MyDD :: Unreformed Democrats, Part I

Last month, [Congressman Bob] Brady met at City Hall to discuss the Common Pleas Court vacancies with [Mayor John] Street, [State Senate Minority Leader Vince] Fumo, City Council President Anna C. Verna, and Council Majority Leader Jannie Blackwell. "I said, 'I am going to do four African Americans. I need you to understand that,' " Brady said he told his colleagues. "I always want the ticket to reflect the city population," he explained later.

The ticket he referred to was the ballot to be endorsed by the Democratic City Committee. Candidates who win this endorsement get their names printed on the paper ballots that the party sends to the city's 66 ward leaders to give to voters on Election Day.

Some candidates for Common Pleas Court, such as criminal-defense lawyer Leon Tucker, were rewarded with this support after donating years of free legal help to the party and ward leaders. Others, such as former public defender Joyce Eubanks, had help from political sponsors such as Councilman David Cohen, who backed her candidacy.

But the party endorsement has a price - literally. It's $35,000 - $10,000 more than eight years ago. Candidates are told that the money covers the costs of printing ballots to be handed out at the city's 1,681 divisions on Election Day, as well as expenses to get voters to the polls.

But making it onto the party ballot doesn't necessarily mean a candidate makes it onto a ward ballot. "They send it to ward leaders around the city, who promptly throw them out or put them in the basement," said one candidate who asked not to be identified, fearful it might hurt the candidate's chances.

So to shore up support in these low-visibility, low-turnout races, most candidates give about $1,000 or $1,500 to individual ward committees for "Election Day expenses," as well as $50 to $500 at fund-raisers held by individual ward leaders. That money also is said to be used to print ballots and pay other Election Day expenses.

But there are still no guarantees. For example, if a ward leader promises support, that may amount only to making available ballots containing the candidate's name for just a few hours on Election Day, or only in some voting divisions.

So to strengthen loyalties even more, many candidates buy "insurance," in the form of consultants who, for fees as high as $10,000 a candidate, help those seeking judgeships to navigate the political process. Those consultants include former State Rep. Pete Truman, a former Fourth Ward leader, and Carol Campbell, a current Fourth Ward leader. Both are from West Philadelphia; each one operates a consulting business. Another adviser is former City Councilman Leland Beloff, who was convicted in 1987 of conspiring to extort $1 million from the late Willard G. Rouse 3d, a prominent developer. Beloff served nearly six years in federal prison.

"You have people who have created a cottage industry out of getting judges elected," Street said. "The ward leaders have banded together, and they are requiring certain payments."

That's right--the means by which you are endorsed for judge by the Philadelphia Democratic Party in a primary election is money. This is not just a lack of reform, this is a straightforward violation of the independence of the Philadelphia judiciary engineered by the ward leaders in the city machine. While the Democratic officials mentioned in the above article have all expressed public disgust with this system, their proposed remedy is to pass legislation that would make judges appointed, not elected. In other words, the remedy has nothing to do with reforming the hideous corruption of the Philadelphia Democratic Party itself, but instead to implement a structural change in the electoral process that will render that particular manifestation of corruption obsolete.

The problem with this is that the ways judges are elected in Philadelphia are hardly the only example of how profoundly unreformed the Democratic Party here is. Regular readers of MyDD probably remember that in April and May I joined with other Philadelphia area bloggers in supporting the candidacy of Seth Williams for District Attorney in the Democratic Party primary. Here was just one reason why:

What is clear is that Abraham has not gone after any of the key players in the pay-to-play culture that haunts City Hall. She leaves that job up to the U.S. attorney.

Abraham says that, because she runs for office as a Democrat, she faces the perception of a conflict of interest if she looks into the dealings of Democratic ward leaders or party officials. That may be true, but Philadelphians should not accept the excuse that their elected district attorney can do little to attack the corruption that stains City Hall. If Abraham has to recuse herself personally, someone in her office should be able to proceed. Where there's a will...

Because the Philadelphia District Attorney was elected by the same machine that engages in the sort of corruption I described above, she is more or less powerless to investigate it. This is almost exactly the same situation the state of Pennsylvania is facing with our new Republican AG Tom Corbett. Corbett surged past Jim Eisenhower in the final weekend of the campaign largely though a late, massive, illegal campaign contribution that can only be investigated by the State Attorney General. The power of the people is trumped by the power of entrenched corruption, where a series of backroom checks and balances makes certain that the existing system remains in place.

While saddened, on May 17th, none of us were particularly surprised when Seth Williams lost his bid to unseat Abraham by a full 11%. Without the endorsement of the Philadelphia Democratic Party, the Williams campaign was forced to look toward alternative power structures that are still emerging within the city. For example, Williams was a regular at Philly DFA Meetups (and he even came to the one in June, after the election). Blogger volunteers created a regional blog ring to help support his campaign. On Seth's website, using a tool known as advokit, there was an attempt to create a parallel ward leader structure using an open-source volunteer model. This last part was particularly useful, since in the areas where people volunteered to serve as ward leaders and precinct captains, turnout for Seth was noticeably higher than in other areas (I know from a source in the Williams campaign).

This was all necessary because, once again, Seth Williams was facing dubious tactics from the Philadelphia political machine. Dan from Young Philly Politics offers anecdotal information on this subject:

The biggest lesson? The Democratic Machine in Philadelphia does not know what they are doing. The Philadelphia paradigm of how you get out votes, by throwing up posters, handing out street money to committeeman and ward leaders, and tell people when they come to the polling place is simply not effective. Again, the margin in a race where a 14 year incumbent outspent her opponent 8 to 1 was 12,000 votes.

Where did Lynne Abraham's money go? Let me give you a personal experience. The polling place where I worked had the usual Democratic committeewoman. And all day, as Val and I went and knocked on doors and talked to voters, many of whom had no idea there was an election out there, the committeewoman sat and watched DVD's. All day. Now, to be fair, that is not representative of what committee people generally do. Nah, what they do is sit by a polling place and hand out ward endorsed ballots to those about to vote. Anyone who has been in Philly knows this is pretty much standard operating procedure. But how many people have stopped to ask whether this is actually works? Is this really the most effective way to get as many votes as possible for your candidate?

At one point, ward leaders in Philly were very powerful. If you needed a job, etc, you went to see your ward leader, to see what the party can offer. In return, you voted for who they said to. But how about today? Who even knows who their ward leader is? Even committee people, who in theory are the most local of all representatives, really do not seem to do too much. (There are some exceptions of course, with some very active, effective Ward leaders. But again, they are the exception.)

What Dan either did not know, or simply did not have enough proof to be willing to write, was that the Abraham campaign paid many ward leaders to intentionally not turn out the vote. That is why at least one of them was sitting around watching DVD's. There is no website I can link to in order to prove this, but from what I have heard the primary strategic move by the Abraham campaign was to keep turnout as low as possible so that the anti-incumbent sentiment would be muted. This is the height of revulsion that can occur in an old-school political machine. Ward leaders engage in highly corrupt activities, including direct payments, with a set fee, in order to "elect" judges. D.A. is unable to investigate said ward leader corruption because she was elected by said ward leaders. D.A. then pays said ward leaders to lower voter turnout when faced with reform candidate in primary election.

Despite all of this, Seth Williams still came pretty close:

In his losing effort, Williams carried 34 of the city's 66 wards, including all but one of the wards with a majority of African American voters. The lone exception: the 29th Ward in North Philadelphia, led by State Rep. Frank Oliver, a Democratic Party stalwart, where Abraham got about 55 percent of the vote.

In addition, the challenger carried Chestnut Hill's Ninth Ward, the 22d Ward in Mount Airy, and the 30th Ward in University City.

Abraham, however, crushed Williams in Northeast Philadelphia and most of South Philadelphia. She also was able to stay close to Williams in many black wards - a sign, analysts say, that she was able to mend fences after a bruising campaign four years ago against Alex Talmadge Jr.

That campaign centered on charges that Abraham was insensitive to African Americans, based on her opposition to a black woman's nomination for a federal judgeship and her support of the death penalty, among other issues. Early on, Talmadge ran an ad that compared Abraham to Bull Connor, the notorious Alabama police chief who turned fire hoses and dogs on civil-rights marchers.

Though he, too, is African American, Williams also supported the death penalty and stayed away from racial imagery. He got a higher percentage of the vote - by 3 points - than Talmadge, but Talmadge got more votes overall amid a higher voter turnout. In the 2001 primary, 18.7 percent of registered Democrats cast ballots, while an estimated 13 percent came out this time.

The low turnout model saved Abraham in 2005. Had 20% of voters turned out, who knows what the result might have been.

Also, remember that this stuff is the generally unreported type of corruption that happens in a city where a very public specter of corruption already hangs over Democratic dominated City Hall. Even beyond all of this, I remember in 2003 when I worked GOTV for Fumo-backed Kathleen Fizpatrick in the Democratic primary for the City's 7th council district. After I was threatened for a second time by Rick Mariano supporters who were tearing down the literature I was dropping off, I decided that I would finish out the day walking with two other guys. Further, and perhaps most disturbingly, one of the reasons I was less than enthusiastic about joining in the chorus in November that Bush stole the election is because I know that there are at least a handful of precincts in Philadelphia where you are literally not allowed to vote unless you are voting Unreformed Democrat straight up and down the ballot. I am not kidding.

This is a city where the terms Blue Dogs, Progressives, New Democrats and DLC do not mean anything. We simply have never entered that modern era of politics. This is, instead, a throwback to the worst forms of corrupt political machines of the early part of the twentieth century that worked to basically rig elections on behalf of a powerful and unaccountable elite. For the Philadelphia Democratic Party, ideology means nothing. Instead, it is purely about power, and no matter what they say, the leaders of the Philadelphia Democratic Party are not taking any steps toward internal reform..

You want to know something truly horrifying? This tale gets worse. Later in the week, as I have been promising for months, I will produce part two of this series, which will focus on the Bucks County Democratic Party.

The unreformed Democrat is alive and well in Philadelphia. Indeed, it is thriving in Pennsylvania as a whole.