The redistricting following the 2000 Census in Philadelphia was a drawn out and bitter affair, but to the outside observer, it was somewhat difficult to understand why.
City Council was about five months past the deadline imposed by the City Charter (see related article outlining the process). As a result, Council members went unpaid while the dispute dragged on, as required by the Charter. It took three tries to get a plan that was acceptable to the Mayor, who held the balance of power since Council itself was too split to override his vetoes, a process that requires a 12-member majority of the 17-member council.
At issue, however, were the most minor of details, such as whether the Seventh District, which mostly covers the Frankford neighborhood, would be 44 percent Latino or 42.8 percent, a statistically insignificant difference, or how much of Center City should be shifted to a new district.
It should come as no surprise that there was more to it than that.
What dragged the process to a near halt was, in fact, a proxy battle between Council President Anna C. Verna and Mayor John Street, then a popular mayor in his first term, before the fundraising scandals that hobbled his administration in his second term. It dragged in friends and supporters of State Sen. Vince Fumo, the now-disgraced former legislator who at the time was at the height of his power and was no friend of Street.
In the mix were bitter divisions over Street's plan to combat blight in poor neighborhoods, a signature bill for his Administration, and the preliminary jockeying over the proposed 2003 budget. The warfare colored debate over a number of other proposals as well, including lifting residency requirements for city jobs and a measure to control unruly crowds during holidays such as Mardi Gras. The fighting exposed a complex series of alliances and disagreements among Council members and city power brokers, including Fumo and union boss John Dougherty. The debate grew so emotional that one council member threatened to throw another out the window during a council session.
The process didn't start out so messy.
Verna's staff worked out a plan over the summer of 2001 and it sailed through on a vote of 15-2, a convincing, veto-proof majority.
Unfortunately for Verna, however, the two dissenters happened to be close political allies of the Mayor - Rick Mariano, an ally of the city's unions, which were instrumental in electing Street, and Darrell Clarke, Street's former chief of staff.
Verna's plan would have shifted large sections of Center City, a booming area of development, from Clarke's district to Verna's poorer district to the south. The move could have cost Clarke not only longtime constituents, but access to wealthy and powerful developers and residents who could help fund his campaigns.
Mariano, meanwhile, would have lost portions of his North Philadelphia district to Frank DiCicco, a critic of Street and a political ally of Fumo. The original plan would have changed Mariano's district to dilute the growing Latino population in the area, a proposal that led local Latino activists to threaten a lawsuit.
"It just appears this proposal was developed with almost exclusively political reasons in mind and not fairness to voters in neighborhoods of interest," Rafael Collazo, of the Philadelphia branch of the United States Latino Leadership Institute, told the Philadelphia Inquirer shortly before the vote.
To nobody's surprise, Street vetoed the bill, but what happened next did come as a surprise. He exercised his muscle as Mayor, and a former councilman, to peel off five members who had supported the original plan. Council voted 10-7 to override the veto, a majority to be sure, but two short of the supermajority necessary to force the plan into effect over the Mayor's objection.
The vote was widely seen as a symbol of Street's political skill and a failure of leadership by Verna.
"We clearly sent [Street] a message that he can do whatever he wants," Council Member James Kenney, who voted to override the mayor's veto, said in the Inquirer. "That is a dangerous thing. He's got a lot of power to begin with."
Verna tried again, but she was unable to satisfy Clarke and Mariano, who still complained that the plan took away too much of their traditional constituencies. Just like the first version, the bill passed 15-2 when it came up in December. In the meantime, Council has fallen behind schedule and the city began withholding their paychecks, as required by the Charter.
Street waited until after the New Year to veto the new plan, forcing Council members to do without their salaries during the Christmas holiday. It appeared to be a calculated move to punish Council members, who were holding up the Mayor's blight reduction plan, demanding greater oversight of the money spent on the initiative. Street retaliated by vetoing some Council initiatives, including a plan to remove residency restrictions for city workers.
He denied, however, that he was using the bills, including redistricting, as a political tool.
"Politics has its place but should never undermine the good of the city," he said in remarks before Council.
At this point, with members bitterly divided and reportedly relying on savings and credit cards to pay their bills, Verna's grip on the Council appeared to falter. A group of nine members coalesced behind a plan floated by Clarke and Mariano but opposed by Verna. They used a procedural maneuver to force Verna to schedule a hearing on the rival plan - a move that provoked yelling in the Council Chamber and brought legislative business to a halt.
Finally, in early February, Council voted 10-7 to support the Clarke and Mariano proposal, which was seen as a major victory for Street and his allies at the expense of Verna, DiCicco and Sen. Fumo.
"I don't think the issue was as much about the bill as it was about the Mayor's continued desire - and he's been successful now - to control Council," Council Member Kenney told the Inquirer after Street signed the plan the following week.
Interestingly, the man who will be mayor during the next round of redistricting tried at the time to dilute the power of the Mayor in the Redistricting process. After Mayor Street signed the redistricting, Council Member Michael Nutter introduced a proposal to change the City Charter to eliminate the Mayor's right to veto redistricting plans and to lift the requirement that Council members go unpaid if they miss the statutory deadline.
That proposal never went anywhere and Nutter, who was elected mayor in 2007, will still enjoy the right to veto whatever plan comes out of Council next year.
Compiled by Committee of 70
Committee of Seventy + 
