Let me start by saying Neighborhoods Networks has a great slate of candidates to recommend in the Democratic Primary tomorrow. And here they are:

Kathryn Boockvar, Commonwealth Court, ballot # 102
Stephanie Singer, City Commissioner, ballot #169
Blondell Reynolds Brown, Council At-Large ballot # 179
Sherrie Cohen, Council At-Large, ballot # 180
Andy Toy, Council At-Large, ballot # 187
Jeff Hornstein, City Council, 1st District, ballot # 194
Maria Quinones Sanchez, 7th district, ballot #191
Greg Paulmier, 8th district, ballot #190

Kathryn Boockvar’s progressive cred is so outstanding, we endorsed her as soon as we heard of her candidacy. Please be sure to vote for her for Commonwealth Court. In the Council races, we endorsed candidates only after they submitted answers to a written questionnaire. We then posted their answers online for the world to examine. Finally, in the At-Large races, and in the 1st and 8th district where we have a significant membership, we polled our members and let majority rule. We think we did it the right way, and we’re proud of the endorsements our members came up with.

But I have to say, speaking for myself, that I’m particularly proud of three of NN’s endorsed Council candidates: Sherrie Cohen, Jeff Hornstein and Greg Paulmier.

I’m proud of them because they’re not intimidated by either corporate power or corporatist thinking. All of them are unabashedly in favor of progressive taxation. Sherrie Cohen was one of only two At-Large candidates at a recent forum who said, yes, workers should get time off to heal if they’re sick. She and Ralph Blakney were the only ones. I ask this: Why would a business want sick people to come to work? Who is going to benefit from that? How can the Chamber of Commerce be in favor of that? But we know that it is. Sherrie, however, said she supports mandatory, paid sick leave because it represents a “vision for a more just and equitable city.” Which, of course, it does, whatever the Chamber thinks.

In the 8th district, Greg Paulmier is the only candidate to have come out for public financing of election campaigns. He also said this in his answer to NN’s questionnaire on how to create more City jobs:

Require more guaranteed jobs for city residents up front from all companies and corporations, which receive City money PRIOR to receiving the City money. Hire first, receive grant or loan second.

Imagine that. Having the City ask businesses for something guaranteed in return for the City’s largesse, instead of just forking over big welfare checks to them. Someone somewhere will say, oh no, we can’t do that, that would create a bad “business climate.” And Greg would respond, I assume, yes we can do that. We must do that, I think he would say. It’s just common sense. We can’t just give our money away. Do we pay City workers first, and then just hope they come to work?

In the 1st District, Jeff Hornstein has confronted conventional thinking about the City’s Pension Fund, saying no, we don’t have to leave the $4 billion Pension Fund in the hands of Wall Street buccaneers. Wall Street is the destroyer of pension funds, City and State budgets and whole economies. Let’s invest some of the Fund in local, home grown businesses that provide jobs, and let’s recycle those dollars right here in our town. Let’s use the Fund to benefit Philadelphia families and also get a good return for the pensioners. And this is what Jeff said in his NN questionnaire about how to provide housing to our people. Essentially, stop treating it as a commodity for speculators:

I am a strong advocate for Community Land Trust legislation that would give community organizations the ability to acquire cityforever, essentially, so that they can be redeveloped into community assets rather than market commodities. This model works for parks, gardens, and urban farms, as well as housing.

These ideas are out of the box, or rather they’re out of the straitjacket that the Chamber of Commerce and its friends currently have City Hall wrapped in. Public policy can’t continue to be dominated by the demands of corporatists who pretend to care about the common welfare but who actually care only about their own bottom line. As progressives we rail daily about the fact that big corporations -- and their climate killing, job destroying and predatory investing policies – - are killing the poor and middle classes alike. But somehow here in Philadelphia many of us have adopted the mindset that every policy we adopt must be “business friendly,” meaning we do as we’re told by Comcast, Walmart. and Marriott. Well, progressives can’t fight that idea at the national level, and submit to it at the local level. It makes no moral, rational or political sense. Big capital here in Philly as well as everywhere else is looking out for itself, not for us.

Case in point: where are our business leaders on the education crisis that is threatening to destroy the next generation of our youth? If they cared about the economy of the City of Philadelphia, they’d be renting hundreds of buses to take us to Harrisburg to protest. They’d be supplying us all with camping gear to stay there until these crazy policies are reversed. They’d be dialing all their friends in high places – and they have many of them since they paid their way into office – to demand full funding of our schools.

Instead of that, they’re busy spending their political capital to demand that sick people come to work, no matter what.

To me, it’s important to know who will speak up and out to corporate privilege and power. And to elect these people to office, right now. Neighborhood Networks has an outstanding slate and I proudly back everyone on it. But for City Council, I’m especially proud to back Sherrie Cohen, Jeff Hornstein and Greg Paulmier. Please give them your vote. And tell all your friends.