Post mortem time for the failure of Democratic victories to materialize in the Philly suburbs. What follows is the full text of a letter that was sent to all of Delaware County’s employees before the election.

The Democrat[sic] candidates for Delaware County Council have launched an all out assault on the integrity and character of the County’s government employees. They have been checking the party registration of County employees! David Landau, Ann O’Keefe, and John Innelli have insinuated that the only reason county employees like yourself have jobs is because of patronage, nepotism, and employees’ active engagement in partisan politics. As the only candidates with elected municipal government experience, we know that public and government service can often be a thankless task. But for the Democrats to drag the integrity and character of hard-working county [sic] employees like you through the mud for political purposes is unacceptable.

We know these personal attacks cannot be easy for you to take, and that is why we are writing to you today. Please know that we value your service to the residents of Delaware County. You provide important and vital services to residents that make Delaware County a great place to live, raise a family, work, and operate a business.

There is a reson that Delaware County has one of the lowest operating budgets in the Delaware Valley. That reason is the exemplary service of County workers like yourself, individuals who dedicate themselves to assisting local residents and working to ensure that the county is run in a fiscally responsible manner. In fact, it is this dedication from County employees that has helped result in no County tax increase in the past three years and no County tax increase in 7 of the past 10 years.

The Democrats [sic] smear tactics, false negative attacks, and politics of personal destruction should not be rewarded. That is why we hope we can count on your support and the support of your friends and family on Election Day, November 6th. For more information on our positions on the issues please visit our website at www.delco2007.com [sic]

If elected we [sic] will all be proud to work with you to continue good government in Delaware County.

Sincerely,

Christine Fizzano Cannon, Tom McGarrigle, Andy Lewis

I’m not going to react to this note at length, but I want to toss in several observations:

• 3100 employees plus their close family members represent a large number voters in an election that only turns out about 75,o00 (yes?) voters.
• Nowhere is it more true that perception is reality than in an election.
• In translation, the media translation of the “Case against the Courthouse” was “Delaware County employees are bad, and only have their jobs because they’re all Republicans.”

From my position as blogger-raging-against-the-machine, readers tell me the story that needed to be told: it’s not that County employees only have jobs because they’re registered Republicans, but that they’re all registered Republicans because that’s the only way anybody will let you have a job. Nobody actually believes that all of those employees are loyal GOP stalwarts. No, the Republican bosses simply make their employees render unto Caesar….

I hear it all the time. You canvass a household of registered Republicans. You’re told at the door, “Don’t worry, we’re Jimmy Carter liberals here. We’re just registered because my husband’s livelihood depends on it– you know, County government.” Or the spouse whose career advancement is threatened–directly, overtly–not because she is a Democrat, but because her spouse is. So exactly who is prying into the registration of others? Really?

In the end, the “Case Against the Courthouse” was a message that, like Othello’s love, worked not wisely but too well.

“The Case” garnered a lot of media attention, but like a California wildfire, it quickly burned out of control.

The case to be made, if the one-party rule was to be a central campaign issue, was against the Party bosses. The problem in Delco has always been the control of the system by a shadow cabinet, the vaunted war board. You know: McNichol, Catania, Judge, Sexton.

The message that should have been going out to County employees was: “We don’t care what party you’re a member of, but from now on, you’re going to be free–and we all are going to be free–of coercion and intimidation.”

* * * *

By the way, did the GOP candidates really get away with saying “the reason we haven’t had tax increases is because we compensate you for $h!t?

At the end of last week, David Landau made another installment in the “Case Against the Courthouse.” This time the department in the spotlight was Data Processing, where 36 out 36 employees are registered Republican. Sounds strange doesn’t it? This is an area where experience would seem paramount in employment decisions. But you have to remember that Data Processing is the department that was run by John McNichol, the GOP boss from Upper Darby, until very recently.

This brings the percentage of Delaware County employees who are registered Republicans in the departments investigated by Landau’s campaign to a whopping 98%, or 250 out of 255.

There is still a slight Republican registration advantage County-wide. And because the Council is exclusively Republican, it’s not a surprise that department heads are Republican.

Certainly one shouldn’t pretend, as Republican Council Chair Andy Reilly does, that party isn’t an absolute factor in employment in Delco. Ask any rank-and-file county employee, even a committed conservative, off the record.

But one has to ask why it is so essential that every clerk and secretary subscribe to a political orthodoxy.

This is a really critical issue to correct now. The demographic shift in Delaware County continues. Within a short period of time, the GOP machine’s dominance will be permanently dissolved. We will enter an era where the two major parties are on roughly equal footing, so that political control will shift back and forth based on the performance of elected officials and the mood of the electorate.

At that point, we need to have in place a stable class of competent public servants. We can’t have a mass exodus every time control of the Council switches. The good employees who are in place should stay, and deserve to be recognized for their performance, not their esteem in the eyes of political bosses. They are essential to the continuity of government–Democrats, Republicans, and all others alike.

With only a few weeks left in the campaign, Delaware County Council candidate David Landau has already delivered five installments in his “Case Against the Courthouse.”

In a nutshell, what Landau has been explaining to voters is that their invisible County government is nothing but a pure patronage mill. It’s not just that elected officials are under the thumb of party bosses–the partisan lockout extends to almost every job at every level of our local government. Almost everybody who works at the courthouse is a registered Republican, and many are donors and party activists.  There is no civil service class in Delaware County. You want a job? Pay homage to the bosses, big and small.

My whole reason to get involved in local politics has been to participate in the struggle to break the machine. I’ve been grateful and proud that David has been so steadfast and effective in highlighting the extent of the problem with Delco government. Methodically, his case has marched through offices that should be run in an open, non-partisan way, but aren’t. The controller’s office, sheriff’s office, election bureau, voter registration, tax claims, tax assessment–the list goes on and on.

All are open to abuses of power by unchecked partisan control.

Some Republicans are taking offense to Landau’s use of the term “corruption.” And to be honest, that’s a term I feel a little uncomfortable in tossing around. I have no personal direct evidence of wrongdoing by any particular member of County government. It’s a broad brush to use, and I don’t like to use words with criminal implications to describe things I cannot prove.

But here’s what I will say:

The Republican-only Delco government is broken.
The GOP Delco machine is coercive.
The all-Republican Delco government is inefficient.
One-party rule in Delco lacks sufficient checks against abuses of power and revenue.

And that should be bad enough in any functioning democracy.

The three Democrats running for Delaware County Council held a press conference on the steps of the Media courthouse to advance their list of proposed reforms to county government. In the course of Alex Rose’s reporting of the event in the Delco Times, it sounds to me as if County Director all but admitted that the Delaware County Council routinely and deliberately violates the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act.

County Director Marianne Grace later explained everything on the agenda has already been discussed and examined throughout the week leading up to the council meeting.

By the time council votes publicly on the items, everyone understands what they’re voting on and why, so there is no need for council to discuss, she said. Some agenda items are routinely summarized during the meeting for the audience anyway.

The point of the PA Sunshine Act is not only to have public meetings at which official votes are recorded. No, the point of the Act is to allow citizens to witness and respond to the entire decision making process of our elected governments.

65 Pa.C.S.A. § 702. Legislative findings and declaration

(a) Findings. — The General Assembly finds that the right of the public to be present at all meetings of agencies and to witness the deliberation, policy formulation and decisionmaking of agencies is vital to the enhancement and proper functioning of the democratic process and that secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public in government and the public’s effectiveness in fulfilling its role in a democratic society.

[Later…]

65 Pa.C.S.A. § 704. Open meetings

Official action and deliberations by a quorum of the members of an agency shall take place at a meeting open to the public unless closed under section 707 (relating to exceptions to open meetings), 708 (relating to executive sessions) or 712 (relating to General Assembly meetings covered).

Council meetings aren’t televised, and they’re held at 10:00 AM Tuesday mornings, when most of us are at work. If you want to see your one-party Council perform a rigged show of governance, you can spend a half day of your vacation time to fund out what they’re up to. [Meeting Schedule].

Rep. Bryan Lentz, (D, PA-161) annouced on Friday that he’ll introduce legislation to strengthen the Commonwealth’s Sunshine Act. The measure reportedly has the support of the Local Government Committee Chairman Robert Freeman, (D, PA-136).

Sunshine laws (or open meeting laws) enhance the public’s ability to monitor their government by carefully limiting the topics that may be discussed by a government council or board in private meetings. Despite the law, many such bodies do not adhere to the law’s requirements.

Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania law is effectively toothless. According to 65 Pa.C.S.A. § 714:

Any member of any agency who participates in a meeting with the intent and purpose by that member of violating this chapter commits a summary offense and shall, upon conviction, be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding $100 plus costs of prosecution.

So the penalty is a mere slap on the wrist, and that only if a brave citizen takes legal action, and the officials can be demonstrated to have participated with the intent to subvert the law.

Recent alleged misconduct in Haverford has brought the issue of the Sunshine Act back to the fore. The Governor has indicated that he’s in favor of toughening the law. Lentz, a reform-oriented freshman from Delaware County who sits on the Local Government Committee, is the right person to get the ball rolling.

Because Delaware County has lived under one-party rule for thirty years, this is an issue on which I’m unusually sensitive. In fact, the only time I have marched into a public meeting and griped at my municipal commissioners was when allegations arose that they’d been discussing out-of-bounds topics in executive session.

Daddy Democrat endorses the efforts of any legislators, regardless of party, to strengthen the Sunshine Act. My gratitude goes out, yet again, to Bryan Lentz. Politically, everybody knows I’m a big supporter of his, but so far, he’s done everything to deserve my continued trust.

Truth in our House brings news that the Pay Raise Pigs are back, this time to harass the board and senior administrators of PHEAA. There are even pics.

I sense that what was once a political publicity stunt may develop into something of a Pennsylvania tradition.