Bob Moses was an important leader in SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which played a major role in the latter half of the Civil Rights movement. I had the great privilege of meeting him when I was in College. When he organized in deep Mississippi he said the first thing to do was to teach people that they deserve better then what they have.
He understood that thinking you deserve more, gives people a reason to fight for what’s right.
If I could do anything for Philadelphia, that would be it – make us believe we deserve better, and give us hope that we can attain it.
Recent debates on Philadelphia campaign finance laws are one more story of our broken politics – at several levels. We deserve better than the bill proposed by Councilman Kenny, which proposed huge increases in the caps on campaign contributions. We need to reduce the influence of money on government – not increase it. That’s why so many of us added our voices together to come out against this bill. (And by the way, special thanks to the Committee of Seventy and Rev. Jesse Brown for their work on this.)
But we also deserve politicians who will do more than barely maintain the status quo. We need to change our broken politics and the way politics is run in this city. And we need outside pressure on our politicians to make it happen.
A Starting Point
Today I announced that I would fully endorse the Committee of Seventy’s Ethics Agenda. That should be no surprise to most people, since I have partnered with the Committee of Seventy on many projects, including the charter change proposals that took the first steps towards ending pay to play and that established an independent Ethics Board.
Endorsing that agenda means I publicly commit to various basic ethics reform principles. One of those principles is to strengthen campaign finance reform, not weaken it. Others principles require politicians to combat nepotism in government, reduce shady business deals, eliminate loopholes that allow corporations to give gifts to officials, and make changes in government so it is more accessible to its citizens.
All of these are good principles and I honor the Committee of Seventy’s work and its earned respectability in getting so many candidates to agree to these principles. These are a good starting point to lay out the kind of politics we deserve.
A Bigger Vision
And from that starting point, I believe we also need to extend our vision. Just as stopping Councilman Kenny’s bill should be a no-brainer, so are many of the modest proposals by the Committee of Seventy.
I would like to put out a vision that extends beyond those in the Committee of Seventy’s Ethics Agenda. Here are seven ideas to extend beyond where we are:
First, in addition to instituting some system of public financing of our political campaigns, I think that reducing the impact of money on our elections will require new regulations on television advertising. I have proposed a number of ideas, free or low cost television advertising mandated by a revision of the city’s cable franchise agreement in addition to limitations on the amount of campaign advertising that can be accepted by any television station or cable company.
Second, in addition to regulations on public officials seeking future outside employment while still on the City’s payroll, I believe that City employees should be banned for two years from accepting employment with a business when that official has approved or supervised a city contracts with that business. And I believe that City Council members should not be allowed to accept employment with any business that has contracted with the city for four years after they leave office.
Third in addition to have fixed rules about when special elections should be called in case of a vacancy on City Council, I would amend the charter to either require primaries four weeks before the general election or non-partisan special elections in which every candidate runs as an independent and the political parties may not nominate any candidates.
Fourth, given that the budget is the blueprint for city government, all budget documents should be presented in a format that enables all citizens, including Council members, to understand how much money the city spends in each area of public policy and on every program run by each agency. These budget documents should include both the operating and capital budgets.
Fifth, to insure that Council has the right to timely, accurate, and honest information before enacting a budget, a new, non-partisan agency, independent of both Mayor and Council should be established to estimate the City revenues each year.
Sixth, I believe that the city should entirely do away with the practice of giving members of the Administration or Council free tickets in city-owned or managed facilities. I will, as I have done for the last ten years, buy my own tickets to the Sixers and sit in the stands and not in a private box.
Seventh, I will seek to create a non-partisan commission to investigate the composition of City Council. In particular I want to ask two questions: Is there still a need for some Council members to be elected at large? Some people argue that at-large members of Council do not act in ways that are perceptibly different from district council members. And, can we adequately represent all of the communities and neighborhoods in the city with only ten districts? Some people argue that this is impossible. I, myself, am not sure but believe that it is time to reexamine these issues.
None of these ideas will come to fruition unless we all roll up ourselves and get to work in forcing our politicians to adopt them. The real question is, do we really believe we deserve these things. Do we believe them so deeply at our core that we will stand up and fight for them?
I’ll tell you that I do, and I will stay in fight. I hope you will join me in my campaign, which won’t end after the elections but will continue the struggle even after I’m elected.
After all, we deserve better.