(Photo credit: Jon Geeting) Inquirer reporters Jake Blumgart and Sean Walsh talked to outgoing Council President Darrell Clarke about one of the big themes of his tenure in office, which we also focused on in our last newsletter: the steady power shift from the Mayor toward District City Council members on land use and built-environment questions. "Clarke announced Feb. 23 that he is not seeking reelection, ending a 40-year career in City Hall, which includes almost a quarter-century on City Council, 12 of those years as the Council’s leader. The defining principle of Clarke’s tenure — empowering hyperlocal decision-making, often at the expense of citywide policy — could last long after he is gone. It can be seen in the ever greater latitude of district Council members to set rules specific to their territory — to the chagrin of those who argue that it creates a patchwork of rules that makes it harder to do everything from making streets safer to opening a new coffee shop. It also tends to privilege the loudest voices, which are usually those most opposed to change."   Continue reading

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been reporting on some of the horse-race news about Philadelphia’s 2023 elections, like who’s running for At-Large and District primaries, how much money everybody’s been raising, and what could happen in the general election.  Continue reading

With three Democratic At-Large members having resigned to run for Mayor, the At-Large City Council candidate field in 2023 was expected to be pretty crowded. So far, though, it doesn’t appear the race will be quite as crowded as it was in the 2019 cycle when there were just two open seats. The 2019 Democratic primary had attracted 30 At-Large candidates, while the 2015 primary—with just one open seat—featured 15 At-Large Democrats on the ballot.  Continue reading

(Chart: Lara Putnam) Pennsylvania Democratic voters turned out in surprising numbers for a midterm election last week, as we recapped in our last article, but the situation in Philadelphia was a lot more mixed. Jonathan Tannen at the Sixty-Six Wards blog published a preliminary review of the turnout situation in Philadelphia, noting that while Pennsylvania as a whole turned out at a higher rate than in 2018, Philadelphia’s turnout fell short of matching 2018, though it was higher than in 2014. Continue reading