Philly City Councilmember Allan Domb resigns ahead of expected run for mayor

Philadelphia City Councilmember Allan Domb resigned Monday and said he is considering running for mayor, the first major step by a contender toward making a bid in 2023.

The two-term at-large Council member and real estate magnate stopped short of declaring his candidacy for Philadelphia’s top job, but he is the first elected official in the city to resign from his current post to potentially run for mayor. The city charter requires city officeholders quit their jobs to seek another office.

In an interview with The Inquirer, he said he’s considering running because Philadelphia is a “city in crisis.” He said he hasn’t set a timeline for making a decision and will spend the next several weeks talking to residents and business owners.

“Our city needs a leader, a champion,” said Domb, a Democrat. “You have to love people. You have to want the job. We need a mayor who wants the job.”

It was unclear Monday if or when he’d be replaced. City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, who can call for a special election to fill open seats, declined to comment.

Domb’s departure from Council in some ways marks the start of the mayoral campaign to succeed term-limited Mayor Jim Kenney, who leaves office in January 2024. The announcement could set off a cascade of developments among a crowded field of at least seven candidates who are considering a run.

No one has formally declared their candidacy. But several Democrats have said they’re considering a play for the mayor’s office, and a handful are assembling teams of operatives and strategists behind the scenes.

The others said to be seriously considering running include City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart; Jeff Brown, who owns a chain of grocery stores; and Councilmembers Cherelle Parker, Derek Green, Helen Gym, and María Quiñones-Sánchez. All but Brown would be subject to the “resign to run” rule.

» READ MORE: The 2023 race for Philly mayor is starting soon. Meet the candidates who might run.

Known in real estate circles as the “condo king,” Domb has for six years positioned himself as a budget hawk who thinks the city needs to be run more efficiently. He favors more aggressive cuts to the wage and business taxes, and has recently been critical of Kenney’s record on public safety and gun violence.

Domb, 67, has long been considering a run for mayor — some even suggested he challenge Kenney in 2019 — and during Council’s final spring meeting in June, he delivered what sounded like a stump speech, saying that the city lacks “executive leadership.”

In his resignation letter to Clarke on Monday, Domb wrote that the city is “at a crossroads” and must enact “common sense and practical solutions to improve the lives of all Philadelphians, prioritizing public safety in a meaningful way.”

“Public safety, by far, is the No. 1 issue,” he said in an interview. “If people don’t feel safe in the city, they’re not going to stay here.”

The real estate broker and landlord has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money into his two winning campaigns for Council, allowing him to run with significant resources without having to worry about winning over outside interests.

Domb finished third among at-large Council candidates in the 2015 Democratic primary, and second in 2019. (Council has seven at-large seats that are elected citywide, and two are reserved for members outside the majority party.)

He has maintained his real estate empire while in office, working as a broker and a landlord with scores of rental units. While he’s consulted with the Board of Ethics throughout his time in office to ensure he does not run afoul of city ethics laws, Domb’s dual roles have led to criticism from progressives and development skeptics who say they amount to a conflict of interest.

Domb said that if he ran for and were elected mayor, he would “not be involved in the real estate business” while holding that office. He said his empire is set up to run without him at the helm.

Since winning office in 2015, he’s built his brand as a legislator by taking a leading role in budget hearings, questioning members of Kenney’s administration about spending increases and cost-cutting. He made a splash in 2018 when he identified a $33 million discrepancy in city accounts due to basic errors in bookkeeping.

In early 2020, Domb championed a law that expanded the wage tax reimbursement rate for low-income households. And he said he’s proud of his work over the past two years in advocating for the city’s hospitality industry, which was hit hard by pandemic-related closures and restrictions.

Still, Domb said, despite the economic rebound, he thinks the city is backsliding.

“Just this past week, I must have run into 15 people who told me they are leaving the city,” he said. “We have real problems in the city, and it’s not political. It’s about solving problems.”

Deciding when to launch a mayoral campaign is a key decision point. Entering early can give lesser-known candidates more time to build their brands among voters, and raise money over a longer window. But it also subjects them to scrutiny for a longer period of time and can make it more difficult to build momentum later in the race.

The winners of the last two Philly mayoral races have shown the value of each strategy.

Former Mayor Michael A. Nutter won the May 2007 Democratic primary after resigning from his Council seat to enter the race in July 2006. Nutter’s exceptionally early entry allowed him to raise money for longer and define his message before better-known candidates, including two members of Congress, entered the fray.

Kenney took the opposite approach, waiting until February 2015 to formally enter the Democratic primary and campaigned for just three months. Kenney hired much of the campaign staff of Ken Trujillo, a former city solicitor who dropped out of the race, and benefited from a substantial outside spending effort supported by organized labor.

The mayor’s late entrance allowed him to earn headlines for shaking up a race that was viewed by some as uninspired.

The “resign to run” rule raises the stakes of running for city officeholders, some of whom must weigh forgoing an easy path to reelection — and a reliable paycheck — against joining the mayor’s race. Members of Congress, state legislators, and candidates from the private sector like Brown can run for mayor without quitting their current jobs.

Still, city officials have dominated mayoral races over the last 70 years. Since the Charter was adopted in 1952, all but one of Philly’s mayors made their names through City Hall, including four former members of Council, two ex-district attorneys, a former city controller, a former police commissioner, and a former city managing director.

The only exception in that period of Democratic dominance is former Mayor William J. Green III, who was a former member of Congress and the son of a legendary party boss.