Legal challenge seeks to bump Working Families Party candidate from ballot for Philly city commissioner

A bipartisan group of voters filed a legal challenge Monday to remove a Working Families Party candidate running for city commissioner in Philadelphia from November’s general election ballot.

The candidate, Jarrett Smith, is running for the commissioner seat that is reserved for a member of the nonmajority party. The challenge underscores political tensions in the city as the progressive Working Families Party attempts to oust Republicans from city government in commissioner and City Council races this fall.

Democrats are favored to win the other two commissioners seats. But both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns about having no GOP representation among the commissioners, who administer elections — especially as the city prepares for the 2024 presidential election.

Smith is running against Seth Bluestein, a Republican appointed as a city commissioner last year who is now seeking a full four-year term. Bluestein’s father, Kerry Bluestein, is one of the voters participating in the challenge.

The challenge to Smith’s candidacy, filed by attorney Kevin Greenberg, said Smith filed a candidate’s statement of financial interests with the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission but did not file that document with the Philadelphia Department of Records.

Greenberg, who has close ties to the Democratic Party in the city and state, wrote in the challenge that missing that crucial step in filing his candidacy last week requires that Smith be removed from the ballot.

Smith did not respond to a request for comment Monday. He tweeted Tuesday morning that his campaign was “reviewing the details of the challenge and will be making a decision as to how to move forward with our campaign.”

Bluestein was a top aide in 2020 to then-Republican City Commissioner Al Schmidt when both faced death threats and other abuse for rejecting former President Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud in Philadelphia.

Bluestein was appointed last year by Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, to replace Schmidt, who resigned and is now Pennsylvania’s secretary of state.

Bluestein declined to comment Monday on the legal challenge filed against Smith.

One of the voters bringing the challenge, Gregg Kravitz, questioned whether Smith’s background as a labor lobbyist made him qualified to run elections in the city.

Kravitz, a Democrat who served as a deputy city commissioner with Bluestein in Schmidt’s office, said he was concerned that Trump could again be the Republican nominee for president and make more false claims about election integrity in Philadelphia.

“I think it’s important to not only have a Republican but someone like Seth Bluestein, who is an independent-minded Republican,” Kravitz said.

The third voter in the legal challenge, Ross Kessler, is an independent who donated $1,100 to Bluestein’s campaign in 2022.

The Working Families Party, along with some allies in elected office, objected last year when it became clear Kenney would appoint Bluestein without considering someone from their party.

Philadelphia’s Home Rule Charter requires that two of seven City Council at-large seats and one of three city commissioner seats be reserved for members not in the majority political party.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-1 in the city.

The Republicans who win the most votes in November elections have taken those seats for seven decades until 2019, when Kendra Brooks won a City Council at-large seat running on the Working Families Party ticket.

Brooks is seeking another term this year, joined on her party’s ticket with Nicholas O’Rourke, who is running for City Council at-large, and Smith.