Tag: Michael Meehan

How the Republican Party chooses a candidate to support in Philadelphia

Michael Meehan is a powerful guy in the city’s Republican Party – for whatever that means. But it occurred to me that that isn’t always explained why.

One doesn’t need Meehan’s permission to run, of course. But this state’s elections, like those in much of the country, expect it. The blessing of the Republican committee comes with the promise of making the ballot and much less competition than in the Democratic Party. In the small pond of the Republican Party, Meehan holds influence to divvy available jobs, which keeps some Philadelphians registered with the party. Thus, in deciding that the party will support a particular candidate, ward leaders and committeemen rarely deviate from Meehan’s choices.

One can briefly encapsulate the selection process thusly: the Republican Party selection committee – which Michael Meehan leads – chooses a candidate and the party’s 67 ward leaders ratify that decision. Meehan’s control over the committee and effective sway over most ward leaders makes him as powerful as an unelected Republican can be in this city.

Photo courtesy of History Cooperative.org.

Registered Republicans in Philadelphia compared to region

When I interviewed Michael Meehan, he mentioned that the latest total he saw put registered Republicans in Philadelphia at more than 147,000. He called that the largest county-wide total in the Commonwealth. Methinks he misspoke, easy to do because, I wouldn’t be surprised, for centuries that was true of Philadelphia.

But the past month there was a flurry of research into regional registrations after it was reported Montgomery County went Democratic, and because it is the state’s most populous, turns out that while Philadelphia’s GOP isn’t the state’s largest, it is among them, and those that beat it are all neighbors.

Using totals collecting by the Committee of Seventy (Seventy-PDF), Philadelphia has 145,439 registered Republicans and 799,381 Democrats.

Bucks County – 181,696 registered Republicans and 185,381 Democrats

Chester County – 147,010 registered Republicans and 113,278 Democrats

Delaware County – 188,834 registered Republicans and 156,608 Democrats

Montgomery County – 240,053 registered Republicans and 240,232 Democrats

Carton courtesy of Christine Berry.

Nonpartisan elections: the take by Sam Katz, John Street, and others

Last week I got the opportunity to sit down with former Republican contender for mayor, Sam Katz.

We spoke on a number of subjects, more notably his view of nonpartisan elections in Philadelphia. He told me that he hadn’t given it much thought, not thinking it was worth pursuing.

Today, he followed up on our conversation with more thoughts on the subject.

As a practical matter, election law is controlled by the state—i.e. the legislature. Those laws are made by incumbents. The state has very few legislative and senate districts that are generally considered to be “in play”. So getting members of the House and Senate to vote for a system that would put their renomination at greater risk by enabling people outside of the party that nominated them to have a voice, isn’t something we’re likely to see anytime soon. Pursuing it as a political agenda item, would, in my view, be a waste of time and energy.

Continue reading Nonpartisan elections: the take by Sam Katz, John Street, and others

Interview: Michael Meehan, Republican City Committee general counsel

This afternoon I got the chance to slide into a seat in the office of Michael Meehan. He’s still unpacking.

The general counsel of Philadelphia’s Republican City Committee left the Philadelphia offices of Reed Smith for Wolf Block back in January 2006, as reported by the Legal Intelligencer.

This was perhaps the interview to which I most looked forward.

So many of many of the other people to whom I’ve spoken have pointed to Meehan for answers as to why the city’s Republican Party continues to shrivel and die. He has big shoes to fill.

His grandfather, Austin Meehan, first took control of the city’s powerful Republican machine in the first half of the 20th-century. Meehan first brought about the city’s Republican Northeast focus, beating out other Republican machinists, guys like the Vere Brothers in South Philadelphia and the Hawthorne brothers in Roxborough, as I discussed after my interview with former Committee of Seventy CEO Fred Voigt.

Continue reading Interview: Michael Meehan, Republican City Committee general counsel

Al Schmidt: an element of change in the city's Republican Party?

The Philadelphia Republican City Committee has added a new gun, according to an article by CityPaper.

Al Schmidt has been named to the new position of deputy director, charged with voter registration. He had spent better than six years in Washington, D.C., serving the Government Accountability Office, but now he’s the right hand man of the party’s General Counsel Michael Meehan, and other party leaders like Chairman Vito Canuso and Executive Director Joe Duda, who also serves as a Philadelphia city commissioner.

Schmidt views his mission as a long-term endeavor because Republicans need to engage exciting and worthy candidates for office, like in 1992, when Ron Castille, Frank Rizzo and Sam Katz were all running for mayor. That was an exciting GOP primary.

Photo from Neolibertarian.net.