics [cases] is that the punishments come after the fact and they’re too small,” he said. “They had to make a hard call, but I believe it was the right one.”

Brown, who is white, was seen as perhaps the only non-Black candidate who could make significant inroads with African American voters thanks to his record of opening groceries in underserved neighborhoods and hiring formerly incarcerated people at his stores.

His downfall didn’t just hurt his chances of mayor. It also benefited former Councilmember Cherelle Parker’s hopes because she ended up being the only Black candidate among the viable contenders.

By the time the primary arrived, Brown had plummeted in the polls. He finished a distant fifth to Parker.