Also this issue: GOP, Independents At-Large -Daryl Gale Target: Philly City ports are on an al-Qaeda hit list. Plus, the scene at Al Mansour. -Brendan McGarvey Bending Over For Bush -Daniel Brook Riding the Railroad -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

April 3- 9, 2003

city beat

Green: Machine?

Labor of love: Green Party candidate John Hogan says he wants to reach out to low-paid workers and younger voters as much as environmental activists. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Green Party of Philadelphia fields its first Council at-large candidate.

by Juliet Fletcher

John Hogan knows it will take more than friends to make an impact on this year’s City Council race. Running as Green Party candidate for a minority at-large seat, he says, he won’t be pitted against Democrats; he’ll contend with Republicans and independents hoping to offer a contrasting viewpoint in Council. "The Democratic Party in Philadelphia is a collection of personal networks," he says. "Elected officials create networks of people who got them there and then rely on being looked after. I’m running outside this network." As a minority candidate, he sees the reserving of two seats for minority parties "as a crude form of proportional representation."

Hogan, a Mt. Airy resident employed as series specialist at Penn's Biddle Law Library, will be the first Green Party candidate to run for an at-large seat -- and only the second ever to run for any Council post. (In 1999, Gene Miller ran in the Fifth District, against Darrell Clarke. This year, Tom Hutt plans to run for the Eighth District seat, against Donna Reed Miller.)

A labor activist at heart, Hogan publicly worked against a bill, introduced in 1999 by Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell and pushed by Penn, that eventually moved food vendors off campus. Hogan was left with doubts about the city's policy of offering itself as a "job bank," as he puts it, for large employers and outside businesses willing to relocate, at the expense of smaller local enterprises. Reflecting his connections with local union affiliation, he says, "I'm pushing for an economic strategy that develops jobs and raises capital locally, rather than bringing in outside contractors."

As a minority candidate, he's concentrating on reaching out to more than one minority: eco-enthusiasts (his eco-platform "isn't so much about wilderness as city issues: air quality, water quality, pollution control"), low-paid workers (based on his activity in the Philadelphia chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) and younger voters ("they're not politically disengaged; this campaign is a chance to reach out to them").

Testament to the wider appeal of the Green Party is its swelling membership since Ralph Nader's presidential run in 2000. Hogan also accepts that the outcome of that race -- where "splitting the vote" affected a controversially close outcome -- created a rift between certain Democrats and Greens. While professing admiration for Democratic Councilmen David Cohen and Angel Ortiz -- neither of whom "roll over for business" -- he adds, "I'm not one of those who thinks there's no difference between Greens and Dems; there aren't as many differences as I would like."

While the Green Party of Philadelphia won minor party status in 2000, Hogan concedes that, with 750 registered members, "they can't win a citywide election by themselves." Hogan plans to harness his own "personal-political network," consisting of organizations he has worked alongside for the past 10 years: He has already received endorsement from the Philadelphia chapter of the National Organization for Women, and plans to seek support from AFSCME District Council 47, Local 1776 and other unions.

Is Hogan's belief that he can actually win misplaced? According to GPOP projections, based on Committee of Seventy statistics estimating turnout similar to 1999 (with 441,981 voters casting five votes each), it would take one-third of city voters casting two of their five at-large votes for parties other than Republican or Democrat in order for a Green candidate to place sixth or seventh.

Hogan's goal is to garner roughly 130,000 votes -- which was enough to win the seventh at-large seat for Republican Councilman Frank Rizzo in 1999. Preparing to raise the estimated $100,000 needed for a citywide campaign (wherein he'll need to collect at least 2,700 signatures by Aug. 1 to petition for inclusion on the ballot), Hogan last week hired campaign manager Joe Roberts -- a former member of Alex Talmadge's team for his DA campaign in 2001. <

Meanwhile, while he hopes the forces he brings together "will exert pressure on other Council members" whether or not he's elected, he says he's out to win. "It's not about just redirecting the conversation."