New Blood: Ah, The Ghosts of Scandals Past
New Blood: Ah, The Ghosts of Scandals Past
In the next of an occasional series profiling relative newcomers to the political process, two would-be reformers center the City Commissioner'southward office.
Dec. 14, 2018
It seems like, oh, lxx or eighty local political scandals ago, but it's actually only been a little less than three years since the Philly disgrace du jour was the case of the AWOL Metropolis Commissioner. It was one of those stories that, in its sheer brazenness, seems to only happen here, in the urban center once infamously referred to past journalist Lincoln Steffens equally "decadent and contented."
Just to refresh: Anthony Clark—elected to oversee our elections—didn't fifty-fifty vote (not even for himself!) and rarely showed up for work. He didn't have a computer, and wouldn't correspond with constituents or talk to the printing. Lacking shame, he boasted that he got into politics because he likes to "work smart but not difficult."
When he was made Chairman of the 3-person, $10.9 million Commissioner's office, his bacon was bumped to $138,612. In a stunning display of chutzpah, Clark gave the Inquirer photos of himself in Africa while essentially on the taxpayer dime. Then he decided to pile injury atop injury by filing for a $500,000 DROP windfall. (Drib, you'll recall, is the early retirement program never intended for elected officials.)
People rarely wax passionate nigh row offices, simply not then these two. Both nerd out on elections administration and law, which leads to a radical thought: Maybe i way we'll come up to love our government is to populate information technology with people who love governing.
Surely, fifty-fifty here, Clark'south unscrupulousness wouldn't stand, correct? The op-ed pages raised hell, and Committee of Seventy led a coalition calling for the abolishment of an elected elections board. (Nosotros partnered with them on a petition that called for just that.) Every bit products of the insular political ward system, the statement went, our commissioners are tasked with ensuring fair elections…at the aforementioned time many are part of local machine politics and fifty-fifty moonlight in support of candidates. No comparable city spends and so much to oversee elections; well-nigh run elections through a mayoral date without incident. In fact, making the mayor accountable for free and fair elections has proven to be a practiced—though not infallible—system elsewhere.
The coalition led past Committee of 70 and Philly iii.0 filed a lawsuit that would have been the kickoff step toward reforming the way we run elections—consistent with a patently reading of the City Lease—but the Pennsylvania Supreme Courtroom (no buoy of transparency there) shot it down.
And then that was that. A lot of u.s. (mea culpa) moved on to cover the city's next moral transgression or perp walk. (Looking at you, Seth Williams.) Until, that is, now. Because there's an election next year and there are indications that at to the lowest degree some among us haven't forgotten about the embarrassment that is our City Commissioner'south office.
Two young reformers have already announced their candidacies for the office. I caught up with both this calendar week, and doing so made me wonder if it wasn't, in retrospect, a good matter that the 70 lawsuit didn't get through. The best, fairest, and nigh lasting way to effect reform, after all, is through the ballot box. As well, at that place's this: People—even the most engaged amongst us—rarely wax passionate about row offices , just not so these two. Both nerd out on elections administration and law, which leads to a radical thought: Maybe ane mode we'll come to love our government is to populate it with people who beloved governing.
Both fence that the timing for them couldn't be better. Clark and the ii other Commissioners—Republican Al Schmidt and Democrat Lisa Deeley—are up for reelection next year. It'due south not clear that Clark is going to run again—it's said that he'south told people he won't. Either mode, with turnout adjacent year probable to be off the charts—thanks, Donald—we could run across Philadelphia bandage a resounding vote confronting the embarrassing politics of the way nosotros've always done things. Fresh claret? New ideas? In Philly?
Kahlil Williams and Jen Devor say, Why not? Williams is a 40-year-old, African-American attorney at Ballard Spahr with a long-held passion for Philly and voting rights. He got hooked on the intricacies of election law while a Penn political science PhD educatee, and then much so that Columbia Police force beckoned; he as well did stints at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Brennan Center for Justice. It fueled a passion for election reform.
"Voting is our most basic right," he says, "and I saw how the corruption of it could be used as a tool to miseducate and subjugate."
Williams argues that the eyes of the nation very well might be upon Pennsylvania and Philadelphia come the 2022 election—especially given a sure megalomaniac'south tendency to proclaim voter fraud where there is no evidence to suggest it exists. That, plus the presence of new voting machines, raises the stakes: We can't afford to be part of a narrative that casts doubts near the integrity of our voting system.
Especially in this town, passion and idealism without pragmatism has long turned potential leaders into besides-rans. These two reformers may have staying power, for both clearly see Philly for what it is—while imagining what information technology could be.
Williams, who lives in Fairmount with his married woman and their newborn babe, rattles off a reform calendar, and it includes lobbying at the state level for early voting, seeking to randomize ballot position for municipal elections, and creating curricula for center and high school students that trains a next generation in the skills of citizenship.
Like Williams, Jen Devor was thinking well-nigh running for Commissioner fifty-fifty before Clark'south embarrassing shenanigans. "When I saw that the Committee of 70 lawsuit wasn't going to go through, I decided I wouldn't sit back anymore," says the 34-year-onetime Point Breeze block captain, ward committeeperson, ballot poll worker and, for the last six plus years, the director of partnerships at Campus Philly—a gig she's giving upward in order to run full-fourth dimension.
Devor's groundwork is in marketing and communications, and she says she wants to turn the Commissioner'south office into a "public data agency." The city, she says, does a good job registering voters—but a poor task of getting the legions of registered voters who don't brand information technology to the polls to come out, considering we don't make voting piece of cake enough ("voting should be as easy as ordering @Wawa hoagie" she recently tweeted) and nosotros don't explicate the process. "I have a powerpoint that I present, and it includes a ballot breakdown that walks you through who you're voting for and why," she says. "People don't feel connected to candidates or the process and we accept to create materials that go them connected."
Like Williams, Devor has a long listing of items on her calendar, including shoring up election day operations and smoothing the transition to those new voting machines. And she says her life experience fuels her desire to brand a civic bear on. "I grew upwardly in New Jersey, raised by a single female parent, and I almost failed out of high school," she says. "I know what information technology's similar to not have the tools and resources to succeed. When it comes to voting, nosotros haven't given ourselves the tools and resource to succeed."
Despite their palpable passion, at that place'southward non a lot in the platform of either Devor or Williams that you can imagine fueling a popular uprising. Both have good ideas, though, and maybe that'south enough. In Philadelphia, after all, Commissioner candidates who see the office as a fashion to increase civic participation and who will actually show upward to piece of work (and vote themselves!) is what passes for reform.
Both Devor and Williams are sympathetic to the one populist thought that could capture the public imagination when information technology comes to the commissioner's race. Both concur when I suggest that row offices—which are authoritative in nature—ought not to exist elected. But neither volition go then far equally to run for the function on the platform of abolishing information technology. Both said roughly the same thing: This is the organisation we have for now, so it behooves us to govern as finer equally possible.
And, as much as you'd similar to see the costly office blown up, that's probably precisely the right answer: Talking to Devor and Williams, at that place is no shortage of passion and idealism. Merely, specially in this town, passion and idealism without pragmatism has long turned potential leaders into also-rans. These two reformers may take staying power, for both conspicuously encounter Philly for what information technology is—while imagining what it could be.
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/new-blood-ah-the-ghosts-of-scandals-past/
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