The Last Outraged Philadelphian

Mar. 26, 2019

This morning, State Representative Jared Solomon is holding a printing briefing in Harrisburg to announce a bill that would requite Pennsylvania voters the right to remove elected officials from office by circulating retrieve petitions—a power voters have, in one grade or another, in xix states.

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The impetus for Solomon'south proposal? There's some debate nigh that. The insider political and media class is looking askance at Solomon, trying to figure out his angle. Because everything in Philly politics is about something else, right? Some agenda? But when I caught up with Solomon a few days ago, it seemed pretty clear what is driving him: Skillful erstwhile-fashioned political outrage, the same emotion that prompted the 40-twelvemonth-old showtime term legislator from the Northeast to hold a press conference a couple of weeks agone calling for indicted Metropolis Councilman Bobby Henon to resign.

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"If you read that indictment, how can you not speak out and say this is not okay?" Solomon said, referring to the federal indictment of both Henon and Local 98's John Dougherty that lays out the myriad means the labor leader is declared to have weaponized the city councilman to serve his own private interests. "Yes, everyone is entitled to his day in court. Simply we have real challenges in the Northeast—increasing poverty, nutrient insecurity. At every one of my boondocks halls the number 1 complaint I get is just how filthy our metropolis is. How tin y'all non speak out when you lot read that indictment and see an elected official not focusing on those issues, only on serving the interests of one guy? Don't you accept to call that out?"

Which gets us to the recall idea. Solomon reels off a litany of contempo cases that have left voters with no say for months on end over bad actors who have profited off the taxpayer'due south dime or otherwise brought shame to their office, from Vanessa Lowery Brown to Brian Ellis to Chaka Fattah , back when the local Democratic party endorsed him for reelection afterward he'd been indicted. "We need to observe ways to render power to the people throughout the Commonwealth," Solomon says. "Voters no longer take the ability to say, 'What y'all've done is egregious and you lot no longer correspond our values.'"

Solomon's bill would meliorate the land constitution to permit lawmakers to craft recall legislation. Such an amendment would have to pass two successive legislative sessions in social club to be put earlier the voters in a statewide referendum. That'south not only a longshot, it's also a long fashion away; the voters will weigh in at the polls on Henon (who, shamefully, will run unopposed in May's primary) long earlier any remember action can be taken—in the unlikely upshot the enabling legislation even passes.

"It feels good when you lot're doing the correct thing," Jared Solomon says. "I sleep well at dark."

At present, If you lot're a big laic in Democracy, it's more often than not hard to contend for remedies beyond the election box. Duquesne University Law Professor Bruce Ledewitz told WHYY.com  that Solomon's is a "terrible idea" because, in these polarized times, such provisions become political weapons. He'southward right—in a perfect world. But in a corrupt, one-party town similar Philly, information technology'due south become pretty clear that business organisation-as-usual hasn't been cutting information technology.

There is no opposition party, and our cord of perp walks on the nightly news just serves to fuel voter cynicism and depress turnout. Besides, Solomon argues, in lodge to get on a statewide election, an subpoena petition would likely have to collect signatures totaling somewhere between one quarter and one tertiary of the state's voters. And that'southward just to become the question on the ballot for a vote. So: a ton of signatures followed by a vote…that actually sounds pretty Democratic, no?

That said, Solomon stresses that his proposal is bigger than just this latest outrage. Information technology'south non and then much most Bobby Henon as it is about doing something to stand up to an insider culture that simply accepts the allegations against Dougherty and Henon equally the price of doing business organisation in Philadelphia.

Expect Solomon to feel some blowback from the institution after today's presser. That'southward what happened after his before Metropolis Hall printing conference. Here at The Citizen, we ran his remarks in their entirety under the headline " Finally!!! " because, tellingly, no other elected official had stepped upwardly to say that, based on the indictment's allegations, Henon ought to do the correct affair and step down.

But, in both a sign of the power and breadth of the Philly Shrug and of the degree to which local insiders enable our bad actors, it was Solomon who came in for criticism. Pundits and colleagues told him he was committing political suicide past tangling with Local 98, and even local media took him to chore . Rather than seeing it every bit news that a public officer had defied our town'due south civilisation of omertà and chosen for 1 of his own to be held answerable, a more contemptuous and self-interested narrative took hold. By calling a printing conference in front of City Hall, the conventional wisdom went, Solomon led the political and media industrial complex to believe that he'd be challenging Henon. Solomon, the reporting implied, not only had manipulated the press in club to showboat, he was a hypocrite, also, given that he'd accustomed Local 98 donations in the past. Information technology may have been unwitting, just the upshot of this coverage was clear: In a classic case at the nexus of stenography and false equivalencies, the status quo was protected, rather than challenged.

A litany of contempo cases have left voters with no say for months on finish over bad actors who have brought shame to their office, from Vanessa Lowery Brownish to Brian Ellis to Chaka Fattah, back when the local Democratic party endorsed him for reelection after he'd been indicted.

"Look, I become that the press is obsessed with the horserace," Solomon told me. "Merely this obsession over who'south running, who'southward raised how much, who's upwardly, who'south down, is bad for Democracy. The people get this. In my District, when I called for Bobby to step downward, I got a ton of 'Attaboys' on the street. But from the Center City establishment? Silence."

So let's recap. Solomon calls for an indicted public official to exercise the right thing and stride down. The political consultants tell him there's no political border in it for him, and other electeds maintain their Monk-like vow of silence. And media calls into question his motives. I heard the whispers from Metropolis Hall insiders and reporters alike: What's Solomon upwardly to? Is he an amanuensis of mayoral wannabe Alan Butkovitz—also from the Northeast—or is he doing the bidding of the soda lobby?

Telling, isn't it, that never in the calculations is it fifty-fifty considered that maybe the nearly obvious scenario applies? That, crazy as it is to believe in such a transactional town, sometimes there really are leaders who take a principled stand now and again.

Solomon stresses that his proposal is not then much near Bobby Henon equally it is almost doing something to stand upwardly to an insider civilisation that simply accepts the allegations confronting Dougherty and Henon equally the toll of doing business in Philadelphia.

"I've got to tell yous, when I first read the indictment and no i was saying annihilation well-nigh it," Solomon says, "you begin to question whether y'all're crazy. Am I reading this indictment correctly? What am I missing here?"

The more he stewed over it, the more Solomon realized why the code of silence was and then deafening. "I kept asking myself, 'Why are there not 50 electeds jumping up and down and screaming almost this scandal?'" he said. "And we know why. We've known for a long fourth dimension that the key to winning elections is money and manpower, and that Local 98 delivers both in a real way. That's why, when I ran against the longest-serving state rep in the legislature, everyone said you should have a relationship with Doc. And I did. And I took his money. A lot of us had heard about his tough tactics, but nosotros looked the other way. He could provide coin and manpower, and he did practiced in the metropolis, likewise. So we could look away. But after I read the indictment, I couldn't look the other way anymore, considering there's a human toll to corruption. There's all these bully things happening in Philadelphia—our sports teams are even winning—but nosotros'll never accept that terminal stride toward being great if we don't clean all this up and restore trust to our politics."

Solomon knows he is in for a fight, now. This, sadly, is what a contour in courage looks like in modern-day Philadelphia, someone who has the temerity to phone call for an indicted politician to step downwardly and who proposes Democratic fixes for a cleaved Commonwealth. The central question will be: Will Solomon's constituents have his back? Few local pols concur more town halls and fewer still focus and so intently on constituent service. Solomon knows his audience, and he knows what they want. They tell him at his town halls: Cleaner and safer streets, fewer potholes.

But politics used to be about more than than just a quality of life improvement here, a corner drug bust in that location. Information technology also used to be about persuading constituents to care nearly something big. Something like Democracy itself. Solomon knows his District considering it'south where he was born and bred, it's in his bones, and he'south cyberbanking on his voters sharing his values, and seeing, as he does, that corruption actually does adversely bear on their lives, draining resources and talent that would otherwise be invested in solving their problems.

Local 98 has (ludicrously) demanded that Solomon return to the matrimony its by donations, and has even preposterously threatened to sue the lawmaker. ("I'grand non certain what they're going to sue me for," Solomon told the Inquirer. "Non being their puppet?") All of which, of class, gives ascent to a couple of thoughts.

First, what does Local 98'due south reaction to Solomon's criticism of Henon say about why the union'south leadership donates in the offset identify? Seems like they believe they were paying for a certain, non-critical indicate of view from him, doesn't it?

Second, it's pretty clear that Local 98 will exist gunning for Solomon in this year's election. Union mouthpiece Frank Keel has said as much. But Solomon draws a critical distinction, between what he sees as decadent wedlock leadership and its rank and file. "If, as Democrats, we actually value hard working people and the dignity of their work, how can nosotros be okay with their hard-earned dues going to support and enrich one individual?" he asks.

Different Johnny Physician, Jared Solomon speaks slowly. He'southward methodical, not given to red-faced rants and the vocabulary of political score-settling. But it may be that he's tougher than he seems. It'southward a toughness born not of bombast but the moral high ground. Talking to him, he sounds eager for a fight…and at peace, something you can't help but wish for so many other local pols whose fingers are so decorated testing the political winds. "It feels good when you lot're doing the right thing," Jared Solomon says. "I sleep well at nighttime."

Photo via PA House

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-last-outraged-philadelphian/

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