I originally wrote this as a private letter to progressive activists in the middle of December, 2006. The point I make below about Philadelphia having an unified party and thus better government is something I’d like to explore in the future.
I know that lots of progressives are not terribly happy with Bob Brady at the moment. I’ve heard lots of complaints about how Jonathan Saidel was pushed out of the race pretty soon after he released an impressive paper about political reform.
For a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with my running at-large and with the sense among progressives that there is no one Mayoral candidate who embodies our hopes, I don’t intend to endorse any Mayoral candidates in 07. I don’t even know who I’m voting for. So, while I’m in this undecided state, I thought I would say something about Bob Brady and why I’m not convinced his being elected Mayor would be quite the disaster for the progressive movement many of you think.
First, I want to remind you of tensions within our movement between those who focus primarily on political reform and those who focus on social justice / labor issues. (My view all along has been that two parts of the progressive agenda can reinforce one another.) While many of us are concerned about Congressman Brady’s willingness to support some of the political reforms we seek, I am more confident about his support of our social justice agenda.
Congressman Brady’s voting record in the House has been consistently liberal on all issues and especially those that concern working people and the poor. While we have not heard him address these issues in the context of the city, I am hopeful that he will come out in favor of some of our ideas on, for example, affordable housing—including our inclusionary housing proposal, on protecting working people from rapid increases in property taxes, and on reforming the tax system in a progressive way rather than just cutting taxes, and on protecting city services. Perhaps he will even be supportive of some our economic development ideas, such as strengthening CDCs. I also expect him to be strong on labor issues. I have been talking with some folks from labor about how the city could require card check neutrality from all businesses that contract with the city and with people in the building trades about a responsible contractor ordinance that would strengthen labor’s hand in the building trades—and of course, part of this deal would be opening up the trades to more minorities. I would expect Congressman Brady to be supportive of these initiatives.
On the second part of our agenda, political reform, we may have more reasons to worry. While those of us who met with Congressman Brady found him charming, I think many of us were disappointed when he said that he didn’t have the power to open the party up in ways we would like.
However—and this is pretty speculative at the moment—I want to suggest two reasons why Congressman Brady as Mayor might be helpful to us. First, as Mayor and Democratic Party Chair he would have much more power than he does today. He would have more patronage under his control than any other Mayor or Party Chair in the history of the city. And so he would in a much better bargaining position with the various factions in the party.
Now you might wonder what good that is. To see the answer, compareChicagoandPhiladelphia.Chicagois a city controlled by a political machine. But it is a much better governed city than Philadelphia, in no small part because the Mayor is also Party Chair and has the power to control the worst tendencies of machine politics while keeping the good tendencies. A big part of the reason our government does not work well is that the party is so factionalized. Every faction is fighting just for its own piece of the pie with the result that the needs of the city as a whole are often unmet, and programs that might help the city as a whole don’t work well. A more disciplined party lead by a strong Mayor / Party Chair could keep these factional tendencies in line.
Let me give you a concrete example. I have been presenting a number of ideas for developing our commercial corridors. Yet if I were in city council, I would have had some reluctance to vote for the recent bond issue to provide funds for this. My fear is that spending on commercial corridors will be entirely under the control of district council members and that, as a result, much of the money will be wasted on politically connected and wasteful projects rather than going to supporting or creating strong CDCs that can actually make a difference. (This is what happened to NTI in many districts.) I would much rather have the money be allocated by a board appointed by the Mayor that evaluates projects in terms of their merit. I would think a Mayor Brady would be in a much far stronger political position to make this happen thanMayor Streethas been.
Finally, I think Congressman Brady does understand that politics inPhiladelphia, and the Democratic Party in particular, needs some renewal and that we can help with that. And maybe it will take someone who comes out of the party, and cares about its future, to make the changes it needs. Just as it took the hard line anti-communist Nixon to create diplomatic relations with China, it might take the leader of the party to reform it and the city.
This all might be a little, or perhaps a lot, too optimistic. And it is not an endorsement or an expression of my preference for Mayor. As I said, I’m not going to endorse anyone. (And I’m not going to work the polls on at my polling place on Election Day. I assume that Lou Agre is going to replace with someone who just hands out the ward ballot which will undoubtedly support Brady. But it won’t have my name on it.) I think you all know that I’ve worked closely with Dwight Evans in the last few years and have a great deal of respect for him. I don’t think there is anyone running for Mayor who understands urban economic development better than Dwight. And you also know that at Neighborhood Networks I’ve worked closely with Michael Nutter on his ethics reform proposals. Of all the Mayoral candidates I think he’s the one most likely to push forward our ideas on political reform. (But I don’t intend to endorse either Evans or Nutter either.)
I just want to suggest that since most of our organizations are unlikely to endorse any candidate for Mayor, let’s keep talking to all of them and try to encourage them to move in a more progressive direction on the two sets of issues that most concern us. My point in writing this is just to say we should be talking to Congressman Brady as well. We shouldn’t write him off because of recent events.