In Philadelphia, there is going to be a special "election" for Michael Nutter's vacated City Council seat this fall (Nutter is running for Mayor). I put "election" in quotes, because if you are not from Philadelphia, you are probably unaware that in this case, "election" actually means 66 ward leaders will determine who fills the seat. Form Young Philly Politics:For those who do not know, if a special election is called, the Democratic Ward Leaders makes an "endorsement." I keep putting endorsement inside of quotes, because it is a misnomer. Their "endorsement" means that their candidate of choice goes on to the ballot as the Democrat. Which means, in all of the special elections, the candidate who will be elected who will be the machine backed, insider, who will promptly try and entrench themselves with the power of incumbency. This is fundamentally an undemocratic process, and will lead to City Council potentially getting worse in 2007, not better. Instead of allowing members of the Democratic Party in Nutter's district determine who will represent them in City Council, the Ward Leaders get to decide. Granted, one of those leaders will be our new leader in Ward 27, Carol Jenkins, after we spent a year in an agonizing process to recall our previous Ward leader who was making endorsements without consulting the ward, not showing up for meetings, and not distributing election day material. However, I don't care if the people voting to replace Butter were Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa. The point isn't whether the people voting to make the replacement are good people or not. The point is that in a democracy, all of the voters should have a chance to vote for who represents them. That is not the case in Philadelphia. Instead, an old system of patronage, which is quite akin to a feudal system of loyalty, determines who becomes the next "representative" of an area of the city rather than the voters.

Now, tell me if you see anything wrong in these two quotes from an article on the woman the Ward Leaders are certain to chose, Carol Campbell:

After the meeting, Campbell held forth from a table at the front end of the hall, which had been specially set up for her. With talk radio host Mary Mason seated behind her, nodding and patting her on the back, Campbell argued that media coverage questioning her record, while leaving Greenlee and Savage alone, was racist.

"It's fine when you see two Caucasian men ascend to the seats through the process, but the one African-American woman is not right," Campbell said. There are two problems with this. First, I don't know anyone in the reform movement who is supportive of anyone simply being placed on City Council by the Ward leaders without a vote of Democrats throughout the city. The idea that reformers are somehow only opposed to Campbell being awarded a seat without a vote is completely bogus. Secondly, Campbell publicly defends the machine process that ignores the will of the voters in the city (emphasis in original):More interesting than the favors, though, is the particular perspective that Campbell's experience and tenure have given her on machine politics: namely, that she believes in them.

"She's old-school," says Snyder. "She makes no apologies for her way of getting things done ... on balance, she's helped, over the years, thousands of people."

When, this past May, a slate of young people, many of them former Howard Dean supporters, tried to get involved in local politics by running for committee seats, Campbell told the Public Record that the party should "battle bloggers on their own turf." She saw it as essential not to bring new Democrats into the fold (many committee seats go unfilled), but to protect what she calls "the last big [political] machine in the country."

To Campbell, this is how government is supposed to work. This is the twisted world of Democratic politics in which Philadelphia operates: people who want to see democratic elections and the will of the voters replace the machine system of patronage are racist and/or sexist because the machine engages in a form of patronage affirmative action. Apparently, as long as the machine does a good job of making sure its patronage and favors are doled out to different genders and ethnicities in the city in proportion to the demographic breakdown of the city, then anyone who would rather see actual elections is somehow anti-progressive. That is just plain bullshit.

The patronage system is closer to feudalism than it is to democracy. If people are rewarded with privilege, including elected office, because they have acted in a manner loyal to people with greater influence rather than taking their case to the voters, then we are not living in a democracy. This is the sort of political system that massively deflates activist participation and an infusion of new blood into the political process. This is a system that also greatly reduces voter turnout, because people know beforehand that their votes don't matter. And thus Pennsylvania hasn't election a US Senator to a full-term since 1962. This isn't even to mention how damaging a political system like this is to a city in terms of attracting new business or running competent public services. And of, course, no one is going to move to your city then, and your crime level will skyrocket as poverty and urban blight increase, and your ability to do anything about it suffers. And it is difficult for anyone to see City Hall having much authority when it comes to stopping crime in Philadelphia anyway, since their patronage system often leads to corruption that is itself criminal.

The patronage system does not help anyone outside of the patronage system. Even worse, it actively works against people who are outside of the patronage system. It is a huge drag on my beloved city, and a lot of locals have banded to together to try and bring positive reform. I don't know if Michael Nutter is the answer to this problem, but he does at seem willing to listen to the reforms, and I have heard a lot of anti-patronage stuff in his speeches and listening sessions. At some point, the Philadelphia Democratic Party is going to have to realize that they are better off allowing their membership determine who leads the party and how, rather than only the one or two thousand people inside the patronage system. The city is not their oligarchical fiefdom. One of the great advantages and strengths of democratic forms of government is that they are willing to invest, trust and support the potential of nearly everyone who is governed under said structure. Right now, Philadelphia, like many authoritarian forms of government, thinks it is perfectly fine to only invest in a couple thousand of its 1.5M (and still slowly dropping) citizens.

But, remember, if you oppose this system you are a racist, because the system of patronage employs a type of affirmative action. No wonder I am not feeling the same sense of excitement about this campaign season that I felt in the recent past.