Parker rolls to victory amid controversy

The city’s political watchdog has raised questions of election impropriety. A group of the candidate’s supporters are demanding an apology

Democrat Cherelle Parker (second from right), won a landslide victory in last week’s special election. Among those celebrating the win (from left) were City Commissioner Edgar Howard, State Sen. LeAnna Washington, State Rep. Dwight Evans, Parker and City Councilwoman Marian Tasco. (Photo by John Patillo).

by MICHAEL J. MISHAK

Like most special elections, last week’s race to fill the vacant state House seat in the 200th Legislative District had all the makings of a sleeper event. But in the rough-and-tumble world of Philadelphia politics, where candidates often walk a fine ethical line, things have a way of defying expectations.

Enter “Chicken-gate.”

Within 24 hours of Democrat Cherelle Parker’s landslide victory in the three-way contest to succeed state Sen. LeAnna Washington, the city’s top political watchdog group had charged the winner with possible violations of the state election code.

Among the Committee of Seventy’s complaints: Parker’s campaign buying lunch — chicken salad sandwiches and chips — for polling place officials. Citing the “bribery at elections” clause of the Pennsylvania Election Code, the group said the free meals could constitute a serious violation.

While the committee retracted another allegation — that Parker had improperly entered polling places — upon learning that the candidate was a certified poll watcher, the group held firm on its “free lunch” charge, touching off a firestorm that culminated in a protest last Friday by Parker’s supporters at the committee’s Center City offices.

Concerned Citizens for Fairness and Justice, comprised of about 20 members, including City Councilwoman Marian Tasco and local NAACP president J. Wyatt Mondesire, delivered a letter addressed to Zachary Stalberg, president and chief executive officer of the Committee of Seventy, demanding the group issue a public apology.

Calling the allegations “trivial and unfounded,” the protest group said the committee had misread the election code, failing to prove that Parker had provided the free lunches “with intent” to influence the election.

Responding to the criticism, Stalberg drafted a letter that again apologized for the committee’s allegation about improperly entering polling places, but said in part, “We remain concerned about candidates giving anything of value to those working inside the polls. As I’m sure you will agree, once you head down that path there eventually will be trouble.”

For Tasco, a leader of the protest group and Parker’s former boss in City Council, the committee’s letter did not go far enough. “I think it’s an attempt to justify the vicious attack on Cherelle,” she said in a telephone interview on Monday, calling on the Committee of Seventy to issue an “unconditional apology.”

“To think that an election board worker would give up their vote for a sandwich is an insult to those workers,” Tasco said.

According to Tasco, Democratic leader of the 50th Ward, providing lunches for election workers is “the tradition of every candidate.”

She also demanded more accountability from the nonpartisan watchdog, saying that the group had not disclosed the names of individuals who filed complaints.

If the committee does not drop the issue, Tasco said, it would also have to investigate other elected officials. “It still leaves the governor, the mayor and every other candidate who has ever run for public office,” she said. “They need to take the stain off Cherelle Parker. She was not the first person to do this.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Tuesday that the District Attorney’s Office had cleared Parker, dismissing all charges of alleged wrongdoing.

“Chicken-gate” aside, Parker scored a decisive victory in the Sept. 13 contest, garnering 76 percent of the vote. As political experts predicted, voter turnout was abysmal with just about 9 percent of the district’s eligible voters casting ballots.

Green Party candidate Marlene Santoyo made an impressive second-place showing, outpolling Republican Robert Rossman by 324 votes. Santoyo, a retired public school teacher and longtime activist, garnered more than 14 percent of the vote, picking up more than half her support in Chestnut Hill. The district claims only 89 registered Greens.

While Parker carried all four city wards in the district, Santoyo won four of the 12 eligible voting divisions in the 9th Ward.

In the short campaign season, both she and Rossman seized on Parker’s close ties to the Democratic Party, positioning themselves as political outsiders who could bring much-needed change to Harrisburg.

Parker, a former chief aide to Councilwoman Tasco, described herself as the “homegrown, not handpicked” candidate with the government experience to deliver on a number of issues, particularly economic development.

“I think the Greens tried to portray the Democrats as a corrupt party with do-nothing elected officials,” said John O’Connell, Democratic leader of the 9th Ward. “While the party does need to clean up some messes it has made, [the characterization] is unfair.”

Still, he lauded the Greens for their Election Day operation in the 9th Ward. “They couldn’t win the ward, but they were more organized than us,” said O’Connell, adding that he had expected the Parker campaign to pour more resources into Chestnut Hill.

Despite the loss, the activist party has cause to celebrate. According to Hillary Aisenstein, president of the Green Party of Philadelphia, the race marked the first time a Green outpolled a major party candidate in a three-way contest.

With the remainder of Washington’s House term set to expire next year, Parker will face a primary in the spring.