The response to our letter on Brett Mandel has been predictable, and for the most part good. Many progressives who have shared our qualms about Brett have come out and taken a public position. And many of those progressives who support Brett have denounced us for joining a “ward leader, party hack” who is backed by Bob Brady and John Dougherty.
To the larger first group I say thanks and I encourage you keep getting the word out. Share our letter via email and Facebook. Join the Progressives against Mandel group on Facebook.
The second group, I want to suggest you take this episode as a learning experience about politics.
First, politics is about coalition building. It’s about getting people together in support of legislation or a candidate who might not agree on other matters.
People don’t wear black hats and white hats in politics. With very few exceptions, all political hats are in shades of grey. And politicians change hats frequently. A big part of politics is getting a group of people with different tastes in hats to put the same one on for a moment or two. It’s about bringing people together in support of a particular issue or candidate even if they don’t agree on anything else.
People who are complaining now that Bob Brady and John Dougherty and ward leaders support Alan Butkovitiz have happily welcomed Brady and Doc and ward leaders on their sides at other times. When I was working for health care reform, Bob Brady and IBEW were some of our strongest supporters. Does anyone think I have should turned away from their support because I disagree with them on other issues?
If you understand that politics is about coalition building then you don’t borrow Joe McCarthy’s tactics and attack people who have been on the frontlines of progressive advocacy, in some case for decades, because they are allied in support of a candidate who is backed by people you disagree with.
Second, there is no sin in being a ward leader or working with them.
A central theme of Brett’s campaign is that the party machine and the ward leaders are all corrupt party hacks. Now, I’ve had my differences with Bob Brady and ward leaders at times. I’d probably be a State Representative today if Brady hadn’t intervened in my race in 2004. But since then I’ve worked with Brady and many ward leaders as well. The notion that there is a corrupt Philadelphia political machine that runs the city and always oppose good political candidates is at least fifty years out of date in at least three respects.
First, the machine is not united and Bob Brady doesn’t tell it what to do though he has more influence than any other single person. We have a factionalized and divided ward structure and Bob Brady is constrained by his need to work among those various factions.
Second, the machine often backs progressive candidates. Progressives who talk about our great progressive city leaders seem to forget where they came from. Ed Schwartz was a ward leader and had the support of many ward leaders when he won a seat on Council. Happy Fernandez would not have won without the support of former ward leader Buddy Cianfrani who helped her build support in the wards. David Cohen was a ward leader who had the support of others. Bill Greenlee, a former President of ADA and one of the most progressive leaders on Council today is a ward leader. And even Michael Nutter was a ward leader whose political career owed a great deal to one of the most powerful ward leaders, Carol Campbell. And if you look at his voting record, Bob Brady is one of the most progressive members of Congress on every possible issue.
Third, the machine is not the source of corruption in the city. With very few exceptions, committee people and ward leaders don’t make more than their expenses in the run up to Election Day. And with few exceptions, ward leaders don’t endorse candidates because they get money to do so. Money changes hands, but it almost all goes out into the field.
“Progressives” who complain about middle aged working class people getting $100 on Election Day don’t complain when candidates pay young kids right out of college a lot more to work on campaigns, let alone when they spend millions on TV ads.
Third, politics is always about have and have nots and we progressives need to be on the right side in the conflict between them.
Over the last twenty years or so, Republicans in Washington and Harrisburg, backed by very wealthy business people, have been trying and succeeding in undermining the living standards of working people. One of their key strategies is to let inflation make the minimum wage irrelevant and to fight efforts to improve labor health and safety standards. Another is to undermine labor organizing by tilting labor law against unions. A third is to undermine the public sector and public sector unions. The goal of the second and third tactics is both to reduce wages and undermine the political power of labor unions. A fourth is to reduce taxes. And, a fifth is to keep subsidizing business with government largesse.
These same struggles are being played out in Philadelphia. There are powerful forces in the city trying to undermine public schools, close libraries, reduce health care services, cut fire and emergency services and cut business and wage taxes without regard for their impact on all of these public goods. They are also trying to break the building trades which keep wages up for Philadelphia workers.[1]
Brett Mandel has been indifferent to some of these struggles at the city and state level. And on taxes, he has led the way for the wrong side.
Fourth politics is about meeting people at least half way.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that we oppose Brett. Most of us did so four years ago, and for the very same reasons. And no one is entitled to support in politics. If Brett really wanted the support of progressives who care about social justice as well as good government, he would have tried to earn it. He might have moderated his position on taxes. (For years I’ve pointed to ways we can reduce the part of the BPT that stifles development without reducing all of it or making our tax system more regressive.) He might have presented a broader agenda for economic development that includes something other than tax cuts. (I’ve described what that looks like, too.) He might have helped create a statewide movement to repeal the uniformity clause. He might have stood with us against closing libraries or schools. He might have supported instead of opposing raising city taxes to pay for schools last year. He might have joined some of our rallies against Tom Corbett’s awful policies.
He didn’t do any of that. He assumed that because he is for transparent, honest and efficient government, as are we, we would ignore the important policy differences we have with him on economic development, tax, and labor issues. He assumed that we would oppose Alan Butkovitz just because he is a ward leader.
That was the wrong assumption four years ago when I encouraged Brett to take a little different road to office. And no one should be surprised that it’s the wrong assumption now. Brett has never really tried to win the support of progressives like us. No one should be offended that we don’t support him now.
Fifth, people who support honesty and transparency in government should campaign that way.
The more I hear about the Mandel campaign, the more disappointed I get. It’s not just the TV ad that is terribly misleading. And it’s not just the fliers that are also misleading. (I got a new one today. Every scandal is blamed on Butkovitz even if he was the one who revealed it. Does anyone really think that an audit can prevent someone from stealing money from the city as opposed to revealing it? Does Mandel think that donning the cape of the Controller gives one X-ray vision?) It’s also the vague claims about corruption Brett makes in debates combined with the blog posts and emails of his followers who are making wild charges with no evidence. And they haven’t just been directed at Butkovitz. When Michael Williams was in the race, he also faced a series of wild, unsubstantiated and false charges aimed to force him from the race.
The Choice
Alan Butkovitz is not perfect. And some of the people who signed the letter against Mandel might vote for Mark Zecca who has a great record in the City Law Department. Butkovitz, however, has done a good job at the central tasks of the Controller as I’ve documented elsewhere and, on the central battles between rich and poor in this city and state, he has more often than not been our side.
[1] And let me just say three things about those who claim that the high wage of the building trades hurt the city. First, blue collar wages provide much of the buying power that keeps the city going. Reducing those wage won’t help but rather will hurt the city. Second, if it is a problem—and I think the it is far from clear just how great the problem is—there is a much better solution than undermining wages. Moving to a Land Value Tax would eliminate the problem. Indeed we have evidence of this is the construction that took place after we partially adopted a LVT with the ten year tax abatement. However the ten year abatement is a less comprehensive and fair way of accomplishing what LVT would do. Third, Mandel and his friends have for years promised that when we reduce wage and business taxes, property values would rise dramatically. But this would, on the one hand, create a disincentive to further development that would more than cancel out any the reduced wages received by the building trades. And, on the other, it would create a great deal of wealth on the part of those who already own commercial properties. In other words, while the politico-economic strategy favored by Mandel and friends may be sold as a benefit the city as a whole, it will definitely transfer wealth and income from working people, including those in the building trades, to the rich. It’s time we focus on economic development strategies that don’t make rich people richer.