Helen Gym and progressive allies denounce Main Line billionaire Jeffrey Yass for funding mayor’s race attack ads

Philadelphia mayoral candidate Helen Gym on Monday blasted conservative Main Line billionaire Jeffrey Yass, whose political contributions are funding ads attacking her for voting against a 2019 pharmaceutical bill.

“He has put his billions into the hands of individuals who have done so much harm in this city,” Gym said alongside progressive allies during a news conference. “And it is gonna end on May 16 when a people-powered movement takes that $1 million and says, ’You might as well have set it on fire, at least it would have kept you warm for a few minutes.’”

The new political group, the Coalition for Safety and Equitable Growth, began running the negative advertising campaign in late April, just a few weeks ahead of the May 16 primary election. Campaign-finance reports filed with the city Friday revealed that the coalition, which is considered a super PAC, had raised nearly $1 million, with $750,000 contributed by Yass, a principal at Susquehanna International Group and Pennsylvania’s richest man.

Yass, a registered Libertarian and a strong proponent of charter-school expansion, has contributed millions to political candidates and causes. He could not be reached for comment Monday.

The commercials and mailers funded by the group attack Gym for voting in 2019 against legislation that would have added new restrictions to pharmaceutical sales representatives.

At the time of the vote, Gym’s husband worked for the Conshohocken-based drug distributor AmerisourceBergen. He left the company in February. Before voting on the legislation, Gym consulted the city’s Board of Ethics, which told her office in an email that she did not have a conflict of interest that would require her to recuse herself. The legislation failed, 9-5.

Gym, a progressive former City Councilmember who is one of five front-runners for the Democratic nomination, slammed others who contributed to the super PAC, including real estate developers, former Mayor Michael Nutter, and venture capitalist Josh Kopelman, the chairman of The Inquirer’s board of directors.

She said Philadelphia public schools closed under Nutter’s administration, and said: “If you’re standing with Jeffrey Yass, that speaks volumes about what you believe the city of Philadelphia deserves right now and what people need right now.”

In a statement, Nutter criticized Gym as “a phony, a political hypocrite and a trained performer, constantly saying one thing and doing something different.”

“Today’s news conference was a distraction and smokescreen by a candidate who is not used to being held accountable for her own record,” he said.

Nutter has endorsed one of Gym’s rivals, Rebecca Rhynhart, for mayor.

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Gym said that Kopelman, who gave $50,000 to the group, “refused to disclose his involvement even as front-page stories were being written about the content of the ads that he was funding.”

When asked to respond to Gym’s criticism, Kopelman said in a statement that “board members have no oversight or influence on The Inquirer’s editorial content or news coverage.”

“During my tenure as a board member and current chair, The Inquirer has published articles that I personally agree with and ones that I disagree with,” he said. “I am proud to support Philadelphia by advocating for the leaders who I believe will benefit our communities and by helping organizations like The Inquirer that are essential to Philly’s civic health.”

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, also blasted a column that appeared in The Inquirer on Monday and was written by Jennifer Stefano, a vice president at the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank. The opinion piece, which argued against an amendment that adds labor organizing rights to the state constitution, criticized PFT leadership.

In an email to PFT members Monday, Jordan called the column a “disgusting hit piece,” saying that running it days after campaign finance reports revealed Kopelman had donated to the anti-Gym super PAC was “malicious and disgraceful.”

Rich Jones, The Inquirer’s opinion editor, said Stefano proposed the column before news broke about Kopelman’s contribution.

”Ms. Stefano, like all of our contributing columnists, has a great deal of latitude to express her viewpoints and opine broadly,” Jones said. “As such, I do not think anything she wrote in her Monday column was out of bounds and was certainly not a malicious or retributive act.”

One contributor to the PAC that was not named during Gym’s news conference was the Laborers District Council, one of the building trades unions, which gave $25,000. Asked about the laborers after the event, Gym said, “Anybody who stands with Jeff Yass at this point should be ashamed.”

She declined to say why she did not name them during the news conference.

The laborers are led by Ryan Boyer, who also heads the Building Trades and Construction Council and is one of former Councilmember Cherelle Parker’s top supporters in the mayor’s race. Criticizing the union would have been politically dicey for Gym, a strong supporter of organized laborer. The laborers are the only majority-Black union in the building trades, and they are one of the most powerful unions in the city.

Boyer on Monday said Gym was being hypocritical for using guilt-by-association tactics on people who gave to the PAC given that the PAC’s ads raise concerns about her ties to corporate interests.

”Is she going to call herself out for taking money from the pharmaceutical executives who are documented to at least be somewhat complicit in one of the biggest epidemics in the history of the United States?” Boyer said. “It has completely devastated people — and she’s talking about people that may want school choice? That is rank hypocrisy.”

» READ MORE: Mayor Jim Kenney voted for Cherelle Parker in Philadelphia’s mayoral primary

The ad campaign is not the first time that Yass’ involvement has spurred backlash from progressives. In the 2015 mayor’s race, he and two partners at Susquehanna spent $7 million to boost state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, who came in second to Mayor Jim Kenney in the Democratic primary. Gym was among those who criticized the effort.

And last year, an outside spending group with ties to Yass funded mailers targeting three progressive Democratic state representatives, each of whom won reelection and stood alongside Gym on Monday.

Rep. Chris Rabb, who was the subject of some of the most intense attacks, called Yass “morally bankrupt,” saying he’s contributed to Republicans who have pressed for education privatization and deregulation.

“His money will not buy his soul, and he will not buy our support,” Rabb said. “The more he tries to come at us, the stronger we’re gonna be. So bring it on. I’m not afraid of billionaires.”

Rabb had not been heavily involved in the mayor’s race before Monday, and he confirmed after the event that he has not made an endorsement in the race.