Critics are questioning the Working Families Party’s independence as it gains traction in Philly

Democrats have dominated Philadelphia politics for decades, but Republicans could always count on having at least some influence in City Hall.

That’s no longer certain. The progressive Working Families Party has shaken up the status quo and is vying this year to win two City Council seats reserved for non-Democrats.

That reality, coupled with the Working Families Party’s close ties to Democrats, has some Republicans questioning if its presence on Council is what the framers of Philadelphia’s government intended.

“The purpose of the non-Democrat seats is to maintain diversity on City Council,” said Drew Murray, a Republican running for one of the at-large seats. “They are not an independent party.”

Republicans — and even a few Democrats — are pushing the issue of ideological diversity ahead of the Nov. 7 general election, when the GOP will battle the Working Families Party for the pair of seats on Council that represent the city at large. It demonstrates how seriously the GOP is taking the threat from progressives, who are explicitly trying to oust them from city government.

» READ MORE: What’s the Working Families Party, and how’s it different from regular Democrats?

While Working Families Party leaders admit they don’t operate like either of the majority parties, they say they’re distinct from Democrats, evidenced by the fact that the head of the Democratic Party in Philadelphia has all but told its members not to support them.

And Working Families Party member Kendra Brooks, who in 2019 became the first third-party candidate to win a seat on Council in 70 years, has been more progressive on policy than most of her Democratic colleagues, backing proposals like rent control and a “wealth tax.”

This year, she and her running mate Nicolas O’Rourke are hopeful they can take both seats as part of progressives’ project of moving City Hall leftward.

And they say Republicans don’t automatically deserve two of Council’s 17 seats.

“It’s no surprise that the party of Donald Trump wants governing power without having to win over Philadelphia voters,” O’Rourke said. “Republicans know that if they have to compete with progressives fighting for higher wages, strong public schools, and safe communities, voters will pick the progressives every time.”

The Working Families Party was founded in the late 1990s as a coalition of labor unions and activists in New York, in part because the state allows for “fusion voting” — meaning that multiple parties can nominate the same candidate.

The party has since expanded its reach nationally and has a presence in 18 states. In some cases, it takes advantage of state and local laws and runs its own candidates. In others, it backs progressive Democrats in primaries.

Organizers have done both in Philadelphia. The party came onto the scene in 2014 and mobilized door-knockers to help get a resolution on the ballot demanding an end to state control of Philly schools. In 2017, they launched an unsuccessful effort to bring fusion voting to Pennsylvania and were part of the coalition that lifted progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner to office.

By 2019, the party had gained real traction. Brooks and O’Rourke ran for Council, and raised more money than any other third-party candidates in city history. Brooks won, in a shock to the political establishment.

In this year’s primary election, the Working Families Party endorsed a slate of Democrats, including Helen Gym, a leader in the city’s progressive movement who ran for mayor and finished third. The party gave more than $200,000 to Gym’s campaign and a super PAC backing her bid.

Working Families Party leaders have charted a new path for how a party can operate in Philadelphia. The state does not recognize it as a political party in the same way as Republicans and Democrats. It doesn’t hold primary elections, and it’s not governed by committee members elected at the polls by registered voters.

The party is also unlike other third parties, like the Green Party. Working Families Party candidates typically don’t run in general elections if it’s likely they’ll end up helping the GOP.

And Working Families Party organizers do not prioritize registering voters — there are currently 14 registered members in Philadelphia — and instead focus on enlisting volunteers, of which there have been more than 5,000 in the city since 2019.

The ties to elected Democrats are clear. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a moderate Democrat, endorsed Brooks, and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is backing both Brooks and O’Rourke. Several other elected Democrats in the city have endorsed Working Families Party candidates, and the party has endorsed dozens of Pennsylvania Democrats.

The Democratic Party itself is a different story.

Bob Brady, chair of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, has warned elected committee people that they could be expelled for supporting candidates outside the Democratic Party this fall.

Voters can pick up to five candidates for the seven at-large seats on Council, and no party may nominate more than five people. The five Democrats are all-but-certain to win seats. In order to top the GOP, the Working Families Party likely needs to convince many Democrats to select fewer of their party’s nominees and replace them with their candidates.

The Working Families Party strategy has fueled criticism.

Councilmember Brian O’Neill, who has served on Council since 1980 and is now the lone Republican, said the party is “contrary to everything” the framers of the Home Rule Charter — a document akin to a constitution — intended.

“It was not to have somebody who could come up with a minority party,” he said, “and bring in outside influence, finances, and otherwise to win an election and there really be no difference of opinion except for how progressive a Democrat you are.”

Josh Novotney, a Philadelphia-based Republican strategist, described the Working Families Party as ”a fringe part of the majority party playing some changes with their name on the ballot.”

And Larry Ceisler, a public-affairs executive and a Democrat, said the Working Families Party maintaining close ties to Democrats but also running as a third party is no different than if the conservative Tea Party ran candidates.

“It’s really just about the intent of the charter,” he said.

The Home Rule Charter was drafted by a bipartisan commission in the late 1940s when Republicans controlled city government. Joseph C. Vignola, a former Democratic city controller and councilman who has long studied Philadelphia politics, said the minority-party representation was likely modeled off of the city’s then-judicial board, which required representation from more than one party.

“They wanted political diversity,” Vignola said. “It was 72 years ago. They weren’t thinking about third parties.”

The charter itself doesn’t say what the framers intended. It only mentions that minority party representation is assured on Council, and it doesn’t define a political party.

In fact, under the charter and the state’s election code, any group of people could declare themselves a political party or political body and nominate candidates to be on the general election ballot. They just need to obtain the requisite amount of petition signatures and file paperwork showing they have a committee to fill vacancies. (The WFP’s committee in Philadelphia is made up of five registered Democrats.)

» READ MORE: Working Families Party candidate removed from the ballot in race for Philadelphia city commissioner

Matthew Wolfe, a Republican ward leader and an attorney who works with the city GOP, described the Working Families Party as a “faction of the Democratic Party.”

But Wolfe said there’s nothing in state law indicating they can’t run independent of the Democratic Party.

“If I saw something there,” he said, “I’d be all over it.”

Some who believe Republicans should have a Council presence argue it’s good governance. While Democrats hold a nearly 7-1 voter registration advantage, there remain about 115,000 registered Republicans in Philadelphia.

Ceisler said there’s value in having elected officials who can coordinate with Republican leaders in Harrisburg. And Novotney said while two Republicans on the 17-member legislative body weren’t blocking Democratic agendas or passing conservative wishlists, “they were a dissenting vote.”

“You have someone who can stand up and say ‘We’re not for this’ and why,” he said, “and that’s good for everyone to hear.”

But the Working Families Party says that in a city with a growing progressive movement, it is the check on establishment Democrats.

Through her first term, Brooks aligned closely with progressive-leaning Democrats, but at times went farther to the left. In 2020, she voted against a city budget, saying it allocated too much to the police department. She introduced a bill to institute a “wealth tax,” and she has been Council’s most vocal supporter of rent control.

Last week, Brooks was the only member to vote against legislation that prohibits supervised injection sites in most of the city.

“I don’t see us as a spin-off of the Democratic Party,” Brooks said. “We live in a Democratic city, and the relationships that I built is how I can get things done.”

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.