According to the Philadelphia City Commissioners, just over 300,000 people voted in the election last week, out of just over one million registered voters. A turnout rate of 28.5%. The headlines are, once again, digesting the somewhat intriguing but not essentially different results this time around, but the message is arguably just the opposite – more of the same indifference, more of the same meh. Mayor Kenney, who remains admirably consistent in being disliked by all parties, received 230,000 votes. An increase of about 30,000 from the election four years ago, but I think we can safely attribute this turnout in part to an (at least!) growing population – we have gained roughly 10,000-20,000 people if my rough estimates of Census data are right – as well as the much-discussed wave of discontent generated by federal shenanigans. But the story of this swell covers the fact that the next four years of Kenney were brought about by barely 23% of the city – this is not a wave of enthusiasm.
Brexit has thankfully diminished in international headlines now that the Brits have at last opted for an election one month from tomorrow. But many of the latest rounds of criticism, beginning from Johnson’s capture of the premiership, rested on the undemocratic manner in which 65 million people were being steered by the votes of 160,000 members of the Conservative Party. Johnson won almost twice as many ballots as the next place contender, which at best gave him around 105,000 votes – that is, 0.17% of the country elected the man who at least for a time would run it. The volume of Brexit analysis makes it clear this analysis is shallow at best and ignores other parts of the machinery of government, as well as all that came before to set the stage for this event, but I think the idea is the same – critical issues became remote from regular people. For Philadelphia, we are dealing only with a local level election, and 23% is worlds away from 0.17%, but I think the idea holds. We feel remote from government, and despite the supposedly “populist” bandwagoning in the Democratic Party, differing verses from the opposing sides of the party in Philadelphia still lead to the same chorus – mediocrity. Only having 0.17% of voters choose a leader seems outright undemocratic, but only 28% of potential voters choosing to exercise their right suggests to me a real lack of belief in change.
And why should they? It’s a one-party state, and not even a well-functioning one like Singapore. The Democratic machine continues to be well-oiled, but it’s a machine like the steam engines we used to built here – powerful, even elegant in its way, but in the wrong century. While the party elders mutter about discipline in the midst of a third-party candidate, they don’t give a thought to denouncing a federally indicted Councilmember – in fact, they endorse him. Predictions around the next mayor make mention of the Northwest Coalition and in the same breath mention the centrality of former-Congressman and current-convict Chaka Fattah. Tax abatements and gentrification crop up again and again, even though the additional taxes repealing the abatement would raise would lift the budget by less than $100 million a year from a budget in excess of $3 billion, while recent Federal Reserve papers on gentrification put paid to any notion that it deserves to be demonized as some kind of new “red line” policy. Perhaps Philadelphia’s inability to pass its own laws is, in part, responsible for the endless repetition of ideas and laws our leaders would like to enact but the state’s forest of pre-emption laws prohibit. If we could raise our own minimum wage or property tax, or indeed find other ways to implement policy that diverged more strongly from that which the state allows, things might be different. Alas for the egalitarianism of Quakers!
Pennsylvania Constitution, Article VIII
§ 1. Uniformity of taxation.
All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects,
within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax,
and shall be levied and collected under general laws.
Perhaps the repetitious sloganeering is no different than the to-and-fro pacing of large animals behind the bars at a zoo – trapped as they are, that’s the closest they can come to meaningful movement and action. Something is better than nothing.
And yet I can’t help but feel that there is too much willingness to settle. I support many of the ideals behind the headlines, but I also rebel at dishonestly hiding behind platforms that simply can’t become reality. There’s nothing wrong with stating an ideal, but hiding behind it is the sort of political cowardice that gets us nowhere. Admit that, as much as the School District of Philadelphia deserves more funding, Harrisburg controls half the budget and refuses to budget on a per pupil basis for the state’s basic education subsidy. Admit that gentrification is used to scare people unnecessarily, and give more resources to L&I and urban planning resources to ensure equitable development without arbitrarily deciding who gets to live where. Stop talking about a static poverty rate and, if you can’t do anything on education, at least overhaul the tax system to make it easier to start and grow companies in Philadelphia, because jobs are the best way out of poverty. Stop bowing down to unions and do what’s best for all of us, not just those who have a collective bargaining agreement. (On which topic, I believe many of the contracts are up for renewal next year – I don’t know how substantial any negotiations are expected to be, but something worth watching.)
So, four more years of meh. I’ll be watching with, if not bated breath, hopefully at least no sighs of exasperation.
smq.world 