Democrats have controlled Montco for a decade. The primary will test their political machine and pay-to-play culture.

The fundraising invitation featured a who’s who of prominent Montgomery County Democrats.

Soliciting contributions ranging from $50 to $10,000, the March 29 event at Sunnybrook Golf Club in Plymouth Meeting offered a chance to mingle with the state House majority leader, two state senators, a county commissioner, and a former party chairman.

But one of the most influential players on the host committee doesn’t hold elected office or even live in the county — Michael P. Clarke, managing partner of municipal law firm Rudolph Clarke.

Clarke and his firm helped Kimberly Koch — the fundraiser’s beneficiary — and her fellow Democrats take over the Whitpain Township Board of Supervisors in the 2019 elections. The new board then hired Rudolph Clarke as the town’s lawyers. Now, Clarke and his allies are supporting her campaign for county commissioner.

“I’m a good Democrat. … We try to make sure that Democrats get elected because all you gotta do is look around this country and look at how out of touch the Republican Party is,” Clarke said in an interview. “So, who should elected Democrats turn to when they get elected? Why wouldn’t they turn to good Democrats? Why wouldn’t they turn to people who they trust?”

The May 16 Democratic primary for two commissioner seats will be a test of a political machine that has developed since the party flipped the three-member governing board from red to blue in 2011 — and established a model that Democrats have followed in Philadelphia’s other collar counties.

Democrats have cast themselves as reformers as they’ve gained more power in the suburbs, particularly after the election of former President Donald Trump. But emails, financial records, and campaign finance data reviewed by The Inquirer — as well as interviews with almost two dozen people involved in local politics — reveal a pay-to-play culture in which the line between business and politics is often blurred.

In February, the hundreds of rank-and-file members who make up the Montgomery County Democratic Committee rebuked leadership by declining to endorse its full slate of preferred candidates, citing heavy-handed leadership and an opaque process.

“This process works better if more people are involved. Everything we seem to be doing seems to encourage fewer people to be involved,” said Spencer Lewis, a Democratic committee member from Whitpain.

The influence of the machine — and politically connected lawyers — is evident in several examples in this year’s primary races:

Tensions have ratcheted up in the months leading up to the primary, with one party official facing possible removal from the committee amid allegations that she violated bylaws by supporting multiple non-endorsed candidates in Facebook posts. Some rank-and-file Democrats say the investigation seems aimed at stifling dissent; one committee member invoked the Soviet-era KGB during an April 20 party Zoom meeting, according to people familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, supporters of Democratic leaders associated with Rudolph Clarke and other politically connected law firms say they deserve credit for building the party over several decades, and their preferred candidates stand on their own merits.

Clarke said it’s healthy to discuss money in politics, but some Democrats are trying to “whip up a frenzy of people for their own personal gain.”

It’s legal for public officials to give business to donors. Yet it cuts against the clean image suburban Democrats have cultivated.

“We’re supposed to be the ones that have certain standards,” Lewis said of the candidate selection process. “I think that’s what the fight is about: what standards are we holding ourselves to?”

Rudolph Clarke employs almost a half-dozen state legislators, including House Majority Leader Matt Bradford. The firm is one of several that contribute to Montgomery County Democrats and also get government contracts. Other firms include Kilkenny Law, founded by Sean Kilkenny, the county sheriff, and Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel, whose chairman, David Nasatir, is a key ally of party chairman Jason Salus.

This year, some of the firms’ principals and their allies helped vet candidates for coveted party endorsements for judge, county row offices, and commissioner.

Clarke, 62, has been involved in Democratic politics since the 1990s, when he unsuccessfully ran for office. In 2002, he joined Rudolph, Pizzo, and Associates — a Bucks County-based firm whose Republican founding partners were developing a client base in the GOP-friendly suburbs.

The political landscape in the Philadelphia suburbs was beginning to shift, and Clarke was well positioned to generate business in newly Democratic towns.

Over the last two decades, he has contributed about $330,000 to state and local campaigns and committees, including $81,000 to the Montgomery County Democratic Committee.

And his firm has benefited from some of the officials he’s helped elect, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from county row offices alone. From the county’s perspective, the fees are well deserved. Party chair Salus, who’s also the county’s elected treasurer, said Rudolph Clarke has helped the county recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in delinquent taxes for public schools. “If qualifications and fee structures among firms bidding for work are basically the same, a Democratic administration is going to lean toward firms that support progressive causes, just as Republican administrations lean toward their supporters,” Salus said.

Clarke, who has no formal role in the Montgomery County Democratic Party and now lives in Philadelphia, said he often makes political donations that have “absolutely no relation to my business.” For example, he’s given $34,000 to federal candidates since 2003.

When it comes to local elections, Clarke said, he tends to contribute in races where Democrats can “change the direction of the county, a township, a school district.”

“And when these places flip, you know, all we ever ask anytime we go to help people is if there’s gonna be a process [such as a request for proposals], we’d like to participate in the process. That’s all we ever say.”

This year’s commissioners’ race comes as the county — the third biggest in the state — faces a leadership shake-up. Commissioner Val Arkoosh resigned from the three-member board in January to join Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, and fellow Democrat Ken Lawrence Jr. decided not to seek reelection.

The Democratic Party committee tasked with recommending Arkoosh’s replacement interviewed more than 20 candidates and initially tapped Danielle Duckett, the Lower Gwynedd Township supervisor and policy director for State Rep. Chris Rabb, to serve the remainder of Arkoosh’s term.

But the party ultimately rescinded the offer. It wasn’t entirely clear why, but party officials asked Duckett about her bankruptcy filing 20 years ago when she’d been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Duckett also faced questions about the appointment of solicitor in her town, and whether she was a “team player.”

Documents obtained by The Inquirer through records requests help shed light on how the solicitor appointment unfolded.

After Democrats won control of the Lower Gwynedd Board of Supervisors in 2021, Clarke and another attorney got lunch with Duckett and her fellow supervisors.

“I said, ‘So if it’s all right with you, I’d like to make my pitch. And I made my pitch about how we’re good Democrats,” Clarke recalled.

Clarke told the supervisors about the firm’s experience advising municipalities on matters such as antidiscrimination ordinances and contracting rules favored by labor unions.

A few days later, Clarke sent an email thanking the supervisors for “indulging me as I ‘made my pitch’ a few times during our lunch.”

But Duckett and her fellow Democrats broke from local tradition — they reappointed solicitor Neil Stein, who had been hired in 2020 under the previous Republican majority in a bipartisan vote.

Stein offered a low rate, lived in the town, and is unaffiliated with either party.

“Neil was appointed because he’s a really good lawyer,” Lower Gwynedd Democratic supervisor Michael Twersky said in an interview.

Clarke said he wasn’t surprised by the decision and noted that he’s been turned down before. He said he didn’t discuss the matter with party leaders.

Asked whether he thought Duckett’s decision not to hire Rudolph Clarke or another Democratic firm hurt her political prospects, Clarke said: “I don’t really know whether or not that hurt her.”

Salus said the decision not to select Duckett had nothing to do with the solicitor’s appointment. He noted that Duckett had risen to become vice chair of the county party “less than three years after becoming township supervisor.”

“Any such connection is spurious speculation, and those who advance that unfounded idea are intentionally damaging Ms. Winder’s and our Screening Committee’s reputation.”

Duckett, a former supervisor in the state Department of Human Services, is now policy director in that office — working under Arkoosh, the cabinet secretary.

After sidelining Duckett, the party selected Winder, an executive with a digital medical education company who is now the first Black woman to serve as Montgomery County commissioner and is running for a full four-year term.

Bradford, the House majority leader who holds a side job at Rudolph Clarke, served on the party committee that selected her. He also profits from legal work his firm does for the Norristown Area School District, where Winder served on the board from 2017 through 2020 and voted annually to reappoint Rudolph Clarke.