As one who believes in inclusive politics, I would urge caution in cutting the size of City Council or eliminating Republican seats there. Currently, having three Republicans out of 17, or 17.7% of City Council, is a lot closer to the Republican percentage of voter registration--about 14%--than is having one out of 15 Republicans--or 6.7% of the total.

Further, the Republican hold on the 10th Distict is tenuous, as Brendan Boyle is likely to replace George Kenney as the incumbent in the 170th District and Dennis O'Brien continues to act as a bipartisan leader rather than as a Republican partisan. Even continued Republican dominance of John Perzel's state house district is by no means assured as the Democratic registration gains there continue rapidly and Perzel faces an opponent with a track record very appealing to many blue collar Democrats and retired police and fire personnel.

When Democrats take the 10th District, the Republicans will be down to 2 out of 17 members, 12.2% of the Council membership, even lower than their current all time low percentage of voter registration.

The current charter does stop anyone else from organizing an independent slate to contest the Republican hold on the two minority seats; the lower the Republican percentage sinks, the greater the incentive will be to organize such a slate.

Trying to eliminate the at-large Republicans by charter change runs the risk of making martyrs out of them and actually strengthening their position in city politics. Other suggestions to reduce the number of council at large members have been made from time to time and gotten no where as a significant number of citizens rally to save their favorite council people.

The Republican Party has power at the state level that it does not have at the city level. I would worry that the taking away of the two Republican council members at large would lead to new Republican attempts to take powers away from the City of Philadelphia and the City Council, as happened when the charter was amended to consolidate power in the Mayor of Philadelphia and the Republicans responded by having a state takeover of the school system.

I would be greatly surprised if 12 votes could be obtained in City Council to get rid of the Republican at-large councilmembers, and I think this is a fight not worth waging. I tend to agree with the old adage that if there is no clear reason to make a change, that is reason not to make a change.

Doesn't the charter guarantee that no single party can have every seat (reserving two)? If so, doesn't that mean, conceivably, that a Republican or another non-Democratic party (Green Party, Libertarian Party, Charles Bowser's Philadelphia Party) can win those seats?

to run for one of the two set-aside, City Council at-large seats as the standard bearer for the New Philadelphia Party. Our platform's main focus is on mitigating the Great Recession through an immediate, city-wide freeze on beer prices.

Aside from two at-large's retiring and not having a change in number since 1951, what, excactly, is the purpose in reducing the number of folks on council?

An alternate reform that would empower progressives of the more independent variety as opposed to either Dem or Rep ward leaders if we going to be monkeying with City Charter for no good reason - eliminate party affiliations entirely for City Council. Make it non-partisan, local row offices as well.

Lots and lots municipalities make their City Council offices non-partisan. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are non-partisan, the world does not end. Harvey Milk, for example, served the people of San Francisco under no party affiliation whatsoever when he was assasinated.

Just something to think about.

This proposed charter change seems petty and vindictive without a strong argument in its favor as to how it will serve Philadelphia voters better.

-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.

What about re-drawing the borders of the councilmanic districts? Specifically, could we seen these redrawn so that they make some sort of sense as neighborhood borders?

-Z

I wonder -- what exactly is the raison d'etre of at-large council representatives without some guarantee of minority representation? Is it simply to have extra council votes for progressive positions? If that's the case, why don't we recarve our districts to convert all of our representatives to district representatives?

As it stands, each councilperson has to serve a very large district -- in the case of the at-large representatives, the entire city -- which makes it difficult for challengers to raise money and cover the entire district, and in many cases to serve all constituents equally. Most if not all councilpersons have a "base" within each council district -- usually their local ward -- whose interests are often in conflict with those of the remainder of his/her constituents. Councilpeople who don't explicitly favor one ward over another instead resort to a balancing act, usually relying on the wealthier parts of their wards for fundraising while seeking to run up the vote in the poorer wards.

I think more representatives with smaller districts would make councilpersons more responsive to the whole of their districts, make primary and GE challenges to antiprogressive incumbents more feasible, and would force city council to address some of the conflicts deliberatively, within council itself, rather than relying on the individual councilmembers to try to strike the necessary balance.

I understand that there is a concern that no council district be too homogeneous, whether economically or racially. There is also a concern that it would reinforce divisions in neighborhoods rather than helping to alleviate them. But I don't think anyone can seriously argue that the present configuration of council is the optimal one to address these problems. Instead, it's fostered one cycle of bitter primary challenges after another, where these divisions are made to blister rather than heal.

I would be much happier with something closer to a Chicago-style alderman system, where more neighborhoods had more representatives, where councilmembers needed to forge coalitions in order to push through legislation, and where constituent services could actually be a greater part of what councilmembers could and were able to do. Admittedly, this might reduce some of the power of individual councilmembers, but I think that on the whole it would strengthen the council and strengthen democratic governance in Philadelphia.

Namely the presidential race.

But my point was there are progressive voters in CC who are loyal Dems and probably don't ever vote for any Republicans at large who still would question the wisdom of this charter change who have benefited from Rizzo's attentiveness to parking permit issues specifically, who can think of in other words a specific instance where the charter's inclusion of minority party interests have benfitted them directly in a concrete way. They might not vote for Rizzo but they may resent your attempt to make his seat obsolete (whether the R in that seat in the future is him or not). I know several such people.

And with that I am done. Do what you want, I just wouldn't expect your charter change to be well recieved by either the Inky or DN editorial boards unless you can come up with a better argument than you have presented here. That's all.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.