‘We’ve made history’: Rue Landau poised to become Philly’s first openly LGBTQ City Council member

Democratic voters nominated the first openly LGBTQ candidate to City Council, a milestone in the community’s decades-long push to gain more visibility in elected office.

Rue Landau — a housing and civil rights lawyer who received the first same-sex marriage certificate in Pennsylvania in 2014 — secured one of five nominations for at-large seats on Council, finishing third in the crowded 27-way race.

“We’ve had LGBTQ Council people serve who did not have the luxury of living an out lifestyle,” Landau said Wednesday. “It shows that we’ve come such a long way in such a short time. We’ve made history.”

Philadelphia has long been at a vanguard of LGBTQ protections, with the community viewed as a politically active and reliable Democratic voting bloc. But Landau, 54, would join only a handful of other openly gay elected officials in the state, and would be the first to hold any local elected office.

The victory also comes amid a national Republican-led assault on constitutional LGBTQ protections, particularly for transgender people, with the Human Rights Campaign tracking more than 460 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in statehouses nationwide this year.

“We’re now in scary times where we’re watching laws get rolled back, we’re watching books get banned, we’re watching places from Florida to our own Bucks County passing ‘don’t say gay’ laws,” Landau said. “It’s very important that we in Philadelphia stay loud and proud.”

The Associated Press also declared victory Wednesday for two incumbents in the at-large race, Councilmembers Isaiah Thomas and Katherine Gilmore Richardson, as well as newcomer Nina Ahmad, but the remaining nomination had not been confirmed.

Landau’s win also signaled, to her allies, a unifying win for factions of the Democratic party. A string of resignations and retirements created a power vacuum on Council, sparking a proxy war between business interests and progressive groups who viewed the at-large race as a lynchpin to the legislature’s ideological balance.

Landau built a coalition between moderate Democrats and the city’s most progressive groups, focusing her campaign on issues of affordable housing and reinvestment in city services.

“Progressive or moderate, Rue had a message that was, ‘you can be both, and there can be people who want to unify this party, and I’m one of those voices,’” said Mark Segal, the editor of Philadelphia Gay News and a Democratic party ally who helped Landau’s campaign. “That’s the reason she is where she is right now.”

In her victory speech, Landau paid homage to at least two gay Council members who were not out during their political tenure.

John C. Anderson won an at-large seat in 1979 and was floated as a potential candidate for the city’s first Black mayor, but his status as a gay man was a well-kept secret. Ethel Allen, a Republican and the first Black woman to serve on Council, beginning in January 1972, would go on to serve in Harrisburg where she lobbied to the state to recognize Gay Pride Month.

In 2013, Rep. Brain Sims (D., Phila.) became the first openly gay lawmaker elected to the state legislature. He was joined by fellow Philadelphia Democrat and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta in 2018, the first openly gay lawmaker of color to win a seat.

Kenyatta said that Landau’s election to the Democratic ballot for a local office is long overdue and that she works across marginalized communities.

“She’s somebody who’s worked with people in the most difficult instances in their lives, and she’s going to bring a profound understanding and experience,” Kenyatta said.

A Cheltenham native, Landau became an activist in the 1990s, advocating for access to health care and housing for both people living with AIDs and homelessness. Her legal career began at Community Legal Services, where she represented low-income tenants facing eviction. Years later, she was appointed to lead the city’s Fair Housing Commission and Commission on Human Relations.

Given the city’s heavily blue electorate, Landau will likely prevail in the November general election. As likely the first out lawmaker on Council, Landau, who lives in Bella Vista with her wife and son, said it was important that Philadelphia take a regional approach to LGBTQ advocacy, especially amid recent bans on Pride flags at schools in Bucks County.

“Philadelphia needs to remain the unwavering bastion for LGTBQ rights, but we need to make sure that we have a strong non-discrimination bill for the entire state,” Landau said.

Segal approached party chairman Bob Brady last year about endorsing Landau after several failed attempts to get an LGBTQ candidate into local office.

The party in 2015 endorsed its first out candidate in Sherrie Cohen, a former tenants rights lawyer and progressive activist, but Cohen ultimately came in eighth in the primary. (Cohen ran again this year without the party’s backing and finished ninth, according to unofficial election returns.)

In Landau, Segal saw a credentialed bridge-builder.

“It was time that we had a voice at the table, and that table is City Council, and Rue was someone who had the qualifications and experience,” Segal said.

In addition to the Democratic City Committee, Landau won endorsements from the progressive Working Families Party, a swath of labor unions, prominent elected officials and social justice groups.

“We’re a very diverse city, with competing needs in different areas, and we’ve got to tackle our biggest problems together,” Landau said.

Some said the Democratic party still has progress to make in supporting non-white, non-cisgender candidates who exist more on margins of the LGBTQ community and have struggled to gain viability within the party.

“Rue is a great first, but she cannot be the last candidate that gets into office,” said Michael Galvan, a Latinx Democratic committeeperson who launched a short-lived bid for the Council at-large race. “The queer community is diverse. It’s activists, people of color, people experiencing homelessness … and the Philadelphia that’s been built has not been built with them in mind.”