The Philadelphia City Commissioners ousted their chair as they prepare to run the 2024 election

Philadelphia’s City Commissioners, the three elected officials who run elections in the city, started what is sure to be a year of intense scrutiny with new leadership after ousting Democrat Lisa Deeley as chair in a brief special meeting Wednesday morning.

Omar Sabir, also a Democrat took over as chair of the three-member board with backing from the lone Republican on the board, Commissioner Seth Bluestein.

Driving the change: tensions among top ranking staffers and a structure that had centralized power with Deeley’s office.

Sabir and Bluestein also voted for new rules that decentralize power, giving each commissioner the ability to hire staff and set salaries. And they split the duties at the top of the city’s Board of Elections, creating posts for a director of election administration and a director of election operations.

Deeley opposed those moves. The new directors will report more directly to all three commissioners.

The leadership shakeup comes at a critical time, as the commissioners prepare to run the 2024 primary and presidential elections. Philadelphia, the most populous city in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, will be in the spotlight.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies made attacking the commissioners part of the lies and misinformation they spread in 2020 about the results of the presidential election in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania. Trump used those claims to fuel legal challenges, which were roundly rejected by state and federal judges.

Bluestein, who was an elections staffer in 2020 for former City Commissioner Al Schmidt — who now serves as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state — predicted more of the same for this year during Wednesday’s meeting.

Having a more empowered Republican overseeing elections in the city could serve as a bulwark against a repeat of GOP attempts to claim the Democratic-controlled government tilts the playing field unfairly.

“Election administration is perhaps the most crucial part of maintaining a functional democracy in the 21st century,” Bluestein said. “The challenges our institutions have faced in recent years from bad-faith actors have not gone away. So it is important that we rise to the occasion and combat them.”

Wednesday’s power struggle played out in a very calm series of motions and votes.

Sabir first nominated Deeley for another term as chair, but she and Bluestein did not second that motion. Deeley, who had proposed updated rules that would have further centralized power with the chairperson, was passing on remaining in the top spot under different rules by not seconding her nomination.

Then Bluestein nominated Sabir, who seconded the motion as Deeley abstained from voting for him.

Asked after the meeting about internal conflict in the office, Bluestein said he believed the new rules and leadership will “create a more inclusive and cooperative environment.”

Sabir discounted the notion of conflict but said the changes would open the office “to new ideas.” He called replacing Deeley “a bittersweet day for me.”

“She’s a mentor, she’s a friend,” he said.

There is precedent — and a playbook — for all this.

That was established several years ago by Schmidt, a Republican and Bluestein’s former boss, who served three terms as a commissioner.

The commissioners were subject to a one-person rule for nearly four decades under the late Marge Tartaglione, a Democratic power who lost her bid for a 10th four-year term in 2011 and died in 2019.

Tartaglione was defeated in the 2011 Democratic primary by Stephanie Singer, who then took over the chair.

Schmidt in 2012 worked with the other Democrat on the board at the time, Commissioner Anthony Clark, to depose Singer as chairperson 11 months after she took office.

Schmidt took the action to elevate Clark, who was best known for rarely showing up at his office, after months of dysfunction among the commissioners. Clark, who died in 2022, said at the time he didn’t know of Schmidt’s plans as they unfolded but went along with them.

Schmidt started 2016 with a similar move after Deeley took office. He supported Clarke as chairperson, saying at the time he was worried Deeley would not give him the autonomy necessary to carry out office reforms he had set in motion.

In late 2017, Schmidt backed Deeley as chairperson as Clark’s retirement loomed. Clark missed that meeting.

Bluestein was appointed a commissioner in 2022 by former Mayor Jim Kenney when Schmidt resigned during his third term. He, Deeley, and Sabir were easily elected to new terms in November without competitors on the ballot.

The chairperson is paid $166,407 a year while the two other commissioners get $155,313. They manage about 140 employees and a budget of $28 million.