his vote related to a cable television franchise in this one contested area of the city.
Politically, ideologically, and temperamentally, Rafferty could not have been more different from Anderson. I was shocked and disillusioned by the decision. This was a hard, hard, lesson for me to learn, at twenty-six years old. The political decision making followed a calculus of narrow self-interest and short-term strategic horse trading that seemed so contrary to the impulses and spirit that Anderson embodied and that had drawn me into the political scene in the first place.
In any case it seemed that I was suddenly out of politics, because my guy had died and I had entered the business with him. He was my mentor and my political muse. He was why I had gotten into Philadelphia politics. Apparently my aspirations and ambitions for public office were over. So in January 1984, I went back to a friend of Councilman Anderson, Malcolmn Pryor, who owned an investment banking firm, got my Series 7 and Series 63 securities licenses, and began working in finance.
But then in the summer of 1984, a bizarre series of events indirectly drew me back in to politics. Another at-large city councilman, Al Pearlman, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He asked his ex-wife to bring his gun to the hospital—where he subsequently shot and killed himself. He was fifty-four. The Philadelphia Inquirer remembered Pearlman as a “self-made man with Rizzo’s tough style.” This shocking turn of events also had political consequences for Philadelphia: It created a vacancy in the city council at-large ranks.
After the cable TV–driven appointment of Anderson’s replacement, Mayor Goode had promised a friend of Councilman Anderson that if ever there were a vacancy during his term, he would make sure that he got appointed by the party. He kept his word, and Angel Ortiz became the Democratic nominee to fill the seat of the deceased councilman Pearlman. Ortiz and John had been very close friends, and Ortiz asked me to manage his special election campaign in the 1984 general election. I did so with the understanding that I’d probably only stay with him for about a year, because I had my plan to run for City Council in 1987 as Anderson and I had decided in 1983. So I was his chief of staff and legislative assistant. This is the unusual turn of events that brought me back into the political game, and I wasn’t leaving any time soon!
I left Councilman Ortiz toward the end of 1985 to go work on Ed Rendell’s election for governor in 1986, and to run for ward committee person. I won my first elected office in 1986, after losing in 1982 and 1984. I was back in the game!
Aren’t You on City Council? What Are You Going to Do About That?
I ran for City Council in 1987 according to the plan that I had developed with Councilman Anderson, against an incumbent named Ann Land. She’d been in office for about six years, and had been a member of Philadelphia’s Democratic establishment for some time. Earlier in her life she had campaigned for John F. Kennedy. I lost this election by 1,882 votes. Not that I think about it very much! It was a close race, and it was just the two of us. In this first race, in 1987, the Fourth District was majority white by 55 percent. But in the ensuing years it would be closer to a 50–50 split. During my first campaign I knocked on ten thousand doors. I introduced myself. I put my face on posters, and people wondered why I would do this in the eastern part of the district, which was overwhelmingly white. I explained that the Fourth District needed to know who I was, and voters there seemed to appreciate my honesty. In the 1987 campaign Roxborough was 95 percent white, and I got 17 percent of the vote. Four years later in 1991, I would get 34 percent, and in 1995, 64 percent of that vote.
I vowed on the night that I lost in 1987 to run again in four years. Meanwhile I went back to the investment banking firm where I’d been working. The firm’s owner had been a good friend of Councilman Anderson and appreciated my commitment to public service, but he would gently remind me that I could make a lot more money in investment banking. I worked there for three years, came back in the 1991 election, and won.
From the start, I planned to be a pretty active legislator. I had grown up through the City Council process, and I genuinely liked the council. When I joined I knew many of the members from my work with John Anderson, although not necessarily that well.
I had a tremendous team to support me while serving on the City Council. Debra Brown was the first person I asked to work in my City Council office. After I won the election, and not knowing Debra’s exact address, I went back to the block where I thought she lived and knocked on doors until I found her, and offered her a job. Unquestionably loyal, a tremendously hard worker, and a good person, she had a bird’s-eye view on all that happened, from the City Council to the mayor’s office. Debra is also special because she shares my daughter Olivia’s birthday! I first met Bobby Johnson because he was a longtime friend of John Anderson and his family, and based on that relationship and friendship he joined my council office, working mainly in the district office in Wynnefield, and then joining my mayoral administration. Bobby is just an all-around good man—low key, fun, highly reliable, and a good friend to many. Wadell Ridley’s daughter and my daughter attended daycare together, and we have been friends a long time, through many battles. Wadell was part of my office, and, along with Steve Jones, was involved in all of the political campaigns and activities. I turned to Arlene Petruzzelli when I was looking for someone to run my district office in the Twenty-First Ward, which includes Roxborough and Manayunk. The ward leader had recommended her, and Arlene was hard charging, funny, and down to earth—a wonderful and sweet woman, who died a number of years ago after retiring from my office. She worked tirelessly to help and serve anyone, at any time, until the work was done. Mary Turtle took Arlene’s place after she retired and moved to Florida, and was known for speaking her mind on behalf of constituents. She very effectively managed the often complicated relationships in this part of the city, with its numerous civic organizations, and also came on board for my mayoral administration.
The council president assigns members their budget, staff, and offices, so for this reason and many others it’s an enormously powerful role, at least in Philadelphia. Your budget, desk, and even the chance to have your office painted are all determined by the council president. Obviously, it behooved me to try to maintain a positive relationship with the president, but we had a rocky start. The City Council president, future mayor John Street, had supported my opponent during the election, so we had a straight and frank talk about that issue. I told him I hadn’t appreciated his support of my opponent; he told me he hadn’t appreciated some of my criticism of him during the campaign, and we left it at that. Political life goes on.
At the start of my first term I was already known to be pretty independent. I tried to get along with folks and not be unpleasant, but I had some strongly held views about certain things, and there was a limit to the amount that I was going to compromise on those views. On the one hand, nobody passes council legislation on their own. You need eight and sometimes eleven other members to make that happen, and friendships and relationships are vital to getting there. On the other hand, I didn’t go to city hall to be popular—I went there to get stuff done and make decisions.
Generally, if a fellow council member had supported me and asked for my support on legislation around which I didn’t have particularly strongly held beliefs, then I would be inclined to listen, and support the legislation if it made sense for my constituents. But on legislation that touched my strong or core beliefs, I let fellow council members know that I would make my decision early on about whether I was for or against the legislation. I would tell sponsors of the legislation that I supported, “You don’t need to waste time calling me anymore, because I’m for this.” And I would tell sponsors of the legislation that I opposed, “You don’t need to waste time calling me anymore, because I’m against this.”
So unless they devised something so incredible, so spectacular, like anything beyond what I could imagine, they were, truly, wasting their political time. We could have ten meetings, we could have one meeting, and the outcome would be the same.
Some other City Council members