It took the world premier of RIZZO by
playwright Bruce Graham to get me interested in the city’s November elections.
The timing, as they say, couldn’t have been better. In this excellent although
somewhat one dimensional play, where the focus is mainly on Rizzo’s
relationship with the African American community, I could see that the city has
come a long way since Lincoln Steffens made the following observation in his
1903 essay, Philadelphia: Corrupt and Contented:
“…But many Philadelphians do not try to vote. They leave everything to the
machine, and the machine casts their ballots for them…”
Most voters, if they are honest, would agree that there’s something
off-putting about ballot questions. Consider the placement of ballot questions:
they are listed last or on the margins alongside the printed slate of
candidates. Voters usually vote for ballot questions after voting for the
candidates. The ‘post script’ placement of ballot questions after the so called
regular voting is not always conducive to making a thoughtful decision,
especially if a voter is reading the ballot questions in the voting booth for
the first time. Adequate preparation is
key to making a good decision when it comes to these ‘yes’ or ‘no’ votes.
As a voter I have bypassed some ballot questions in the past. My
rationalizations for doing so were not always good. A few supercilious
examples: Not wanting to spend too much time in the voting booth, or feeling
that the ballot question that needed an up or down vote just didn’t seem important
enough to consider. This apathetic feeling is sometimes enhanced during
mid-term elections when there are no dramatic issues or candidates that offer
inspiration. When you consider that ‘off season’ elections rarely even inspire
people to vote, much less vote on ballot questions, you have an additional
problem. Even the so called big elections, such as November 3rd, do
not generate a standing room only situation at most polling places.
I have noticed, for instance, that the polling
places in the Riverwards never seem to be overrun with voters. I vote at the
firehouse at Huntingdon and Aramingo, and can report with some accuracy that
for the last several years the firehouse is pretty much empty when I go there
to vote. There may be one or two fire personnel hanging around but other than
the poll watchers the place is pretty much empty. Even after I say hello to the
poll watchers (who are often neighbors), sign in and vote, I usually leave
without seeing any other voter checking in. The last time I saw a line at any polling
place was sometime in the 1990s.
Unlike political candidates, ballot questions have no flair and zero
personality, but they do have one thing: lasting implications that extend far
beyond the political life of any one candidate.
Let’s consider the year in the city’s history where one ballot question
drove people to the polls in drives. The
year was 1978 when City Council, under pressure by then Mayor Frank Rizzo,
placed a Home Charter Change referendum on the ballot that would give the green
light for Rizzo to run for a third term in 1979. Philadelphians voted almost
two to one against the change, and the mayor was forced to consider another
career (he went to work for PGW and then he entered talk radio). Rizzo would have to wait until 1989 before running
for mayor again as a Republican. In 1989, Rizzo was slightly more liberal than he
was in 1978. Experts, in fact, agree that he probably would have won that election
had he not died of a massive stroke in the washroom of his campaign
headquarters.
The best way to understand ballot questions is to take a look at the
Home Charter Rule.
The Home Charter Rule was adopted on April 17, 1951 as a way to break with the city’s corrupt
past. It’s hard to imagine today but for 36 years (1916 to 1952) the city was
controlled by a strong Republican machine. This was broken by the election of
Joseph Clark as mayor in 1952. Only a siematic earthquake or an as yet unforeseen
political event will ever return the city to the Republican Party.
As
the Committee of Seventy explains it, the Home Charter Rule was an attempt to
break with patterns of chronic misgovernment.
“The framers of that document carefully sought to reverse the systemic
political corruption and repeated failure of then-existing financial controls
to promote economic stability,” the Committee stated.
Many ballot questions of the recent past have more to do with bureaucratic
shuffles than the implementation of something new and radical. In 2014, for
instance, one ballot question concerned whether or not the Home Rule Charter
should be amended to “establish and define the functions of the Office of
Sustainability, headed by a Director of Sustainability.”
A second 2014 ballot question
proposed that the city’s prison system be streamlined with the creation of a
new Department of Prisons headed by a Prisons Commissioner who could appoint
his/her own deputies. The idea was to replace the cumbersome two-prong
leadership of the Board of Trustees of Philadelphia’s Prisons and the
Department of Public Welfare. This proposal was not about building new prisons
but about the economy of streamlining. The current Prisons Commissioner is Lou
Gioria.
In the May 2015 election all four ballot
questions were approved by voters. Perhaps the most important May ballot
approved by voters then was the transfer of control of the city’s public
schools from the state and turning it over to the city, where most feel it
belongs. Pennsylvania Philadelphia
But like everything in politics, the vote
against the SRC doesn’t necessarily mean the end of it anytime soon. As City
Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell told the The Inquirer in May, “The vote to abolish the
SRC won't elicit any immediate action,…This gives us a chance to talk about it
with the governor," Blackwell also added that," People feel they need
a more-connected board, possibly including relatives of students in the
district.”
I’m uncertain as to the wisdom of “including
relatives of students in the district.” Anyone who knows a public school
teacher knows how parents can meddle in school affairs. Some hornet’s nests should
be avoided.
One question
on the November 3rd ballot is whether the Home Rule Charter should
be amended “to establish and define the functions of the Office of Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) affairs. Currently, this is a temporary
office in City Hall, first created by Mayor Michael Nutter in 2008 when he
appointed Gloria Casarez Director of LGBT Affairs. Ms. Casarez’s death in 2014
led to the appointment of Nellie Fitzpatrick. The Office will not become
permanent if voters do not approve the ballot question although the next mayor,
most certainly Jim Kenney, will reinstate the Office once again as a temporary
one during the run of his term(s). An interesting fact about this ballot
question is that it is the first time that a public vote or referendum on a gay
rights related topic has ever been presented to the voters of the City of Philadelphia
The second ballot question asks whether the
Home Rule Charter should be amended to create a new Department of Planning and
Development, headed by a Cabinet-level Director. If approved, the measure would
also put the Historical Commission in the Charter and create a new Housing
Advisory Board. The City Planning
Commission, Historical Commission, Art Commission,Zoning Board of Adjustment
and the Housing Advisory Board would be added to the newDepartment.
Here we
have bureaucratic shuffling at its most complicated, yet it seems like intelligent
streamlining.
Some
thoughts on this ballot question:
·
If approved the new Director of Planning and Development would be
a member of the Mayor’s Cabinet. The Department would have three divisions:
Development Services, Planning and Zoning, and Housing and Community
Development
·
There would also be changes
to several city boards and commissions, namely, two new members added to the
Planning Commission, and the Historical Commission would be included in the
Home Rule Charter. The Director of Planning and Development would replace the
Director of Housing as a member of the Historical Commission. The Housing
Advisory Board would be created, consisting of 12 members.
The last
question on the ballot: Should the City of Philadelphia
