Will Kenney’s drink tax fizzle out, or will Philly strike it rich?
CIT YANDSTATEPA .COM
@CIT YANDSTATEPA
APRIL 21, 2016
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CONTENTS
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FIRST 100 DAYS What has Philly Mayor Jim Kenney accomplished?
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COUNTDOWN TO THE DNC What it takes to pull off the Democratic National Convention
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2ND DISTRICT DRAMA Rep. Chaka Fattah faces first primary challenge in 20 years
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THE PERCENTAGES A Q&A with polling guru Brock McCleary
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THE PRIMARIES A look at some of the state’s hotly contested battles
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EDITOR’S NOTE Philadelphia’s place in American political history has long been assured – you don’t get the sobriquet “The Cradle of Liberty” by chance. (Sorry, Boston – you know it’s true.)
GREG SALISBURY Editor
But for all of the attention devoted to exploring our past in print, there has been no dedicated source for in-depth coverage of the current political landscape in Philadelphia and Harrisburg ... until now. For people like myself, whose “Politics” bookmarks bar is virtually dog-eared from clicking on the Politics section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, PoliticsPA and Politico, a print publication like City & State PA – dedicated to in-depth reporting on the issues and people impacting the many-chambered arena of city and state politics – will hopefully be a welcome addition to our reading lists. Our debut comes along at an auspicious time – just look at the topics covered in our inaugural issue. Our cover story on the early days of Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration examines not just the proposed sugary drink tax that could lead to landmark pre-K coverage, but just how else he is spending his political capital through staffing and other initiatives. For the first time in recent memory, the Pennsylvania primary is one of national significance, and we look at what that means for the presidential races and the down-ballot ones as well. And we begin our coverage of the rapidly approaching Democratic National Convention, with an exploration of just how much is left to accomplish before the doors to the Wells Fargo Center open on July 25. If there are things you want us to accomplish as well – issues that need to be covered, people who need to be profiled – please let me know at gsalisbury@cityandstatepa.com.
Editorial Director Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Editor Greg Salisbury gsalisbury@cityandstatepa.com Managing Editor Ryan Somers rsomers@cityandstateny.com Associate Copy Editor Sam Edsill sedsill@cityandstateny.com Staff Reporter Ryan Briggs rbriggs@cityandstatepa.com
On the Cover
CITY & STATE IS THE PREMIER MULTIMEDIA NEWS ORGANIZATION DEDICATED TO COVERING NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA’S LOCAL AND STATE POLITICS AND POLICY. OUR IN-DEPTH, NON-PARTISAN COVERAGE SERVES AS A TRUSTED GUIDE TO THE ISSUES IMPACTING OUR STATES. WE OFFER ROUND-THE-CLOCK COVERAGE THROUGH OUR WEEKLY PUBLICATIONS, DAILY E-BRIEFS, EVENTS, ON-CAMERA INTERVIEWS, WEEKLY PODCAST AND MORE. CITY & STATE MAGAZINE Our print magazine delivers long-form cover stories, investigative exposés, in-depth industry analysis and entertaining features on a weekly basis. CITY & STATE FIRST READ The free daily First Read e-brief summarizes the top political news, editorials, schedule items and more – all in your inbox before 8 a.m. cityandstatepa.com CITY & STATE EVENTS City & State hosts monthly panel discussions, live Q&As, receptions and more featuring powerful politicians, industry leaders and experts from across the state.
Cover art direction GUILLAUME FEDERIGHI Photo by JULIA LECATO
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“WHY 100 DAYS? WHY NOT 125? WHY NOT 200? IT’S JUST SO ARBITRARY.” -Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney
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After 100 days, what has Philly’s new mayor accomplished? By RYAN BRIGGS WALKING OUT OF his new office on the second floor of the northeast corner of City Hall, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney says he hates “100 Days” retrospectives. “It’s so arbitrary,” he says in typically machine gun-fast South Philly brogue. “Why 100 days, why not 125, why not 200? I’m not blaming you – it’s just so arbitrary.” Kenney may express ambivalence about the milestone in person, but certainly not in print: His office saw fit to release a report, entitled “First 100 Days: Just Getting Started,” last week, trumpeting his administration’s accomplishments and featuring shots of the mayor and smiling schoolchildren. Arbitrary or no, he doesn’t have much to complain about – he’s had a good 100 days. Party factions have mostly united behind Kenney – he and his old
primary foe, state Rep. Anthony H. Williams, joked about their nowburied rivalry in a campaign ad for Democratic candidate for Attorney General Steve Zappala. The City Council, which has long had a fractious relationship with the city’s chief executive, appears to have buried the hatchet following Michael Nutter’s departure from the mayor’s office. City Council President Darrell Clarke, the mayor’s historical foil, has struggled to redefine himself beyond opposing ideas simply because they emerged from Room 215 of City Hall. The broad coalition of building trades, teachers’ unions and pols representing the city’s black middle class have largely stuck by the new mayor. Accordingly, Kenney’s tenure in City Hall thus far has been buoyed by a sense of confidence. While some
have quietly criticized the mayor for acting too slowly to right the municipal bureaucracy or moving too precipitously to launch a sweeping educational initiative, the future of City Hall is, in short, still largely in Kenney’s hands. “We put out the report because all those things in there are what we’re proud of and what we’re pursuing,” he said. “And I think we’re going to be successful in that, and I think the face of the city will change as a result.” But success largely rests on Kenney winning his biggest test to date – a fight over a 3-cent soda tax that would underpin a $300 million bond and provide a revenue source for many of Kenney’s key campaign promises, most critically a universal prekindergarten initiative. The proposal, which Kenney voted against
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SAMANTHA MADERA / MAYOR’S OFFICE
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Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney speaks at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO’s 42nd Annual Constitutional Convention this month. twice while on the city council, has roused the American Beverage Association’s famously aggressive lobbying machine, which has shot down similar proposals across the country, with the exception of Berkeley, California. If the soda tax passes, Philadelphia would set a damaging precedent for a deep-pocketed industry. “To tell you the truth, I think they’re running scared,” Kenney said. “They want to spend $8 or $9 million to protect billions in profit from poor neighborhoods they’ve been advertising in for generations. But we’re building our coalition of council members, and we’ll get to nine (votes) – and probably more than nine – by the time we’re done.” City Hall insiders agree that momentum is on the mayor’s side. No other big unions have protested the tax in solidarity with the Teamsters, who backed Williams over Kenney in last year’s primary, and who draw business from beverage distribution. As both the administration’s allies and the
beverage lobby spend millions to sway public opinion on the tax, the path to victory rests on his administration’s ability to keep council members’ eyes on an attractive prize – and not on the uncomfortable reality that the proposed services, while commendably aimed at the poor, would be funded through a tax that will disproportionately impact them.
A slow start If they are critical at all, political observers have mostly knocked Kenney early on for not being more transformative, maintaining large parts of the Nutter administration, like the budget team. But even this critique is only a partial one. “Overall, he’s not moving as quickly as some of us thought,” said Franklin & Marshall College pollster G. Terry Madonna. “Some people said he would be ‘the De Blasio of Philadelphia,’” a
reference to the mayor of New York City. “But he’s moving much more cautiously. But Philadelphia is also not Manhattan – moving too quickly will not always be too helpful.” Kenney didn’t wholly deny this. “Well, you want to hold over your financial people who went through a recession, who are battle-hardened, tested folks who know how to live within your means when you have to – they’re people our rating agencies are comfortable with, and so our bond rating continues to improve,” he said of his financial team. “But we’ve changed positions in a lot of areas; we’ve created new positions and brought people in the government that weren’t in the government before.” Kenney has also suffered from some self-inflicted wounds. Much of the nation’s conservative blogosphere knows him as the man who said Edward Archer, the gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS after shooting Officer Jesse Hartnett, “did not represent Islam.”
JOSEPH GIDJUNIS / MAYOR’S OFFICE
SAMANTHA MADERA / MAYOR’S OFFICE
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It seemed like a fair comment coming from the mayor of a city with hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Muslim residents – particularly given that the shooter was mentally ill and never linked to a larger Islamic terrorist network – but to Trump supporters a county or state away, the headlines screamed of hypocrisy emanating from the mayor of a big, liberal city. And at least one pillar of the broad, disparate coalition that elected Kenney has already been disappointed. Kenney had repeatedly made the unequivocal claim that he would “end stop-and-frisk” throughout his campaign, but dialed that rhetoric back just six weeks after his inauguration. Although it helped him garner support, it was a dubious promise from the outset. Stop-and-frisk is less a departmental policy than a police power enshrined by a 1968 Supreme Court decision. Unlike in New York City, the Philadelphia police never publicly claimed to have encouraged mass, race-based police searches as a crime-fighting tactic – probably because the department had been tacitly doing that for generations. “Whether (Kenney) meant to totally stop it, call it something else – I don’t know what was in his mind,” said David Rudovsky, a prominent civil rights attorney now monitoring court-ordered efforts by the city to clamp down on racial profiling. “Our position is that you can do stop-and-frisk, but you have to do it legally. Kenney’s on board with that, and he’s instituted some accountability measures. I didn’t expect him – or the mayor of any city – to actually end stopand-frisk.” But in general, it’s tough to get just about anyone to criticize Kenney or his administration outright. The reticence is understandable: If you want something from the new mayor, it’s probably not a great idea to come out guns blazing before he’s weighed in on your pet issue. “Kenney is earning an ‘A’ so far,” said Alan Butkovitz, the long-serving city controller who briefly contemplated a run for mayor last year. “He’s very
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open to collaboration – which is not an experience we had with the prior administration, which seemed to want to argue about everything.” So, some of this may just speak to Kenney’s charmingly incorrigible demeanor and his long-running, largely positive relationships with many power players in town. Yet even people who should probably be pissed off at the new mayor seem to demur. Kenney passed on endorsing indicted Congressman Chaka Fattah for reelection, instead backing his challenger, state Rep. Dwight Evans, a major supporter of Kenney’s mayoral bid. In doing so, Kenney bucked his own party and some prominent supporters, but Fattah didn’t have a bad word to say about the mayor – or his political stratagems. “I think he’s off to a very good start – he’s put together a great team,” said Fattah, praising the appointments of Police Commissioner Richard Ross and Otis Hackney as chief education officer. “I don’t have any complaints. I have concerns, such as the concerns about stop-and-frisk.” Fattah added the endorsement tiff would “not be an obstacle to working with the mayor,” characterizing it as Kenney “nobly repaying his political debt” to Evans. No stranger to high-profile budget fights himself, he characterized Kenney’s first hundred days, unsurprisingly, as typified by the brawling over the sugary drink tax, which he approved of from a tactical standpoint. “This is his opening gambit. He’s
putting his cards on the table” said Fattah. “The idea is, he wants to do preschool and some other ambitious things and he wants a 3 percent (tax on soda) and council will probably meet him halfway … He can probably get the nine votes.”
A taxing battle Council insiders largely agreed with this assessment, saying that if the vote were held tomorrow, Kenney would probably get what he wants – perhaps not the full 3 percent, but at least a good portion of it. “There’s two sides to the budget: What are you going to spend the money on, and where you are going to get the money from,” said Fattah. “As long as people buy the policy idea, I’m not sure people are going to care about how the revenue gets generated.” Kenney needs to pray that stays true, because, as Fattah acknowledged, “If you tax soda, it’s going to fall more on poor families.” Local pundits agree. The twice-failed attempts by Nutter to win a soda tax focused on the levy as a punishment for buying unhealthy beverages. But publicly tying the soda tax primarily to universal pre-K means that people most affected by the tax – the poor – are also its primary beneficiaries. “He tied it not to good health but to helping kids achieve their fullest potential through the ‘miracle’ of pre-K,” said former Philadelphia Inquirer political
Kenney surveys a room where bikes are being repaired at Vare Recreation Center.
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turned down for a key departmental appointment in his administration, he didn’t deny there was a built-in incentive. “I think that obviously there’s 10 districts and you need nine votes,” he said. “Each district has parks, recreation centers, libraries, pre-K moms, community school advocates – a lot of people lobbying for our efforts. That’s opposed to Big Soda hiring lobbyists and some advertising people to tell their story; we’re telling our story on the grassroots level to each council member.” Another political reality pushing the tax forward: The city badly needs more money, for everything from new garbage trucks to pensions. The administration has worked hard to convince pols that it has run out of new taxes that can be feasibly raised without causing a public uproar. “All the levers have been pulled,” Kenney’s policy director Jim Engler told the Inquirer last month, describing the soda tax as “an untapped resource that’s still out there.” To opponents of Kenney’s tax, like ABA lobbyist Lauren Vidas, this is nothing more than a cop-out by an administration unwilling to commit to tackling extant revenue issues. “Our tax collection rates are still miserable, and that’s a constant battle
for the city,” she said. “It’s frustrating that it almost seems like an easier lift to fight a three-month battle over a single tax than to go in and do the hard work that needs to be done 12 months a year to get the system fixed. It’s like we maxed out our credit cards and now we’re trying to open a new line of credit.” Vidas, a lawyer and onetime staffer for former councilman Bill Green, suggested that because of a backlog of property assessment appeals, the city was leaving tens of millions of dollars in revenue on the table by failing to capture property tax gains caused by the downtown real estate boom. She said the cost of this inaction would be borne by poor Philadelphians in the supermarket checkout aisle. “Good politics and good policy are two different things,” Vidas said. “This is a regressive tax, even if the people who are paying for it are the primary beneficiaries.” It’s a point the ABA is spending millions on by airing commercials that it hopes will brand Kenney’s revenue proposal as a “grocery tax” that will hammer the poor. While the administration counters that the soft drink industry doesn’t have to pass the cost on to consumers, and that people can instead buy non-sugary drinks or bottled water, whether they can make all these ideas stick in time for a likely June council vote is something that won’t be decided anytime soon. But pundits like Ferrick say these points speak to the tax’s big weakness – if the soda tax is the city’s last lever for new revenue, what happens when people inevitably start buying less soda? “We are saying it is going to be a declining source of revenue, by saying there’s going to be a 55 percent drop-off in purchases (next year), which still gets us up to the $96 million we need to fund our programs,” he explained. The mayor is talking the programs he wants to fund to build his legacy. Many of these are new expenses for a city that already had looming financial problems before Kenney took office. Kenney meets with constituents at Shepard Recreation Center earlier this month. “Our tax revenues rise by 2 to 3 percent
SAMANTHA MADERA / MAYOR’S OFFICE
columnist Tom Ferrick. “So the tax is about the kids.” To be fair, Nutter pitched his second attempt at the tax as a way to patch the school district’s budget. But Kenney’s masterstroke this go-round, from a political standpoint, is tying the other big chunk of future soda tax revenue to renovating the city’s beleaguered rec centers and parks. “From a tactical standpoint, I think it was good thing to do in the beginning. And politically, he did it, again, tactically, in a good way,” Ferrick said. “He built in wiggle room for compromise and created it so it really is a lure for council members, because it gives them a big shot of money in their districts for projects that need to get done.” While former City of Philadelphia Managing Director Jay McCalla savaged Kenney’s proposal in a recent op-ed as “pork,” the proposal would mean council members who might be opposed on principle to a tax that fell disproportionately on the poor, like West Philly councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, might be more inclined to consider voting in favor of giving themselves more spending money for highly visible projects. While Kenney said McCalla was simply evincing sour grapes over being
SAMANTHA MADERA / MAYOR’S OFFICE
SAMANTHA MADERA / MAYOR’S OFFICE
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each year, while expenses rise by 4 to 5 percent,” Ferrick said. “For the changes that need to happen, like the pension problem or contract negotiations, you do not have someone in Jim Kenney who’s going to challenge the hierarchy to make change.”
The coming storm Kenney’s biggest weakness since his last-minute entry into the mayor’s race has been his strong ties to an established order in City Hall that resisted many of the painful reforms Nutter tried (and often failed) to implement. Kenney’s success in lining up political actors and union support for his early initiatives is largely built on that foundation. During the mayoral campaign, Kenney committed himself to even more political actors, like Evans. While the new mayor has been largely praised for his high-level appointments – Hackney as education chief or new Managing Director Mike DiBerardinis, for example – other picks underline some of Kenney’s prior commitments. Jim Moylan, the head of a civic association who also happens to be International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union kingpin John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty’s chiropractor, now heads the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Chris Rupe, a legislative director for Local 98 who worked on a super-PAC that supported the Kenney campaign, now earns $115,000 per year as Chief of Staff for the Managing Director’s Office, a historic locus for executive-level political appointments. Kenny Gamble’s daughter-in-law, Deana, who worked at the record mogul-turned-political player’s charter school company, was hired as communications director for the newly minted Mayor’s Office of Education. Beverly Woods, a former director at the Urban Affairs Coalition, a troubled economic development agency heavily tied to Evans, was also recently appointed to a $125,000 per year position in the MDO. Hitt said these staffers all had extensive
Kenney visits during Career Day at Meredith Elementary School in March. background in their respective fields, and that Gamble in particular had done press work on the previous administration’s Commission on Literacy and applied for her current job through the city’s HR website, without any influence from her father-in-law. However, even controversial City Council staffer Latrice Bryant – who made headlines for billing the city for personal time and then comparing the reporter that uncovered the story to a Klansman in 2008 – landed a cushy job at the MDO earning $115,000 a year as an assistant to the Animal Care and Control Team. All were hired to their current MDO positions under Kenney. These MDO appointments are among the highest salaried positions in that office, which has grown by $1 million in salaries under Kenney. The new mayor’s rush to fund and implement a far-reaching and expensive new educational program in his first year shows his administration feels pressured to pull off some early wins, to validate the faith a very large group of people put in him, and to aggressively spend the political capital earned from his victory last year. He’ll probably get much of what he wants, but his biggest and most complex challenges lay ahead. Whether he can face those without alienating his many friends remains to be seen. Kenney, outside of his new office, is confident. “We’re working with negotiating with
our unions now on the pension issue; we have some things down the road that may resolve some of these issues or make it a much better situation,” Kenney said. “We’ll cross that bridge in a year or two when we come to it.” But while he was still on council, Kenney pushed through a major pension bonus bill that was decried in 2007 as a giveaway to city workers - a change that cost the city $31 million last year alone. Despite the fund’s $5.7 billion hole, Kenney has said he would not reverse the action. In another foreshadowing of his conduct with the city’s workforce as mayor, Kenney recently reversed implementation of money-saving Fire Department “brownouts.” The son of a firefighter had railed against this policy for years as endangering lives, even though 2015 saw the fewest fire deaths in city history. Kenney’s spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, said brownouts were phased out to improve response times. out of principle But the longer the city waits, the more intractable some of these problems become. A week before Kenney spoke to City & State, the Inquirer quizzed the mayor on the continued problem of city employees exploiting a loophole in an early retirement scheme, known as DROP, to double down on certain pension benefits. Kenney recalled the city’s labor unions resisting his attempts to patch the hole on council. Now, he has at least 1,300 more days to see how much political will and capital it will take to fix it.
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Mere months after the papal visit, Philadelphia is gearing up to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Above, visitors gather at the National Constitution Center for a 100 Days Out Block Party.
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BUCKING CONVENTION To pull off the DNC, Philadelphia is thinking outside the Wells Fargo Center Story by NATALIE POMPILIO Photos by JOE KEMP
IN 100 DAYS, the Rev. Leah Daughtry will welcome more than 50,000 people to Philadelphia for the fourday Democratic National Convention. Earlier this month, she was in the DNC’s Center City office going over what still needed to be done: delegation seating charts, bus routes and – at the top of her list – tech support. “No one contemplates having 7,000 delegates – everyone with two phones and a tablet – plus the media running their television shows from inside the Wells Fargo Center, plus what we need just to do our work,” said Daughtry, who also served as convention CEO in Denver in 2008, when Barack Obama was nominated. “We will wire that thing up 20 ways to Sunday to make sure that everybody stays connected.” Daughtry is among the many business owners, tourism officials and event organizers prepping for the city’s first national political convention in 16 years, one that many hope will showcase a revitalized Philadelphia. Daughtry moved to Philadelphia more than a year ago to begin preparing
for the event she has described as “a wedding on steroids,” which will be held July 25-28. The televised evening events will be held at the Wells Fargo Center – home of the Philadelphia 76ers, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Philadelphia Soul. (Delegates will hold daytime meetings at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.) Among Daughtry’s many responsibilities are making sure that boxes of confetti fall on cue, balloons rise when required and 10,000 volunteers who will be working before, during and after the festivities are wellprepped for every eventuality, political or otherwise. “That’s all part of my job,” said Daughtry, who has promised that this will be the “most diverse and forwardlooking convention” in the party’s history. As she said during a Wells Fargo Center media walkthrough earlier this month, this year’s DNC has set a goal of assigning 35 percent of its contracts to minority firms. The Philadelphia 2016 Host Committee has awarded four
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Supporters said the upcoming Democratic nomination will be “history-making.”
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of its five largest contracts to minorityowned businesses, including those run by women, people of color, veterans, disabled persons and members of the LGBT community. For example, a woman- and minority-owned company has been tapped to be the official event producer, and a certified Hispanic Minority Business Enterprise will be the convention’s official merchandise provider and manager. And outside the security zone, Philadelphia’s Equality Forum, a nonprofit serving the LGBT community, has moved its regularly scheduled summer offerings to coincide with the convention because of an expected increase in the number of LGBT delegates and guests. While it’s still unclear who will represent the party in the presidential race, Philadelphia Democrats have spent the last year getting ready for their candidate, whoever that may be. When the city initially bid to host the convention, pundits were predicting Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. That prompted the local team to create the tagline, “Philadelphia 2016. Let’s make history again,” according to former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, chairman of the 2016 host committee. Fortunately, that’s a motto that works for Bernie Sanders, too. “It’s either the first woman or the first socialist; either way, it will be history-making,” Rendell said, adding that Philadelphia can also offer another guarantee organizers in Cleveland – host of the 2016 Republican National Committee’s convention – can’t: “We’re a Trump-free zone,” he said, laughing. “Not only is that a promise, but you can’t say anything better about us.” That said, Rendell also listed a few pro-Philadelphia factoids: The city was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage City – the only such city in the United States. Its walkable downtown, booming restaurant scene and cultural offerings, both historic
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HARRY S. TRUMAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
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President Harry Truman, left, shakes hands with U.S. Sen. Alben Barkley on the speaker’s platform at the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Sam Rayburn, chairman of the convention, is on the right. Between 1848 and 2012, the city hosted onequarter of major party conventions, including the Republican Party’s first convention in 1856 and the Republican, Progressive and Democratic conventions in 1948. Philadelphia also hosted the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
and modern, have contributed to rising tourism numbers. The city successfully hosted Pope Francis and a few hundred thousand faithful last September with nary a major problem for those making the pilgrimage. But the DNC will be a different animal than the papal extravaganza. The convention is much smaller, more in line with the types of events the city pulls off on a routine basis at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. A good portion of the papal crowd wasn’t old enough to drink and traveled in
large youth groups that stayed outside the city. The promised boon to area businesses that local politicians had predicted never materialized, leaving some with hard feelings – and at least one restaurateur with $10,000 worth of extra food in a rented trailer that she couldn’t use. Still, based on previous political conventions – including the 2000 Republican National Convention, also held in Philadelphia – the DNC’s impact on local businesses should be profoundly positive. That’s why Chris
Mullins, owner of McGillin’s Olde Ale House in Center City, the oldest continuously operating tavern in Philadelphia, will be making changes to appeal to the visiting masses, including “decorating to the hilt” with American flags and creating a few speciality cocktails, like “The Dublin Donkey.” “Putting Philadelphia in the spotlight of the world stage showcases all of the best parts of what we offer to tourists, businesses looking to perhaps move here, conventions and even residents,” Mullins said. “There will
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The 100 Days Out Block Party in full swing. The upcoming convention is expected to be a boon for local businesses.
be a short-term bump, but also a longterm impact.” Of the 50,000 people expected in July, about 6,000 are delegates, between 15,000 and 20,000 will be members of the media, and the rest will be others interested in the process, including delegates’ families and friends. With most of the major programming happening at night, visitors will have time to explore the city during the day and many – especially journalists who have filed their stories – are expected to leave the Wells Fargo Center at night in search of food and drink. “This won’t be the type of thing where people think the whole city is going to shut down like the pope’s
visit,” said Meryl Levitz, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, a nonprofit that promotes the city. “The good news is, Philadelphia’s done this before. We’re benefitting from a lot of institutional knowledge.” Levitz was in the same role in 2000, when the GOP held its nominating convention here. The city has come a long way in the intervening 16 years, she added. “In 2000, the city really had something to prove: Nobody really knew who we were as a city and we all sensed it could be a true turning point for Philadelphia,” she explained. “The city had more of a ‘Rocky and cheesesteak’ image than it does today
– although there’s nothing wrong with Rocky and cheesesteak.” Indeed, it’s difficult to find much of that tough, working-class vibe in central Philadelphia anymore, although the Rocky statue is prominently situated right outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps made iconic by the film. It has added to its skyline, with the 974-foot Comcast Center now the city’s tallest building. Culture got a kick when the Barnes Foundation moved from the suburbs to Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Center City, where most of the convention-goers will stay and play, boasts better lighting, less crime and a huge increase in touristfriendly fodder, like parks, shops and
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The Rev. Leah Daughtry and family
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outdoor cafés. You couldn’t find a single outdoor café in the city in 1995. By 2005, there were 167. Last year, there were 369. Planners estimate the convention will have as much as $300 million worth of economic impact on the city and region. Delegates have already secured 15,000 rooms in 89 area hotels. Levitz’s group is responsible for 10,000 gift bags filled with local goodies. “This isn’t a typical convention schedule, where attendees are busy from eight in the morning to five at night,” Levitz said. “It’s the reverse. During the day, people will have time to wander around.” That means it’s time to pretty things up. Tammy Leigh DeMent, associate director of civic landscapes for the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, said
Chris Mullins, owner of McGillin’s Olde Ale House
her organization is planning a “garden walk” for the area roughly between the Pennsylvania Convention Center and City Hall that includes installing large potted plants and new plantings – perennials, grasses and a bit of color – in existing green space. They will also repair broken cobblestones and benches, and prune the trees in the area. “This may all seem simple and mundane, but when you put them all together, the change will be miraculous,” she said. “Everything’s pretty big – we’ll create a human-scale environment.” The colors of the American flag will be on display throughout the city, Levitz said, due in part to the Wawa Welcome America festivities. Thanks to the celebrations taking place on and around July 4 – only a few weeks prior to the convention – there will be bunting aplenty. “There will be red, white and blueing of everything,” Levitz said – with the possible exception of the 125 miles of fiber optic cable and the 750 miles of network cable that will need to be in place before showtime. While changing technology has created more work in some areas, Daughtry noted that it has made life easier in many others. It’s a far cry, she notes, from the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when delegate seating was handwritten on paper and copied in triplicate, and the committee was also struggling with the latest in high-tech accessories. “We still had the fax with the curly paper,” she recalls. Today, scans and PDFs have long since replaced thermal paper. But no matter how much bandwidth is added to the Wells Fargo Center, or how fast the WiFi will be, Daughtry knows that the only thing that matters right now is progress toward making July 25 the culmination - and beginning - of something great. It’s why her most emphatically delivered remark to members of the media at the center was, “We are on time, on task – and on budget.”
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SECOND CHANCES
PHOTOS BY ANDRES NICOLINI
An embattled congressman faces his first primary challenge in 22 years By MATT BEVILACQUA
The candidates for the 2nd Congressional District gathered for a debate on March 24. From left to right: Dwight Evans, Chaka Fattah, Brian Gordon, James Jones and Dan Muroff. ON A TYPICALLY hot Tuesday in mid-August, the wheels were suddenly set into motion to make Pennsylvania’s 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary competitive for the first time in more than two decades. Inside a federal courtroom on Market Street in Philadelphia, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was quick to declare his innocence on an array of corruption and conspiracy charges relating to his failed 2007 bid for mayor of the City of Brotherly Love. “I’d like to say that I’m not guilty,” he reportedly said, moments after U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Rice took the bench. “We haven’t gotten there yet,” Rice replied. “I have to follow the rules. So just be patient.” According to the 29-count indictment, Fattah, 59, used federal money and
charitable donations to pay back part of an illegal campaign loan. Federal authorities allege that he also accepted bribes from a lobbyist and used campaign funds for personal expenses, including paying off his son’s college debt. Rice set the trial for May 2, only six days after the Pennsylvania primary. (The trial was recently pushed back to May 16.) In his 11 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Fattah has established himself as a powerful force in local Democratic politics. He’s won more than 85 percent of the vote in every general election; this year will be the first time he has even faced a primary challenge. Despite the ongoing indictment, Fattah intends to stick around for another term. “His organization continues to manifest
political interest,” said former PA Sen. and Philadelphia City Councilman John F. White Jr., listing local politicians Fattah has propelled to power: “Curtis Jones, Vincent Hughes, Blondell Reynolds (Brown), Cindy Bass – they’re all folks who have grown out of that tree.” Two decades of nurturing goodwill as a senior member of Congress have earned Fattah broad support in Philadelphia. The question is whether that support will allow him to withstand not only the damage wrought by the indictment, but also the first viable challenge to his seat. Three candidates have thrown their names into the primary race in hopes of beating Fattah on April 26. For the first time in more than 20 years, someone new may be representing the
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citizens of the third-most Democratic Congressional district in the nation, which includes much of Philadelphia and parts of suburban Montgomery County, including Lower Merion Township.
PHOTOS BY ANDRES NICOLINI
Support is incumbent upon them More than 80 percent of voters in the 2nd District are registered Democrats, which means that, as in the Philadelphia mayoral race, primaries tend to be far more determinative than general elections. The district is the only one of 18 in Pennsylvania with a black majority and includes some of the state’s poorest and richest ZIP codes. It’s the same district that elected Robert N.C. Nix Sr., Pennsylvania’s first African-American member of the House of Representatives, in the early 1960s. Currently, Fattah is the state’s only black congressman. And so far, much of the local political establishment wants to keep him in office: Fattah has won endorsements from a handful of unions, not to mention state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the nine-term Congressman from the neighboring 1st District and chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee since 1986. Due in no small part to Brady’s support, Fattah also has most of the city’s Democratic ward leaders, the hyperlocal elected officials who tend to drive voting power, on his side. “On one level, there’s this stuff in the media that I should be in battle,” Fattah said. “In the district, it’s not the same thing.” He noted that he doesn’t hear about the indictment from voters or supporters. Meanwhile, he maintains his innocence. “Under our system, an allegation is just an allegation,” he said. “In general, political machines are conservative in nature,” said David Thornburgh, president and CEO of the Committee of Seventy, a local
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independent watchdog group. “They want to back incumbents – particularly long-established incumbents – and perceive it as risky to abandon someone like Fattah. Fattah is a known quantity. He’s been successful in, as they say in the political world, bringing home the bacon.” Simple name recognition is often enough to keep an incumbent in office, let alone two decades of coalition-building. Fattah will have to depend on his legacy given that, thanks to legal costs, he has very little cash on hand: about $12,000, according to the most recent report from the Federal Election Commission. In comparison, the man posing the biggest threat to him in the primary, longtime state Sen. Dwight Evans, has more than $323,000. “The one thing that I’m certain of is that we’re going to have an election, not an auction,” Fattah said. “Money is very, very important for challengers – I would have loved to raised more money than I have raised to date – but I don’t think it’s as significant. On Election Day, there will be thousands of workers for the party out there working for me, because I’m the endorsed candidate.”
A challenging situation Evans, who has represented North Philly’s 203rd Legislative District in Harrisburg since 1981, is one of a handful of local Democrats as experienced and influential as Fattah. As Thornburgh put it, “In Dwight Evans and Chaka Fattah, these are two of the most longstanding and powerful politicians in Philadelphia.” As a key member of the city’s socalled “Northwest Coalition,” a group of influential black politicians whose endorsements are coveted in local elections, Evans has a reputation for delivering votes to candidates he supports. He was instrumental in the
Moderators Sam Katz and Wade Albert election of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf in 2014, and of Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney last year. Both have reciprocated by endorsing Evans for Congress. Yet Evans, 61, hasn’t found similar success when he’s the one on the ballot. In the past, he has failed in runs for governor, lieutenant governor and, most recently, mayor of Philadelphia. (This was the same 2007 election where Michael Nutter upset a whole crop of establishment candidates, including Evans and Fattah.) Recent circumstances haven’t favored him in Harrisburg, either. In 2010, Democratic rivals ousted Evans from his chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee, where, for four years, he had controlled how tens of millions of dollars in specialprojects grants were distributed across the state. For his part, Evans denies that Fattah’s indictment inspired him to run. He casts his campaign as a way to leverage the power of the federal government to better carry out his agenda. “What drove me is that all the things I’ve
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2nd District Bases of Operation
DAN MUROFF
DWIGHT EVANS
CHAKA FATTAH
BRIAN GORDON
been trying to do locally – there is no way they can be addressed without the federal government,” he says. “I do not believe that the city itself has the ability to address these issues.” Taken at his word, the Evans campaign is less about making a comeback than it is a push for even more clout by leveraging his years spent in Harrisburg through the fulcrum of City Hall. “Dwight’s influence has waned in the Legislature. It did not wane in terms of his political prowess at home,” White says. He adds, though, that even Evans wouldn’t be able to wrest the Congressional seat from Fattah if the latter weren’t so vulnerable. “If that indictment doesn’t go down, (Evans) is on a suicide mission,” White says.
Playing the rest of the field Two additional candidates round out the
Democratic field. (Another, state Rep. Brian Sims, dropped out in February and ultimately endorsed Evans.) Although considered long shots, the campaigns of Dan Muroff and Brian Gordon bring out many deep-rooted tensions in the 2nd District. For one thing, both are white candidates running in a majority-black district. In a city where voters still tend to cast ballots along racial lines, this puts them at risk of cutting into one another’s bases. In February, two people associated with Muroff filed objections to Gordon’s campaign, taking issue with the petitions he had collected to secure a place on the primary ballot. A Commonwealth Court judge ruled in Gordon’s favor, although the decision has been appealed to the state Supreme Court. It’s unclear whether Muroff had anything to do with the effort to kick Gordon off the ballot, or whether the objectors acted on their own. Moreover, both Gordon and Muroff
operate at a certain remove from the city’s Democratic machine. “If Fattah were to lose to Evans, in a sense we’d be trading one wellestablished political player for another,” Thornburgh says. “If you were to trade Fattah for Dan Muroff or Brian Gordon, it’s a very different dynamic because you have one of two much less wellestablished, much less brand-name political figures.” Muroff, a 48-year-old attorney and former Congressional staffer from Mount Airy, is something of a low-profile insider. For the past two years, he has led the 9th Ward, one of the highest voterturnout areas in Philadelphia. This gives him a helpful perspective, despite most of the city’s Democratic ward leaders backing Fattah. “There are not a lot of candidates who work in this space who understand how the ward structure works better than a ward leader himself,” Muroff says, “and I know what the establishment can do.” In addition to a fairly well-funded campaign – he has about $209,000 on hand, according to the FEC – Muroff earned a Philadelphia Inquirer endorsement and has used his platform to push an agenda centered on gun violence prevention. Gordon, an 11-year Lower Merion Township commissioner and the only candidate from outside Philadelphia, previously ran for the 6th District seat in 2010. (Since then, gerrymandering has placed him in the 2nd.) In an interview, he stresses outreach work he’s done in West Philadelphia churches and also talks at length about gun violence and poverty. “I lived in Philly for 18 years of my adult life,” Gordon, 55, says. “I know that, politically, it’s kind of a closed shop, even for someone who’s coming up in Philadelphia. I knew that the party was going to endorse the incumbent. I was aware that he is facing a very serious indictment, and I have a belief that the people of Philadelphia will be open-minded and receptive to new candidates.”
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Pennsylvania politics in the palm of your hand.
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PLYING THE PERCENTAGES A Q&A with polling guru Brock McCleary By GREG SALISBURY
“The consent of the governed.” These five pivotal words in the Declaration of Independence contain the very core of how American government functions. They also provide the raison d’etre for those who make a living out of determining just what those being governed are willing to consent to: pollsters like Brock McCleary of Harrisburg-based Harper Polling. McCleary, a Pennsylvania native, started his company in the wake of the 2012 election – he was the polling director of the National Republican Congressional Committee – leaving Washington, D.C., for the state capital. He has positioned Harper Polling to be the Republican version of Public Policy Polling, right down to its extensive use of the Interactive Voice Response automated survey technique, which has allowed him to reach many more households at a fraction of the cost of traditional live polling. The move has a certain historical symmetry to it. In addition to Pennsylvania being McCleary’s home state, the first recorded instance of a public poll in the United States – a straw poll between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams during the 1824 presidential race – was conducted by the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian newspaper. McCleary took some time off from crunching data to talk about what drew him to the polling profession, where it’s headed, and what and who he’ll be watching in the state’s primary on April 26. This interview has been edited and condensed.
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C&S: WHEN AND HOW DID YOU FIRST GET INTERESTED IN POLITICS? BM: I was about 12 years old; it was 1988, and Dick Gephardt was running for president. We had Gephardt volunteers working out of our house. I guess I was enlisted in the campaign – I got interested, attended some political events and caught the bug. The Kennedys became a fascination thereafter – Democratic politicians got me interested at the outset. People will tell you partisanship is not one of my best traits. C&S: WHY FOCUS ON POLLING? BM: This was what I wanted to do; I’ve spent a lifetime building experience, and this was how I wanted to apply it. I’m fascinated by the ability of polling to make the unexplainable logical in politics. I’m less interested in outcomes than I am in why things happen. The ability to take the data and communicate it in a way that works with the flow of the campaign – a lot of the people who are in politics but don’t have a lot of experience with polling don’t understand the way the data fits the context and the flow of the campaign. The ability to interpret that in a real-world way – there is no higher skill than the ability to communicate what you find. C&S: COULD YOU ELABORATE ON SOME OF THE CHANGES THE INDUSTRY HAS GONE THROUGH IN RECENT YEARS? BM: It’s getting harder for many folks out there – the cost of polling is going up.
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Everyone is dealing with the declining connectivity on landlines and looking to bring in more sampling from mobile phones, doing a lot of online polling. If you look to the future – 10, 20 years from now – we’re going to be collecting data from several different methods, commonly referred to now as mixed mode – some of your landline samples from automated phones, some cell phone responses from live callers, some email responses to collect responses online. C&S: WHAT IS ONE MISCONCEPTION ABOUT POLLING YOU WISH YOU COULD CLEAR UP FOR PEOPLE? BM: Probably that it is rare that the number you see on the topline poll is the exact number – there is a margin of error built into every poll. I say that reluctantly, because we have a pretty good history in the last four years of getting polls correct right to the number. For people who are really using polling, and making important spending decisions, whether in marketing or campaigns, it is really about understanding the data. You can have a topline number where you’re in the lead by 5 points, but I can look at the crosstabs and tell that your goose is cooked because fundamentally, the right demographics are not there for you to win that race. C&S: WHICH RACES ARE YOU WATCHING IN THE PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY? BM: There are none bigger than the race here for the Senate. There is not a
tremendous chance the Republicans can hold the majority in the U.S. Senate without winning in Pennsylvania. In 2010, Toomey won by 2 points while Republicans were gaining 63 seats in the House and Tom Corbett was winning by 10 percent, so to me, everyone has understood he has a really tough challenge. The interesting thing is the primary – no one can quite figure out who would be the best Democrat to win. The maverick image they have created for Sestak – were he to win the primary, he would only be emboldened and strengthened for the general election. C&S: WHAT INTRIGUES YOU ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN? BM: It’s unclear who will prevail at the convention for the Republicans. Despite the untold story of how well Sanders is doing here and just how much of the Democratic electorate is soundly rejecting Clinton, she is likely to be the nominee. What I see in the data is that a Trump-Clinton matchup has the potential to truly realign the coalitions in the electorate and frankly, I think that is to the benefit of American politics. I’m not rooting for outcomes in any way, but I am interested in seeing a little bit of realignment in American politics – and Trump-Clinton would really have the chance to do that. It has the potential to be a “TMZ” election in a world that has only been used to the “Today Show.” And it is a chance to get a lot of people out to the polls – participation is good.
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YOUR Q&A HERE We’ll be running question-and-answer features in every issue of City & State Pennsylvania, featuring prominent government figures, celebs advocating for their pet causes, and little-known folks who have a big impact on the political process. But who would YOU like to see in this space? Email editor@ cityandstatepa.com.
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PRIMARY TARGETS A look at some of the state’s hotly By RYAN BRIGGS contested primary battles
Thanks to the ongoing drama on both sides of the presidential campaign, which has driven record voter turnout across the country, the April 26 Pennsylvania primary will receive virtually unprecedented scrutiny on both the national and state levels. And there will be plenty to watch. With an internecine battle for the state’s top law enforcement office, a tilt that could determine the makeup of the U.S. Senate, an FBI agent running to replace his brother in the U.S. House of Representatives and a Democratic stalwart with almost four decades of seniority in the state House losing the backing of the party, there’s no shortage of intriguing storylines in the Keystone State.
ATTORNEY GENERAL AT THE EN D of Ma rch, it looked l i ke p op u l a r Mont g om e r y C o u nt y commissioner Josh Shapiro had all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination to succeed embattled Attorney General K at h leen K a ne, who a n nou nced i n February that she would not seek another term. He netted impressive endorsements from top Democrats like President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf. What a difference a few weeks can make. While Shapiro is still the favorite to win, an unusual alliance forged by another contender, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, with political bigwigs in Philadelphia has thrown a wrench into that race. In an interview, Franklin & Marshall C ol lege pol l ster G. Ter r y Madon na s a i d t h e p r i m a r y w a s n o w “ ve r y
STEPHEN ZAPPALA
JOSH SHAPIRO
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competitive,” thanks to a rare alliance between southwestern and southeastern political families. The Zappala family was instrumental in securing support in Pittsburgh for the recent Supreme Court bid by Kevin Dougherty, brother of Philly union leader John Dougherty. Recently – and not coincidentally, according to some sources – Philadelphia’s trade unions and the city’s Democratic Committee launched a strong campaign to support the candidate from the other side of the state. “Everyone thought it was going to be Southeast vs. Southwest Pennsylvania,” Madonna said. “But how can you say that now, when Philly is organizing for Zappala? He looks like he has Philly wrapped up.” A recent Harper poll st ill showed Shapiro with a comfortable lead. However, Madonna said, it was unlikely that the average Democratic voter was familiar with any of the candidates, meaning that
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machine support could be critical for deciding the victor. “It’s relationships and contacts over the years that matter,” he said. “Shapiro’s lead is in question.” In yet another twist, John Fetterman, who is r u n n i ng for t he Democrat ic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, told Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Chris Brennan that long shot Democratic attorney general candidate John Morganelli, the Northampton district attorney, had also teamed up with Zappala. Shapiro later described Morganelli’s bid as “a kamikaze campaign” designed to knock him out of the race. Morganelli, a Democrat who has attended Tea Party rallies and espouses Trump-like views on immigration policy, staunchly denies any coordination. “I’m not going to blow $600,000 just to help somebody else,” he told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
JOHN MORGANELLI
U.S. SENATE UNFORTUNATELY, there appears to be less to say about Fetterman’s own political aspirations. The hulking mayor of Braddock, a depressed factory town outside of Pittsburgh, has made a name for himself in progressive circles as a kind of homegrown Bernie Sanders railing against inequality in the state. But a recent poll showed he had singledigit support statewide. “It’s a two-person race,” said Madonna, referring to Wolf’s former Chief of Staff Katie McGinty and former Congressman Joe Sestak. “McGinty is the establishment candidate. She’s got Wolf, Obama, Sen. Casey and the Democratic Senate Committee – and this is the second time they all passed on Sestak. She has money and you can see it in the commercials.”
JOHN FETTERMAN
KATIE MCGINTY
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JOE SESTAK
In a primary where the three candidates tend to agree on policy, Fetterman and Sestak have both trashed the ties McGinty, a former state environmental secretary, has to the state’s fracking lobby. The attacks may not be enough to offset the $1.1 million the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recently revealed it will pour into the final week of the race to push McGinty to victory. Madonna said not to count out Sestak – he’s led in nearly every poll of the race thus far. “The thing most people miss is that a guy named Joe Sestak denied McGinty the Democratic endorsement of the state committee. You need two-thirds support and she only got 53 percent,” he said. “She’s the party favorite, but Sestak manages to do quite well in the hinterland with Democratic leaders – he’s run a nonstop campaign across the
state for five solid years.” Madonna also said to expect an unprecedented flood of campaign money, as national Democrats try to find a path to reclaim five seats for control of the Senate. Twenty-four Senators are up for re-election, but only 10 races are truly competitive. Pennsylvania’s Senate race is already the fourth-most expensive in the United States this cycle, with more than $10 million spent to date. Toomey, who polls ahead of every Democratic challenger by 5 to 10 points, is nonetheless seen as one of a handful of somewhat vulnerable Senate Republicans. “This is going to be one of the most advertised-in, outside-interest-in, Super PACs-pouring money-in races of the 10 seats in the country that are up for grabs,” Madonna said. “Everybody understands the stakes; everybody understands how important this is.”
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 9
ART HALVORSON
BILL SHUSTER
THE REPUBLICAN Congressional primary in Western Pennsylvania has gotten ugly, thanks to Tea Party-esque mudslinging and accusations of very literal cozying up to special interests. Realtor Art Halvorson has taken aim at incumbent Bill Shuster through a series of negative ads that border on hysterics. He describes the congressman as “a cardcarrying member of the Washington cartel,” blaming Shuster in TV ads for everything from personally shipping jobs to China to single-handedly raising the national debt ceiling five times. But the attack that is the most personally cutting – and yet unassailable – centers on Shuster’s romantic involvement with prominent airline lobbyist Shelley Rubino. It’s the kind of mudslinging that might even be out-ofbounds – that is, if Shuster didn’t also chair a house transportation committee that approved a bill strongly pushed by
Rubino’s lobbying firm. The legislation would have, among other things, put air traffic control in the hands of an airlinefriendly entity, according to Politico. The national media attention is decidedly of the negative variety, but will it make enough of a difference to unseat the monied son of former Congressman Bud Shuster? “Halvorson got trounced when he ran against Shuster before,” said Madonna. “Shuster is a good constituent service guy, and I don’t know if Art can somehow generate enough movement to throw out an entrenched incumbent. Is there enough angst in the Republican base to say ‘It’s time to throw out all these Republicans?’” In other words: While Halvorson’s rhetoric may echo the Tea Party movement of years past, it doesn’t mean he’ll buck the more recent trend of insurgent conservatives’ declining fortunes in Congressional races.
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CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 8 ON E OF T H E most comp et it ive Congressional races in the nation is the contest to succeed popular Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in a wealthy, suburban district outside of Philadelphia – he is voluntarily resigning to underscore his support for term limits. But it’s also a race with some dramatic twists and turns. Democratic state Rep. Steve Santarsiero has gone from next-to-drop to frontrunner. Poor fundraising led to speculation that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and heavy hitters like former Gov. Ed Rendell were ready to force Santarsiero out of the race late last year in favor of chemist Shaughnessy Naughton. Santarsiero strenuously denied the rumors, which have faded as his war chest has grown. He has subsequently picked up nods from Wolf and the Bucks County Democratic Committee. The Republican side seems even more fractured. Fitzpatrick’s brother, FBI agent Brian Fitzpatrick, suddenly jumped into the race in January, forcing the early party favorite, state Rep. Scott Petri, to drop out. T he d it heri ng i n a d ist rict t hat is historically Republican, but has leaned left in recent years, leaves the general election up in the air. “Peter Kost mayer wa s t he old
SHAUGHNESSY NAUGHTON
cong ressma n i n t hat d i st r ict,” sa id former Inquirer political columnist Tom Ferrick. “When there was a good year for the Democrats, he won. When there was a bad year, he lost. And this could be a good year for the Democrats.” The elder Fitzpatrick has had similar fortunes – losing and later regaining his spot in Congress to Democrat Patrick Murphy. It’s not clear if his younger brother, a virtual unknown in the world of politics, can replicate those successes. “I don’t know what kind of campaign he’s running, but it’s a plus to have the same last name – and the Republicans have a good machine up there,” Ferrick said.
BRIAN FITZPATRICK
STEVE SANTARSIERO
STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 182 PHILADELPHIA’S DEMOCRATIC City Committee tends to value unity above all else, even if it means endorsing pols who are facing indictment – or worse. So it said a lot when the DCC passed on endorsing State Rep. Brian Sims, who represents parts of downtown Philadelphia. He faces unexpected opposition from a bevy of opponents: realtor Lou Lanni, attorney Marni Snyder and Ben Waxman, a
former aide to state Sen. Vince Hughes who picked up the DCC nod. A handsome, young lawmaker with a strong social media following and the distinction of being the first openly gay member of the statehouse, Sims’ current brawl is partially of his own making. The legislator took an abortive shot at U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah’s seat last year, summoning a score of Center City progressives to fill his shoes. But he
BRIAN SIMS
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called an audible in February, dropping out of the Congressional race to defend his state Senate seat. His most potent challenger is likely Waxman, chiefly because of his endorsements. Two ward leaders in his district turned against Sims; at least one of those wards has old ties to Babette Josephs, the long-serving representative Sims vanquished during a vicious campaign in 2012. But Ferrick, who resides in the district, said even ward endorsements might not be enough to unseat a publicly popular incumbent now that the political calculus has changed. “I always thought Waxman got into the race because Sims was going to run for Fattah’s seat, which made sense. But the rationale becomes less so because Sims dropped out of that race,” he explained.
“If there’s three candidates, generally, the rule is that the incumbent wins.” However, Sims has clearly felt some heat from his challengers, firing off a campaign email that falsely implied his district, which includes Center City’s Gayborhood, was under attack by “right-wing extremists” that oppose LGBT equality. While Sims was likely trying to gin up support by invoking a conservative boogeyman, the lack of one doesn’t necessarily hurt a progressive incumbent in a progressive district facing a slew of fairly similar progressive challengers. “You have to have a plausible reason to say, ‘I want to replace Brian Sims because…,’” Ferrick said. “But what do you say? ‘He’s too handsome?’ ‘Because I can do better?’ Sims is already an exponentially better legislator than Babette – and she served for 14 terms.”
BEN WAXMAN
STATE HOUSE DISTRICT 202
MARK B. COHEN
JARED SOLOMON
THE DCC ALSO broke with tradition in failing to endorse state Rep. Mark B. Cohen for re-election. The longest-serving state lawmaker, with a 38-year career in the statehouse, Cohen has committed no crime. Instead, his fall from endorsement grace seems to be the result of incidents like the time he charged taxpayers for $28,000 worth of books, the tens of thousands of dollars worth of per diems he has collected annually, and even his criminally long – 20,000 words and 311 citations – and dubiously objective Wikipedia page. Cohen narrowly survived a primary challenge from community organizer and political neophyte Jared Solomon during the last go-round in 2014. This
time, he may not be so lucky. “Solomon has run before, he’s a gogetter and a very aggressive candidate. It was a message last time to Cohen to really take his campaign and district seriously – and I don’t know if he listened,” said Ferrick. Ferrick added that high turnout from the presidential contest is always a wild card, and ward endorsements don’t automatically translate to victory. But things weren’t looking good for the incumbent, whose notable lack of energy sets him further apart from his sole challenger than the crowded field in the 182nd. “He has to be considered endangered, at least,” said Ferrick.
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TEN TITANS:
Coming May 2016 City & State PA magazine profiles the Keystone State’s most powerful behind the scenes players in Pennsylvania politics, detailing their influence and connections. If you have suggestions for who should be on the list, email Editor Greg Salisbury at gsalisbury@cityandstatepa.com.
Want to advertise in the issue? Email David Alpher at dalpher@cityandstatepa.com.
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