Staff Blog
Should Philly eliminate its Republicans?
 |
| The Greatest Philly Republican of them all |
On the same day that the national Republican Party staged its big to-do and vowed to take the country back from itself, Councilman Wilson Goode announced a plan to essentially eliminate Republican representation in Philly. Two of the three current Republican council members hold "at-large" seats; there are seven such seats, and two of them are reserved for a minority party. Goode is proposing to reduce the overall number of at-large seats to five, and to eliminate the minority-party provision. With Dems in the city outnumbering Republicans so badly, this could very well annihilate the GOP.
Does this make sense?
The rationale for the minority-provision is that it's a safeguard against one-party rule, which, in theory (and probably in practice!) breeds corruption. But I can think of some points against it, too. For one thing, this system isn't really little-d democratic — we're not talking about proportional representation here, we're talking about set-asides, and at a certain point you want to say that if a Republican can't beat a Democrat in an election, why should he get a seat?
What's more, while a Republican presence provides a healthy opposition in theory, in practice it doesn't really work that way. As a Republican insider once told Tom Namako, "the Republican party is the largest Democratic ward in the city." Frankly, Jack Kelly hasn't had the most eventful council career. And while I wouldn't want to write that about Frank Rizzo or Brian O'Neil without doing the research, I can't think of any instances when Philly Republicans curbed Democratic excess. Can you?
Finally, and perhaps most important, Council is too big. The 17-member set-up was designed for a bigger city. And council members cost money — of which we don't have a lot. Of course, Catherine Lucey says Zack Stalberg says this ain't gonna happen. But maybe it's not a terrible idea.
The problem isn’t that Council is too big. It is that we spend too much on it.
For real City Council reform, they should eliminate all At-Large seats and up the amount of district seats to about 50.
Then, cut salary to about $10,000 or $20,000 a year (currently they make over $100K each) and make it a real part time position.
It will lower costs, make districts smaller, lower the cost of entry for people to be able to challenge incumbents and spreads the power amongst more people, instead of a few.
[...] for a minority party, as Philly (this is the same stipulation that Councilman Wilson Goode is trying to do away with). In the current DC election, however:the GOP primary winner is going to face a challenge from a [...]