City Council members are once again trying to modify Philadelphia’s opt-out policy, which requires elected officials and city employees to leave their jobs when running for public office.
Voters have twice rejected repealsin 2007 and 2014, but the council member sponsoring the novel effort said he hoped it would gain more support this time, in part by significantly narrowing the scope of the change.
Instead of completely ending the 74-year-old rule, council member Isaiah Thomas said he wants to eliminate it only for city officials who run for state and federal positions.
The waiver requirement would remain for city employees and officials seeking city office, such as mayor, council member, district attorney and city commissioner.
Thomas cited the current race for a uncommon open seat in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District as an example of why change is needed. While the U.S. House race has a full slate of 11 declared candidates, including three state legislators, none of them are city officials.
“When you talk about representing Philadelphia, whether at the state or federal level, we should always put ourselves in a position where we can have the best and the brightest,” he said Wednesday.
“I’m not saying that the people running in the 3rd District are not good. There are definitely some very good candidates in this race, but I also have some amazing colleagues on the City Council, as well as in rank and file offices, who have the potential and the skills to represent Philadelphia and do it at a very, very high level if they get the opportunity to run,” he said.
Changing this rule will require voters to approve a city charter amendment at a future election. The council’s Law and Government Committee is due to discuss two bills to start the process next week.
Full reform missing?
Thomas’ proposal immediately drew criticism, both from those who say it would harm election integrity and others who say it doesn’t go far enough.
The latter group includes the good government group the Committee of Seventy. It has supported rescinding the election in the past, and its president and CEO, Lauren Cristella, said Wednesday that the group still believes the policy has many flaws, “including depriving voters of representation in special elections and weakening institutional knowledge when multiple officials resign at the same time.”
However, the organization does not support Thomas’ proposal because it is not a complete reform package that includes term limits for elected officials, it said. Currently, the only term limit in Philadelphia is a maximum of two four-year mayoral terms.
“Exchanging money [the rule] only for non-communal races it serves political interests and not the public interest. Philadelphians deserve comprehensive, not piecemeal, reform,” Cristella said. Any change to the law “should strengthen, not weaken, public trust in city government.”
Matt Wolfe, an election lawyer and Republican precinct leader in West Philadelphia, also criticized Thomas’ proposal, saying it was watered down “in order to preserve Philadelphia’s ruling cabal.”
“They don’t want to get involved in civil wars,” such as having too many Democratic council members running for mayor at the same time, he said.
Cristella also noted that the provision was introduced in the 1950s to prevent incumbents from using public resources to pursue their political ambitions, and said that state-of-the-art ethics and campaign finance rules have already addressed many of these concerns.
Fighting the pay-to-play culture
Wolfe, who ran for City Council in 2019, said there are many good reasons to stand by his current decision to resign from his position. First, it remains an crucial way to prevent officials and employees from obtaining municipal salaries while they spend most of their time trying to obtain another position.
“You shouldn’t be accepting taxpayer money because you don’t do your job, you stop being a public servant and you focus your time, effort and energy on that,” he said. “Being a candidate for another public office should not be at our expense.”
Supporters of the current rule also note that candidates for state office can accept unlimited campaign contributions, unlike candidates for local office in Philadelphia.
This contribution can be used to influence a candidate holding an crucial position in the municipality – for example, mayor – and undermine the city’s efforts they claim this is to prevent pay-to-play corruption.
“If you asked for the public confidence to hold public office, that should be your focus. You shouldn’t use it as a stepping stone,” Wolfe said. “An incumbent in Philadelphia who can raise unlimited amounts of money to run for something else can use that to increase name recognition and other things to improve his chances of getting hired for a local office in the future.”
He said he supports expanding the waivers to include state elected officials and putting more officials under term limits.
A high price for running for mayor
The Home Rule Charter was adopted in 1951 to curb the deep-seated political corruption that had been the norm in Philadelphia for much of the city’s history. It included a novel opt-out policy that applies to all city employees and elected officials, except those seeking re-election to their current position.
“This requirement is imposed because an officer or employee running for elected office may exercise undue influence and intimidate employees under his supervision and may neglect official duties in the interest of his candidacy,” the statute reads.
This rule usually has a major impact when the mayor is nearing the end of his second term and is barred from running again, creating an open race.
For example, in 2023, council members Allan Domb, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Derek Green and city treasurer Rebecca Rhynhart resigned from running for mayor, which appears to have effectively ended their entire political careers except for that of Parker, the winner of the race.
Critics of the provision cite several reasons why it should be repealed or modified. Some, like Thomas, say it undermines Philadelphia’s political clout because it makes it harder for local residents to get higher-ranking jobs compared to elected officials in other parts of Pennsylvania, who don’t have to leave one job to pursue another.
In a city where officials rarely lose re-election bids and upset victories are uncommon, the rule encourages politicians to stay in office for multiple terms rather than try to move on, which has a domino effect of discouraging political newcomers from running for local office, critics note.
By forcing elected officials and staff to resign, opting out of candidacy also creates a grave financial disincentive to running for higher office and discriminates against the less wealthy According to some supporters of its elimination, potential candidates, for example clerks, who are the only breadwinners in their families.
Find out what voters want
Thomas originally wanted to repeal the rule entirely when he introduced his bills a year ago, but on Wednesday he said he would only change them to affect elected officials running for non-city offices.
He made the change in part to allay concerns that a complete repeal would allow a person to appear on the ballot twice — for example, if a council member was running for reelection and mayor at the same time.
“The potential opens up for someone to run for At-Large City Council and also run for a county seat, and also for someone to, I don’t know, run for city commissioner and register of wills,” Thomas said. “We don’t want this to get to the point where it becomes confusing for voters and too much of an advantage for candidates with big money.”
Votes to change the city’s charter almost always win voter approval, but opposition to abolishing the waiver of candidacy was so sturdy that it repeatedly broke this trend. In 2007, 55% of voters opposed repealing the provision, and in 2014 this figure was 54%.
“Philadelphians have made it clear that eliminating opt-outs is not the type of reform they want; voters have rejected it twice,” Cristella said. “If the City Council is grave about reconsidering this issue, it should do so in parallel with real accountability measures like term limits, as former Council President stated [Darrell] Clarke proposed in 2020“
But by refusing to change the rules for running for high-profile positions like mayor and district attorney, Thomas’ novel proposal could avoid stoking voter opposition. The concrete example of the District 3 race could also motivate them to support change, he added.
