Philly City Councilmember Helen Gym resigns ahead of an expected run for mayor

Helen Gym, an at-large Philadelphia City Council member and a leader of the city’s progressive movement, resigned Tuesday ahead of an anticipated run for mayor.

The two-term Council member is expected to launch her campaign for the top job on Wednesday. City officeholders are required by law to resign before seeking another office.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Gym reflected on her six years in Council, saying she proved “seismic change” was possible from inside the political system she had for decades railed against as an activist.

“But it takes a different approach,” she said, “and if Philadelphia wants a future that looks different, then they need to pick people who are different from your traditional molds of career politicians or the uber privileged.”

» READ MORE: Who is running for Philadelphia mayor in 2023?

Gym, 54, is likely to become the eighth Democrat vying for the nomination in the May 2023 primary to replace term-limited Mayor Jim Kenney. The field is deeper than any in recent memory and, in a city that’s never had a female mayor, half the candidates are likely to be women.

Former City Council members Cherelle Parker, Maria Quiñones Sánchez, Allan Domb, and Derek Green are running, as is former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart and retired Judge James DeLeon. Grocer Jeff Brown announced his candidacy earlier this month, and State Rep. Amen Brown is eyeing the race.

Gym, who in 2019 won more votes than any Council candidate in three decades, will occupy a clear lane as the race’s most progressive candidate. She’ll likely garner support from left-leaning organizations that have in recent years cemented their influence in the city and toppled centrists.

What remains to be seen is how many voters want an activist-lawmaker to jump from Council to mayor. Gym is a no-holds-barred speaker — drawing comparisons to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — with a social media presence that features the occasional F-bomb.

Critics have suggested she has sought the limelight, and while other officials have at times leaned on her to rally crowds, she’s angered some Democrats by backing progressives who haven’t earned the party’s blessing.

» READ MORE: With the midterms over, the 2023 Philadelphia mayoral race is shifting into high gear

But Gym said her agenda is driven by constituents and points out that passing legislation — including an eviction diversion program that’s become a national model — required approval from a majority of Council, not just her ideological allies.

“My biggest enemies are cynicism, apathy, and the belief that nothing ever changes in this town,” she said. “What I have tried to do time and time again is to bring in relentless work ethic, a commitment to long-term relationship-building, a moral vision beyond politics, and a lot of strategic and smart thinking so that we create the right policy for the moment.”

Gym’s departure from Council means the body is losing one of its most outspoken members and the core of its progressive bloc. It wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday if or when she may be replaced.

A former teacher, Gym has been a constant in the city’s activist scene, rallying against a planned baseball stadium in Chinatown that was scuttled and leading the organization Parents United for Public Schools. She was known for being a thorn in the side of the School Reform Commission, the state-controlled board that ran the School District of Philadelphia for 17 years.

She ran for Council in 2015 on an education-centered platform and narrowly won a seat, coming in fifth in the Democratic primary.

During her first term, she pushed the school district to commit to putting a nurse and a counselor in every building, and was the architect of “fair workweek” legislation that passed in 2018 and requires employers to provide predictable scheduling for retail, fast-food, and hotel workers.

Her battles were also waged outside Council. Gym appeared often at protests against tenets of former President Donald Trump’s agenda, and called for the city to remove the statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo for years before it actually happened in 2020.

Her popularity grew. In the next primary, she raised the second-most amount of money of any Council candidate and won 108,000 votes — 40,000 more than the second-place finisher.

The decisive victory immediately resulted in speculation: Could she contend for mayor?

She said she saw the results as a mandate, saying, “When we came back in, we went for even bigger things.”

In 2019, Gym championed legislation that provides for legal representation for low-income tenants who have been evicted.

The following year, when the pandemic resulted in mass layoffs and fears of widespread evictions, Gym and several allies pushed through a package of housing-related bills and established an eviction diversion program that serves as an alternative to landlord-tenant court. It’s been credited with keeping hundreds of people in their homes.

While the program garnered unanimous support, she has on other occasions bucked Council leadership and the body’s more centrist members in both policy and rhetoric.

She has opposed tax cuts for businesses and corporations, voted against a bill to open a liquid natural gas plant in the city, and has said she is “extremely skeptical” of a Sixers arena proposed for Center City. She has been an unflappable supporter of District Attorney Larry Krasner and his reform-oriented approach.

Gym has advocated for ways to reduce law enforcement’s interactions with people in crisis — including sending health providers without police to respond to some 911 calls — and in 2020, praised a plan by Minneapolis City Council to dismantle its police department after the murder of George Floyd.

Still, she said that “community safety” is the city’s most pressing issue and that a successful plan starts with law enforcement delivering results. But she has been critical of the Kenney administration’s response to gun violence, saying the city requires more targeted investments in young people and economically challenged neighborhoods.

”I’m going to do everything to get guns off our streets and to hold individuals accountable,” she said, “but we also need a longer-term investment, and those two things are not counter to one another.”