Your eminence,

YPP contributor Caietanus makes a good comparison of between the method used to choose replacement city councilmembers and the installation of bishops in the Middle Ages.

Here's my comment to his post:

Sometimes we get what we deserve. While in practice, you are 100% correct, that these seats will be chosen by an unelected few. In theory, Philadelphians do have a choice even in this situation. Registered voters choose committee people. Committee people choose ward leaders. Ward leaders from the two major parties choose nominees to fill vacant Council seats. The problem, of course, is that the committee person elections occur during off-year, non-mayoral primaries which are lucky to get 15% turnout. The other problem is that there is far too little civic engagement so that qualified people aren't even running for committee person. What we end up with most of the time are committee people recruited by ward leaders who are then elected by voters that the ward leaders have asked to come out and vote. Of course, there are exceptions, as in my home ward and division.

Unless the electorate becomes much more active, takes the time to educate themselves and shows up to vote for every position, from mayor down to committee person, we'll continue to get the kinds of office holders we deserve. In fact, you hit the nail exactly on the head when you expressed your doubts about an open election. Even an open election, a primary, whether a special date or held on the same day as the May 2007 primary, would most likely produce the same end result with the way the party is able to influence the outcome of low profile races like District Council. And yes, those are low profile races to your average Philadelphian. In fact, when I walked around the Seventh District for a day trying to get reaction to Rick Mariano's resignation, I got more people saying "who's that?" than any other response (second was "he's a good guy, he does good for the district").

So this quote I found the other day for one of my own blog posts continues to ring true:

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber."

As I'm preaching to the choir, I'll just say pass that along next time someone who complains about the trash on the ground also claims not to be interested in politics.