What to know about Bob Brady and Philly’s ward system after this week’s feud with Kamala Harris’ campaign

All eyes have been on the Democratic Party in Philadelphia as a feud between Democratic Party chair Bob Brady and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign captured national attention this week.

A bitter back-and-forth escalated after Harris was unable to secure enough Democratic votes in the city to offset President-elect Donald Trump’s victories elsewhere in Pennsylvania, leading to Brady claiming a lack of respect and money from the campaign, while the campaign pointed to Brady’s ineffectiveness as party chair.

As chair for over three decades, a key part of Brady’s job is to mobilize voters to turn out for the Democratic party’s candidates, and the former U.S. congressman is in this position because of the ward leaders who elected him.

Brady and the ward leaders are a product of the city’s ward system, which derived from the first settlers in Philadelphia who took inspiration from England’s division of municipalities. The first division of city wards happened in 1705 — mostly for police routes — and has stuck around since.

The chairs, ward leaders, and committee people are tasked with galvanizing their party’s voters. But when things don’t go as expected — especially in a Democratic stronghold like Philadelphia — they may also be some of the first to shoulder the blame.

Here’s what to know about Brady’s role and the ward system in Philadelphia.

Bob Brady has been Philadelphia’s Democratic Party chair since 1988. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional District from 1997 to 2019.

Brady is a close personal friend of President Joe Biden’s (Biden was a guest at the City Committee dinner in September) and was proud that members of the city Democratic Party chose to stay loyal to Biden after his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June. Upon the president suspending his bid for reelection, Biden had reportedly told Brady to “get past it,” the chair said, and to shift his support to Harris.

As the head of what may be one of the most persistent political machines in the U.S., Brady has faced questions about his ability to turn out the blue vote in the city, though his skills as a deal maker and power broker have led him to become a reliable staple in city politics.

And he’s also built a reputation as a larger-than-life character, creating some notable moments throughout his more than three decades as party chair, including when he made national news for stealing the Pope’s water or when he didn’t take then President Bill Clinton’s call in the 1990s because he was helping to fix a woman’s toilet.

Asked Wednesday whether he would leave his decades-spanning job as chair, Brady said he was “not going anywhere” and that he hadn’t heard any calls for him to give up the post.

It’s Brady’s attitude that appeared to largely fuel tensions between he and the Harris campaign that boiled over Wednesday.

After Harris’ loss, Brady placed a great deal of blame on the Harris campaign for not respecting ward leaders or granting him a meeting with Harris.

“I never talked to the lady, and she’s the candidate,” he said.

Though, the Harris campaign provided a photo of Brady with Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to The Inquirer to dispute the claim.

Brady questioned whether Biden should have been replaced on the ticket, wondered if Gov. Josh Shapiro would have been a wiser choice for running-mate, and criticized the Harris campaign for paying only about “half” of the money the city committee requested to pay committee members to get out the vote.

The vice president’s campaign — who did have an expansive presence in Philadelphia — was quick to reply. Brendan McPhillips, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania, called Brady’s turnout operation “worthless” and said the Harris team “knocked more than two million doors in the weekend leading up to Election Day, which is two million more doors than Bob Brady’s organization can claim to have knocked during his entire tenure as party chairman.”

Philadelphia has 66 wards, which are individual voting districts in the city. Each ward is then divided into any where between 11 and 51 divisions (there are 1,703 in total).

Ward leaders and elected committee people work on the behest of their political party. Some of their most important jobs including registering voters and mobilizing them to cast their ballots for endorsed candidates, according to the Philly Ward Leaders website. They gather signatures from voters to get candidates on the ballot, build coalitions of voters, and stand outside the polls on Election Day to hand out campaign materials.

Ward leaders also help raise funds and recruit people for open committee seats and make official party endorsements during primary elections — sometimes aligned with their own priorities.

The Philadelphia City Commissioners also track voter turnout by ward for each election on its website.

Every four years, during the primary election of the governor’s race, Democrats and Republicans in each division elect two people to serve as their divisions’ committee persons. These elected individuals comprise each party’s ward committee, which then votes for the ward leader, typically soon after the election.

Those ward leaders then form the party’s city committee and elect its chair (i.e. Brady for the Democrats and Vince Fenerty for the Republicans).

Ward leaders’ endorsement power is perhaps one of the most important — and controversial — responsibilities of the job, particularly when ward leaders select the nominees for special elections. This is a lot of power wielded by a small number of individuals.

And that influence rears itself in other ways in city politics. Typically, elections for smaller offices in Philadelphia are often swayed by the input of ward leaders who are often courted by candidates for their approval and exposure to voters. Campaigns will offer “street money,” used to pay committee people to get out the vote, vow to open direct lines of communication after their election, and promise a committee person a job in the candidate’s office.

Ward leaders can also possess even further capabilities if they are in a “closed ward,” which means they alone decide who the ward endorses. “Open wards,” which progressive groups have spent years advocating for, give committee people the opportunity to vote on who the ward endorses in local elections, according to Philadelphia 3.0, a government reform group that has also advocated to eliminate the City Commissioners’ office.

That aforementioned endorsement process is one of the main reasons that progressives in Philadelphia are advocating for a change in the ward system — namely by creating more open wards. There are various schools of thought on what open wards can offer; some use the term to refer to allowing committee people to vote on changes to policies and procedures, while others define it as wards that allow for public meetings or publish campaign finance reports.