JUNE 16, 2021 • PHILLYFREEPRESS.COM • UCREVIEW.COM • 3
What we learned from the May Review 18 Philadelphia Democratic Primary Elections (Part 1) UNIVERSITY
By Christopher Doyle Contributing Writer
T
he recent Democratic primaries in Philadelphia drew national attention for its headline result – the landslide victory of progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner over veteran prosecutor Carlos Vega. Overlooked were the down-ballot judicial races, the work of local ward leaders, and the growth of progressive activist groups – things that are all making their own impressions on criminal justice and city politics. The May 18 Philadelphia Democratic Primary Elections featured, in addition to the district attorney contest, races to nominate candidates for a total of 15 vacancies between two local courts and three statewide courts. (There was also a race to nominate a candidate for city controller, in which incumbent Rebecca Rhynhart was running unopposed.) Primary candidates, especially those for local judicial races, rely on the support of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. That support can come from either the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, the central governing body of the city party, or from a share of Philadelphia’s 66 wards – political subdivisions in which local, partisan ward committees can choose to issue their own endorsements, separate from that of the city committee. Republican primary candidates likewise depend on endorsements from the Republican City Committee and GOP ward committees. Gregory Benjamin is the Democratic leader of the 51st Ward in Southwest Philadelphia and a minister at the Church of Christian Compassion on 61st and Cedar Avenue. Benjamin said that he worked to keep voters and ward committee people informed through canvassing and
Zoom meetings with the candidates – taking a more virtual approach than in years past due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that pivot towards online forums helped make information about the candidates more accessible to some residents. “I’m one of those ward leaders that really believes in community engagement, my involvement with this process is not just prior to the primary or prior to the general, my involvement is year-round,” Benjamin said. “And so, I’m constantly trying to figure out ways to educate our people and get the information out.” When reaching out to the community, Benjamin said he worked to convince residents of the importance of the 2021 primaries, emphasizing the impact that judges have on people’s everyday lives. “This was the most important election of the four election cycles that takes place over a fouryear period,” Benjamin said. “This is about your judges, these are about the people who are local, who really have an impact.” “President is important, don’t get me wrong,” Benjamin added. “But that judge that can make a decision over you, you got a better chance of seeing that judge than seeing that president.” Carol Jenkins, the Democratic Leader of the 27th Ward in University City, said that her ward also held Zoom meetings with the candidates, due to the pandemic. But with COVID-19 cases in the city receding due to the vaccination campaign, 27th Ward voters seemed eager to get out to the polls for the in-person election day experience. “A lot of people were coming in and they had intended to vote by mail, because they were used to voting the last two cycles by
mail, but then when the pandemic started to be alleviated with the vaccinations, they changed their mind,” Jenkins said. “Some states have [all] mail in, and they love mail in, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be loved in Philadelphia.” Overall, however, Jenkins did not find voters to be especially enthusiastic about the year’s races, outside of that for district attorney. “They maybe got a little bit more enthused when it looked like Vega was getting some traction and they started to panic that Krasner might lose,” Jenkins said about voters in the ward. “But I don’t know if that translated into enthusiasm.” Jenkins said she was pleased with the slate of candidates that the party had endorsed through the city committee. She noted that all the committee -endorsed candidates for the Common Pleas Court were either “recommended” or “highly recommended” by the Bar Association of Philadelphia – something that is required to receive an endorsement from the 27th Ward. Two of the three committeeendorsed candidates for Municipal Court were also Bar-recommended. “I think there has been more media attention, I think social media attention has also increased knowledge about people being endorsed or not endorsed by the Bar,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s the voters’ change, that they are being made aware of Bar recommendations and highly recommended judges and I think that has influenced the results that we’re seeing, especially in this cycle.” Benjamin said that he was also satisfied with the qualification of the committee’s slate of candidates. He added that he was encouraged to see the committee endorse a large number of Black candidates. (Five of the 11 candidates the committee endorsed for local
races were Black, as were three of the four candidates that the committee endorsed in statewide races.) While the city committee and wards remain an important source of support for primary candidates, local, leftwing organizations have been playing a larger role in recent elections. The last five years have been marked by the success of progressive candidates not backed by the city committee, including Democratic City Councilmember-at-large Helen Gym in 2015 and Councilmember-at-large Kendra Brooks – who is a member of the Working Families Party and in 2019 won one of council’s two at-large seats reserved for parties in the minority. Reclaim Philadelphia, which was founded in 2016 by former staffers of the first presidential campaign of democraticsocialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), has been one of the more influential of the city’s left-wing groups. Over the past five years, Reclaim has supported a number of progressive candidates, including Brooks and Krasner. One Reclaim member, Rick Krajewski, even ousted longtime incumbent Jim Roebuck in the 2020 Democratic primary to represent part of West Philadelphia in the Pennsylvania state House. (Benjamin also ran in that primary, finishing in third.) Sergio Cea, a member of Reclaim and a Democratic committee person in the 46th Ward, said that Reclaim members canvassed around the city and phone banked in support of their candidates, who are recommended by the Reclaim steering committee and voted on by Reclaim’s dues-paying members. Cea said that Reclaim focused on building relationships with residents he said are left out of conventional city politics and said that the group’s reach was particularly
deep in West Philadelphia. “We had a citywide approach to the election, but we did a lot of canvasing and phone banking throughout West Philadelphia and Southwest,” Cea said. “A lot of our membership base is really strong in these areas already, and that’s been growing ever since we first got involved with Larry Krasner, and then supported in the primary last year Rick Krajewski.” “People kind of already know us in these areas, and people already kind of look to us when it comes to our endorsement, specifically when it comes to candidates like judges where people don’t have as much information,” Cea added. Reclaim is part of the Judicial Accountability Table, or JAT – a coalition of political and civil rights groups focused on promoting progressive judicial candidates in Philadelphia and holding sitting judges accountable. Cea said he was excited to see the success of what he believed was a progressive slate of potential judges win nominations, and said the results forecasted future reform of the criminal justice system. “People are looking for that when it comes to their judges,” Cea said. “They know it’s not just on the district attorney, judges play a huge role when it comes to people who are impacted by the carceral state, and [considering] the freedoms that we can lose when we’re in front of a judge, we want [judges] to be more reflective of the community.” “What I’m more invested in is getting people to pay more attention to these races every year and to start thinking more critically about these candidates,” Cea added. Of the local judicial races, there were 16 Democratic candidates running for eight open seats on the Philadelphia
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Court of Common Pleas, which hears general criminal and civil trials; and four Democratic candidates running for three open seats on the Philadelphia Municipal Court, which hears landlord-tenant cases, small claims in civil cases no greater than $12,000, real-estate and tax cases where the amount in dispute is no greater than $15,000, and criminal cases in which charges carry a maximum prison sentence of no greater than five years. Philadelphians could vote for as many candidates in each race as there were open continued on page 9
