From the Editors: To run for office, City Council members should quit their day jobs

‘Resign to run’ is the only thing Philly does better than the rest of the country. Of course, the career politicians in City Council want to change it.

For the fourth time in 20 years, City Council is trying to repeal the rule that requires city politicians to resign their jobs if they want to run for another public office. The voters are required to approve any change to Philadelphia’s charter, and in the past they have often — wisely — rejected attempts by city council to remove the reform-minded provisions that restrict their behavior in office. 

But not always, and less so lately. Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who has sponsored previous attempts to undo this provision, thinks that this time may be different. He may be right.

Philadelphia’s City Charter was enacted at the high tide of civic reform in the city, following 70 years of unbroken and increasingly corrupt domination of city politics by the Republican Party machine. The corruption was so deep and so pervasive that reform-minded Republicans and independents joined with the much weaker Democratic Party apparatus to win elections and submit a good government charter to the voters in 1951. They were led by a wide collection of local notables, including the Committee of Seventy, which had long advocated honest government in Philadelphia.

The new charter passed overwhelmingly. And Democrats, once in power, immediately schemed to repeal the good-government parts of it. Just three years later, in 1954, machine Democrats split from their reformist allies to force a council vote on removing some of the civil service rules in the charter — an attempt to return to the system where party loyalists got city jobs regardless of their qualifications. 

The machine and its charter-wreckers lost that battle, but the plans to rip up the charter never stopped. Mayor Frank Rizzo attempted to get his term limits repealed, and failed by 100,000 votes. The Republican machine, by then, had been dethroned for a quarter-century, but the Democratic machine had become the same thing, having jettisoned their old reformist, independent allies once they saw they could win elections without them. But there still remained enough good-government supporters in the city that attempts to shred the Charter failed at the ballot box.

Is this still the case? While attempts to repeal resign-to-run have failed as recently as 2014, other changes to the charter have shown that the reform spirit of Joseph Clark and Richardson Dilworth is dying, if not dead already. Just four years ago, voters agreed to let Council remove the most important civil service protections in the document: the “rule of two.” The rule required that would-be city workers take a civil service exam and the government can select from between the top two qualifiers on the list. Now, the exam is still required, but the bosses can pick from any number of applicants, rendering it useless.

The Committee of Seventy backed that change, somewhat surprisingly, likely because it was sold as a diversity measure and it was 2021. This time, they’re not opposed to ripping up the resign-to-run rule, but they’re not enthusiastic. According to the Inquirer, Lauren Cristella, Committee of Seventy’s CEO, “questioned the urgency and said Council should give the Board of Ethics time to do its ‘due diligence.’”

We also question the urgency, but we also question the entire idea.

City Councilmembers are elected to do a job and are paid an average of $158,949 a year (plus other perks) to do it. Is it too much to ask that they do that job for 40 hours a week and not be out campaigning for a new one? 

Those advocating the change might suggest that it is common to look for a new job when you already have one – most adults have done this from time to time. But there is a difference between taking a personal day to go to an interview and leaving for six months to campaign and fundraise. The former happens every day in the business world. The latter would get you fired.

Philadelphia’s government continues to decline into the pre-reform level of corruption and machine rule. Resign-to-run is one of the last vestiges of the reform spirit that once imagined something better for our city.