GOP mega-donor Jeffrey Yass joins Philly developers to sway City Council race

A conservative education group financed by Republican billionaire Jeffrey Yass is jumping into the Philadelphia City Council race.

Campaign finance reports filed this week with the city show that the Yass-funded Commonwealth Children’s Choice Fund contributed $400,000 to Philly for Growth, an independent-expenditure group financed by development interests that are uniting behind a slate of Democrats they view as business-friendly after years of clashing with progressive lawmakers on Council.

Better known as super PACs, independent-expenditure groups can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they don’t coordinate with candidates or campaigns. And while they have been spending extravagantly in the mayor’s race, Philly for Growth is a deep-pocketed anomaly in the relatively low-profile Council races.

With the Commonwealth contribution, Philly for Growth has raised more than $1.8 million to date and has already outspent every individual campaign in the race several times over. In the last two weeks, the group has spent more than $430,000 on cable TV ads to boost its slate of candidates — the only such ads in a race where few campaigns can afford air time.

Philly for Growth is backing two incumbent Democrats and three newcomers for Council’s five at-large seats: Old City Director Job Itzkowitz, business consultant Donavan West, former City Hall staffer Eryn Santamoor, and incumbent Councilmembers Katherine Gilmore Richardson and Isaiah Thomas.

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A consultant for the PAC declined to speak about the Commonwealth contribution, and a representative for the Commonwealth Children’s Choice Fund did not immediately return a request for comment.

But the Yass element has put some of Philly for Growth’s endorsed candidates in a bind with their more progressive supporters, who are staunch charter school critics and say Yass poses an existential threat to public education.

“[Yass] has time and time again tried to play politics in Philadelphia to push forward his right-wing agenda that pads his bottom line, and it’s no surprise that he’s pushing his interests with a similarly aligned corporate Realtor PAC,” said Arielle Klagsbrun, a coordinator with the Tax the Rich PHL.

Commonwealth Children’s Choice Fund is part of a larger network of political action committees funded by Yass, the Main Line billionaire and principal at Susquehanna International Group who has poured millions of dollars into local races over the years. Finance reports filed with the state show that Commonwealth received over $3.2 million from Students First PAC, which is bankrolled almost exclusively by Yass himself.

Like Students First, the Commonwealth Children’s Choice Fund advocates for pro-charter school legislation, seeking to expand state tax credit scholarship programs for charters and “fully acknowledge public charter schools as equal public education options,” according to the group’s website.

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Yass and his partners at Susquehanna got involved in the 2015 mayor’s race, spending more than $7 million to boost state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams’ unsuccessful campaign in the Democratic primary, but it remains unclear if Yass has contributed to any super PACs in this year’s close mayoral contest.

Philly for Growth formed during the last municipal election cycle in 2019, airing a bizarre TV ad featuring a talking baby to back a somewhat-overlapping slate of Council candidates. Finance reports show its top contributors are regional developers, real estate agents, and landlord groups.

— Staff writer Anna Orso contributed reporting.