Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general | Endorsement

Pennsylvania’s auditor general serves as the public’s watchdog. Thanks to extensive oversight powers, the office can deeply explore public policy issues, make recommendations, and expose misconduct — but it requires ambitious leadership to wield that power.

The Inquirer endorses Malcolm Kenyatta, who can best bring an expansive vision to the office.

Kenyatta, the first openly LGBTQ Black state representative in the commonwealth’s history, also brings an empathy born out of his own struggles. A son of North Philadelphia who graduated from the city’s public schools, Kenyatta won a seat in the General Assembly in 2018 at the age of 28. He ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 — without party support — and used that platform to challenge his principal opponents in the Democratic primary, John Fetterman and Conor Lamb, to focus more on issues that are important to working-class families, including protecting worker rights and holding big employers accountable.

The outspoken Kenyatta would restore visibility to the auditor role, vowing to use the work of city controllers like Philadelphia’s Rebecca Rhynhart as a model for how the office’s investigatory powers can inform public policy. Given the number of opaque arrangements that govern areas like gambling and transportation in Pennsylvania, the introduction of more daylight is as welcome as it is necessary.

After a lackluster interview with the Editorial Board as a front-runner in the Democratic primary earlier this year, the general election race seems to have restored the energy, passion, and focus that had made Kenyatta such a standout and won him supporters across the state during his Senate campaign.

Republican incumbent Tim DeFoor is also a barrier breaker. A former Dauphin County controller, he was the first person of color to win statewide executive office in Pennsylvania after his 2020 win over Nina Ahmad, who last year was elected to an at-large seat on City Council.

DeFoor, however, has not done enough with the job to justify a second term.

While the office has continued to perform routine compliance audits under his watch, it has become less productive and influential than it was under his predecessor, Eugene DePasquale. DeFoor has also been criticized by public education advocates for an audit of the state’s school districts, which showed that some have significant cash reserves.

DeFoor’s critics said that the audit failed to provide enough context about the recurring budgetary challenges that compel districts to hoard surpluses in the first place, skewing the results. Also noteworthy, the commonwealth’s cyber school providers, who also tend to hold on to excess cash, went without scrutiny.

Perhaps DeFoor has a solid explanation for the schools audit and his performance overall, but he declined to meet with the Editorial Board to offer one himself or answer other questions about his tenure. While the incumbent has kept his distance from Donald Trump, he infamously refused to push back against the former president’s fraud allegations regarding the validity of the results of the 2020 election.

Another red flag about DeFoor was his recent decision to begin an audit of the state’s motor voter registration system — just weeks before the Nov. 5 election. DeFoor insists the audit is not meant as a part of a political agenda, but rather that he wants to determine whether the system might be allowing people who are not eligible to vote, like green card holders, to register, citing a 2017 report.

The author of that report, then-Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, is now secretary of the commonwealth, responsible for administering the state’s election systems, including motor voter. It is unlikely Schmidt has failed to insulate the registration process from the exact errors he himself uncovered.

DeFoor is also, like many Pennsylvania Republicans, extraordinarily reliant on the state’s wealthiest resident, billionaire Jeffrey Yass. Given Yass’ extensive support for school choice and the incumbent’s record on education, it is fair to question DeFoor’s independence on those issues.

Malcolm Kenyatta’s vow to support public education and hold government accountable by using the office to its full capacity should earn him voter support as the state’s next auditor general.

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