Law and Order

District Attorney Lynne Abraham kicked off her re-election campaign with a Nov. 16 fund-raiser at Chickie's and Pete's in South Philly. Abraham will seek a fifth term as the city's top prosecutor next year.

More than 200 supporters—many were former and current prosecutors in the DA's office—paid anywhere from $75 to $250 to attend.

"It was geared towards young attorneys and young people in the labor unions," said campaign manager Eleanor Dezzi. A $1,000-per-person event at the Prime Rib is planned for December.

Abraham will be hard to beat as a female Democratic incumbent with full party support.

Her last Democratic challenger was former City Commissioner Alex Talmadge, who received about 70,000 votes to Abraham's near 100,500 in a 2001 race that became nasty and racially divisive. Abraham is white and Talmadge is black, and some in the black community still resent Abraham for an episode concerning Common Pleas Court Judge Frederica Massiah-Jackson, who is also black. When Massiah-Jackson was considered for a federal judgeship in 2001, Abraham opposed her nomination because, she said, Massiah-Jackson was not tough enough on criminals in her court.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter had recommended Massiah-Jackson to President George W. Bush and had a good chance of winning Senate approval. But when that didn't pan out, Massiah-Jackson became President Judge of Common Pleas Court.

Next year, Abraham will likely face former Assistant District Attorney Seth Williams in the Democratic primary. Williams is black, but he wisely plans to avoid any racial undertones in his campaign.

Williams, 37, who left the DA's office last year to join the firm Zarwin, Baum, DeVito, Kaplan, Schaer & Toddy, had his own fund-raiser on Nov. 17 at McGillin's Old Ale House in Center City. Supporters paid anywhere from $75 to $250. A small cadre of former assistant DAs and other lawyers played host. Williams' supporters include Michael and Vincent DeFino and Joel Rosen, who successfully prosecuted the Ira Einhorn case.

Rosen did not attend that evening but confirmed he is supporting Williams. "Seth is what the office needs," said Rosen, now in private practice at Kessler, Cohen and Roth. "He has trial experience as an assistant DA and he has a lot of ideas and energy."

Williams, who once worked for Rosen when Rosen was the chief of the major trials unit under Abraham, said his vision is of a community-based system where the district attorney's office works with the community to identify what the problems are. He said he left his position with her because there was no room for advancement and the office lacked diversity, a charge with which Abraham might disagree.

In October, she hosted her 5th Annual Minority Prosecutors Recruitment Reception, which included 80 law students and prospective prosecutors. Students came from Penn, Temple, Widener and Rutgers to listen to and talk with established older prosecutors from the Asian-American Bar Association, the Barristers' Association, the Hispanic Bar Association, the National Black Prosecutors Association and current and former prosecutors from the DA's office, the attorney general's office and the U. S. Attorney's office.

Back at McGillin's, immigration attorney Ronald G. McNeil weighed his options.

"I decided to come and find out about Seth," said McNeil, who remains undecided. "Seth will have a tough time against Lynne Abraham. I heard they wanted to run her for mayor once."

Log Rolling

Log Cabin Republicans' Philadelphia chapter held its annual elections at the Warwick Hotel Nov. 17. Current president John Partain ran unopposed for a fourth term. Board member Donald Carter, who had considered leaving his position, said he was "swept back in again."

"I was re-energized by Arlen Specter," explained Carter.

He sees Specter, who was just re-elected, as the moderate centrist of the party who is a model for the new GOP regime.

"We are the party that values traditions, yet we must move in a direction that reflects the new progressive party," said Carter, one of a very small number of gay black Republicans in the city. "I think there may be three of us. Democrats take the gay black vote for granted."

Nationally, Log Cabin did not endorse Bush because of his strong opposition to same-sex marriage and his support of a constitutional amendment banning it. Gays and lesbians nationally suffered a blow in this past election after they lost every same-sex marriage ballot issue in 11 states. Many gay and lesbian voters supported gay-friendly Democrat John Kerry.

Partain said Log Cabin needs to stay the course, referring to a statement from Log Cabin National President Patrick Guerriero that read, "The gay and lesbian community needs to focus less on Washington, D.C., Hollywood and Manhattan and more on the American heartland and the South. Like it or not, Michael Moore, Bruce Springsteen and Rosie O'Donnell will never convince the Iowa farmer, the South Carolina veteran or the West Virginia coal miner to be on our side."

Said Partain, "Much more important than increasing attendance at all our organizations' expensive black-tie dinners is the work we should be doing hosting rural barbecues and town hall meetings for honest discussions with people who disagree with us."