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 79 

A Tale of Two Cities Revisited: 
The Philadelphia Mayoral Election of 2003 

 
Jeffrey Kraus 

Wagner College 
 
This article examines the Philadelphia Mayoral Election of 

2003, which was a re-match of the 1999 contest. The author 
contends that while Philadelphia remained a divided city, 
partisanship rather than race best explains the election’s outcome. 
By “nationalizing” the election, Democratic Mayor John Street tied 
his moderate Republican challenger, Sam Katz, to the unpopular 
Republican administration in Washington, D.C. The revelation of a 
recording device in Mayor Street’s office, rather than damaging 
Street, galvanized his African-American base while bringing a 
number of white Democrats back into the Street camp. These 
factors, along with a massive voter registration drive by 
Democratic Party operatives, transformed the party’s narrow 
victory of 1999 into a landslide four years later. 

 
Introduction 

 
The 2003 Philadelphia Mayoral election was a re-match of the 

contentious and polarizing contest of 1999. Democrat John Street, 
the African-American who had been narrowly elected mayor of this 
overwhelmingly Democratic city four years earlier, once again 
faced Republican Sam Katz. In 1999, Street became Philadelphia’s 
122nd mayor by narrowly defeating Katz, winning by fewer than 
9,500 votes out of more than 439,000 votes cast, making it the 
closest election since 1911.1 Such a narrow margin would not be 
expected in a city where Democrats, Street’s party, constitute 75% 
of the electorate. Race, however, race was a significant factor in the 
outcome as white Democrats voted for Katz, creating a “Tale of 
Two Cities,” where white voters, regardless of party identification, 
voted for Katz while African-Americans and other minorities 
supported Street (Kraus 2002a). 

Since Philadelphia adopted its present Home Rule Charter in 
1951, every incumbent Mayor who has sought re-election has 
prevailed. Only two of Street’s predecessors faced serious 



 

 80  

challenges. In 1987, Wilson Goode, the city’s first African-
American mayor, coming off the MOVE debacle, defeated former 
Mayor (and Democrat turned Republican) Frank Rizzo by 17,000 
votes.2 In 1967, Mayor James Tate defeated District Attorney (and 
future United States Senator) Arlen Specter by 10,748 votes. 

Given Street’s incumbency and the overwhelming Democratic 
registration advantage, Street should have been an overwhelming 
favorite to win re-election. However, there was still the issue of 
race. Would a Katz-Street re-match lead to yet another competitive 
and racially divisive contest? 

The race issue is not confined to Philadelphia. Throughout the 
United States the question persists as to whether race still matters in 
elections. In New York City, the David Dinkins–Rudolph Giuliani 
contests of 1989 and 1993 demonstrated that race was an issue in 
the nation’s largest and most diverse city.3 In 1993, the perception 
that Mayor Dinkins had been “soft on crime” and had been 
ineffective in dealing with a number of racial controversies cost him 
significant support among white Democratic voters, who opted to 
support Giuliani (Barrett 2000, Kirtzman 2000, Mollenkopf 2002). 
The 2001 contest in the same city saw the Democratic Party’s 
alliance of liberal whites, African-Americans, and Latinos unravel 
as the result of a racially divisive primary campaign, allowing a 
neophyte billionaire Republican to win (Kraus 2002b). 

New York was not alone. During the 1980s and 1990s a 
number of cities with elected African-American mayors saw those 
mayors succeeded by whites who often subscribed to more 
conservative policies than did their African-American predecessors. 
In the same year that Giuliani was elected in New York, Republican 
Richard Riordan became mayor of Los Angeles. In 1992, Bret 
Schundler became the first Republican mayor elected in Jersey City 
in 75 years. In Chicago, Richard M. Daley, the son of Richard J. 
Daley, was elected mayor following the death of Chicago’s first 
African-American mayor, Harold Washington. Edward Rendell 
succeeded Wilson Goode, and in Baltimore Martin O’Malley 
replaced Kurt Schmoke. Like Giuliani, all stressed crime reduction, 
economic development, and fiscal discipline as prescriptions for 
urban revitalization (Judd and Swanstrom 2004, 397–401). 



 

 81 

In some cities where African-American mayors have sought re-
election their white support has actually increased as those voters 
found that their fears about a city administration led by an African-
American mayor had not come to pass.4 In fact, a 1983 study found 
that African-American mayors expressed attitudes and followed 
policies that were not different from white mayors regarding fiscal 
policy (Clark and Ferguson 1983, 144–148). As Levy (2000, 65) 
observed, in many large American cities “leadership has swung 
back and forth between Blacks and Whites.” 

Did race still matter to the Philadelphia electorate in 2003? To 
answer this question, the political landscape, the candidates and 
their messages, and the election campaign will be reviewed. 
Particular attention will be paid to the voting behavior of 
Philadelphians in the general election. 

 
Philadelphia’s Political Landscape in 2003 

Philadelphia is one of the nation’s most heavily Democratic 
cities. In the years following Street’s narrow victory, white 
Democrats returned to the fold. In 2000, Philadelphians 
overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Vice President Al Gore and 
Senator Joe Lieberman, giving them nearly 80% of the vote in the 
city and paving the way for Gore to carry the state’s 23 electoral 
votes.5 In 2001, Democratic District Attorney Lynne Abraham was 
re-elected with more than 65% of the vote and Jonathan Saidel was 
re-elected City Controller with more than 80% of the vote.6 In the 
2002 gubernatorial election, Democrat (and former Philadelphia 
Mayor) Ed Rendell would outpoll his Republican opponent, State 
Attorney General Mike Fisher, by more than 280,000 votes in 
Philadelphia.7 

While the City remained a Democratic bastion, there had been 
other changes in the political landscape since Street’s narrow 
victory four years earlier. A Republican President was elected in the 
closest election in American history in November 2000, depriving 
the City’s Democratic Mayor of an ally in the White House. In 
2002, Rendell was elected Governor, becoming the first 
Philadelphian to hold the office since Martin Grove Brumbaugh 
was elected in 1914. In 2003, one of Philadelphia’s few Republican 
elected officials, John Michael Perzel, would become Speaker of 
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. The presence of 



 

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Rendell and Perzel at the highest levels of state government should 
have given the City more influence in Harrisburg than at any time 
in recent history. 

Another factor to consider was that in the four years since the 
last municipal election the number of white non-Hispanic residents 
declined. According to United States Census Bureau estimates, the 
number of whites living in Philadelphia dropped from 644,395 in 
April 2000 to 615,453 (Committee of Seventy, 2003b). If the 
electorate was as racially polarized as it had been in 1999, Katz’s 
task would have been more difficult. Yet Philadelphia is also a city 
where no racial or ethnic group constitutes a majority. According to 
the census estimate, 43% of the population is African-American and 
41% is white. There are approximately 75,000 Asian residents 
(4.5%) and 135,000 Latinos (8.5%). 

While there were fewer whites, there were also fewer 
Democrats. Following the 2002 elections, the Board of City 
Commissioners conducted the first purge of inactive voters 
permitted under the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Voter) 
of 1993.8 

 
 

Table 1 
Registered Voters in Philadelphia, 1999 and 2003 

 
Voters November 1999 April 2003 Change

All Registered 986,366 906,684 -79,682

Republicans 191,416 160,344 -31,072

Democrats 735,423 685,432 -49,991

Others 59,527 60,908 +1,381

Source: Board of City Commissioners Registration Data. 

While both parties experienced declines in registration due to 
the purge, 19,000 more Democrats than Republicans were dropped 



 

 83 

from the rolls. Considering that Street’s first victory had come by 
slightly more than 9,000 votes, the loss of more Democratic voters 
could be a factor in another close election. 

 
The Candidates and Their Messages 

Street portrayed himself as the “Neighborhood Mayor” who 
had worked to improve the quality of life and quality of city 
services in every city neighborhood. Of particular importance, 
according to the Mayor, were his Operation Safe Streets crime 
prevention and neighborhood blight removal programs (known as 
the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative). These programs 
boarded up abandoned houses, removed 175,000 abandoned cars 
from the city’s streets, cleaned up 31,000 vacant lots, and placed 
more than 45,000 children in after school programs (Athans 2003, 
2A). Here Street differed from his predecessor, Ed Rendell, who in 
his eight years in office emphasized restoring Center City and 
improving the city’s finances.9 Street took credit for balancing the 
city’s budget and negotiating agreements for new stadiums for the 
Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Eagles while cutting taxes by 
about $200 million. He also cited his successful effort to have 
automobile insurance premiums lowered for city residents. 
However, during Street’s first term the state took control of the 
city’s troubled school district, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 
and the Philadelphia Parking Authority.10 

Following his narrow loss to Street in 1999, Katz became CEO 
of Greater Philadelphia First, a regional business association of 
chief executives of the area’s largest employers.11 In his third run 
for the Mayoralty (he had also lost to Rendell in 1991), Katz argued 
that Street had failed to address adequately Philadelphia’s problems, 
and he insisted that “we can do better” (Fleming 2003, 1). The 
major theme that Katz hoped to emphasize was that the Street 
Administration operated in a culture that was corrupt, incompetent, 
and rampant with cronyism. In making this claim, Katz could point 
to Street’s own words from 1999: “The people who support me in 
the general election have a greater chance of getting business from 
my administration than the people who support Sam Katz” 
(Associated Press 2003 A8). 

A Democrat turned moderate Republican (he switched parties 
in 1990), Katz was pro-choice on abortion, supported employment 



 

 84  

opportunities for gays and lesbians, and supported increased 
funding for AIDS victims.13 He proposed to jump-start 
Philadelphia’s economy by cutting the wage tax from 4.4% to 
3.5%, with the shortfall in revenue being made up by a $750 million 
bond issue that would be re-paid over ten years. 

Citing the continuing loss of population and jobs, Katz 
contended that under Street the city had lost the momentum of the 
Rendell era. According to Katz, Philadelphia faced three problems: 
a high crime rate and low quality of life, the exodus of the young 
and college-educated, and tax policies that create an unfavorable 
business climate. Katz said that one of his goals as mayor would be 
to attract 250,000 residents into the city over a 15 year period. By 
cutting business taxes, Philadelphia would retain businesses. As 
Katz explained it, “our tax structure created Cherry Hill and King of 
Prussia” (Siegel 2003, 13). As far as Street’s crime control policies 
were concerned, Katz contended that crime was not going down, 
but moving to neighborhoods with less of a police presence. Katz’s 
anti-crime proposals included deploying additional police during 
time periods when gun crimes most often occur and creating a “gun 
court” with jurisdiction over gun cases. 

Katz may have best articulated how the election ultimately 
would be decided: “The extent that I can get African American, 
Latino and Asian votes, and the extent that John Street can get 
white votes, will decide the election” (Caruso 2003, A14). A March 
2003 Keystone Poll showed Katz with a 44% to 40% lead over 
Street. This poll found that race mattered in that African-Americans 
and Whites had divergent views about the direction of the city, 
Street’s performance, and the success of his policies. African-
American voters were more likely than whites to think that the city 
was headed in the right direction, that things were better in 
Philadelphia than they were four years earlier, and that Mayor 
Street was doing an excellent or good job (Millersville University 
2003). 

 
The General Election Campaign 

 
While the 1999 campaign was a polite, issues-oriented contest 

in which the candidates and their organizations avoided personal 
attacks, the 2003 campaign was far more contentious. Among the 
campaign “issues” was a photograph of Street with a convicted drug 



 

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dealer, allegations that Katz was a friend of a former City Council 
aide who had been convicted of extortion, charges that Katz had 
once been implicated in a sexual harassment suit (the accuser later 
recanted), and claims that Street accepted $125,000 in campaign 
contributions that Katz said were illegal. 

In addition to the personal attacks, the campaign became ugly 
in other ways. In August, an unlit Molotov cocktail was tossed 
through the window of a Katz campaign office in North 
Philadelphia. Katz suggested that the Street campaign was behind 
the vandalism, a charge denied by the Mayor’s campaign staff. Two 
members of Street’s Administration were charged with making 
terroristic threats to the building’s owner on the day before the 
incident.14 A confrontation earlier on the day of the vandalism 
between the Mayor’s son, Sharif, an assistant city manager, and the 
building’s landlord, Lewis Harris, was videotaped and aired on 
local television newscasts. 

The Street campaign’s strategy was to mobilize Democrats by 
asserting that a Katz victory would mean a city controlled by 
President George W. Bush and a loss of patronage jobs. To 
reinforce the message, the campaign brought in Democratic 
heavyweights including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, and 
Governor Rendell to make the case that a Street victory would 
improve the Democratic Party’s chances of carrying Pennsylvania 
in the 2004 presidential election. Street also tried linking Katz to 
President Bush. At a campaign rally, Street said: 

 
My opponent has a tax plan that looks so much 
like the George Bush tax plan that I sometimes 
say that Sam Katz wants to do for Philadelphia 
what George Bush is doing for the country. 
And if that makes you nervous, you ought to be 
out there voting Democrat and working for all 
of our Democratic candidates. (NPR 2003) 

 
The Street campaign was the beneficiary of a massive voter 

registration drive conducted by Congressman Chaka Fattah’s 
political operation.15 More than 86,000 new Democratic voters were 
added to the rolls between April 2003 and the general election 
(Meyerson 2003, A23). By comparison, 7,636 new Republican 
voters registered during the same period (Committee of Seventy 



 

 86  

2003c). This gave Street a tremendous advantage. By expanding the 
electorate to this extent, Fattah’s operation virtually guaranteed a 
Street victory unless these new voters stayed home. Since Fattah’s 
operatives had registered them, it stands to reason that they would 
have found most of them on Election Day and brought them to the 
polls. Later events would make such a “pull” unnecessary. 

As he had in 1999, Katz downplayed his Republican label in 
this Democratic city, going so far as to skip a number of events 
when President Bush visited the Philadelphia area. Instead, Katz 
emphasized Street’s failings as a leader. According to Katz, the city 
faced a fiscal crisis, suffered a mismanaged convention center, and 
had a poor relationship with the state government in Harrisburg. 
Even Street’s vaunted neighborhood blight program was, in Katz’s 
words, “stuck in the mud” (Bulletin’s Frontrunner 2002). 

This was also a campaign where race, an unspoken issue in 
1999, would break into the open. Street was criticized for a 2002 
speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 
People (NAACP) where, noting that Philadelphia had a black 
mayor, a black managing director, a black fire commissioner, and a 
black police commissioner, he boasted that “the brothers and sisters 
are running the city, we are in charge.” Katz was attacked for a 
Republican City Committee mailing that urged white voters to help 
Katz “take back Philly” (Getlin 2003, A20). Despite Katz’s claim 
that he had not authorized the mailing, Street supporters accused 
him of “race baiting.” 

Labor unions, which had almost unanimously backed Street in 
1999, were divided in this contest. While most unions remained 
with Street, about a dozen endorsed Katz. Among those backing 
Katz were the Teamsters; Gas Workers Employee Union Local 686; 
Philadelphia Firefighters Union Local 22; Communications 
Workers of America Local 13000; the Fraternal Order of Housing 
Police; the Philadelphia Regional Council of the United 
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America; and District 
Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County, and 
Municipal Employees (AFSCME). 

While Katz questioned the Street Administration’s 
shortcomings with a television commercial using the phrase “when 
a mayor fails,” Street’s campaign responded by touting the Mayor’s 
accomplishments. A spot featuring actor Bill Cosby acknowledged 
the Mayor’s reputation for personal aloofness with Cosby saying 



 

 87 

that “some politicians, they hug people and kiss babies….Mayor 
Street – his way of kissing and hugging is to put more policemen on 
the streets.” Accompanying Cosby’s voice-over were images of 
police officers on patrol, abandoned cars being removed from city 
streets, and children at computers. The positive tone of the Cosby 
spot contrasted with the negative tone of Katz’s advertisements. 

Street, already ahead in the polls, opened up a huge lead after it 
was revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had 
bugged the Mayor’s City Hall office. The listening device was 
discovered in the ceiling of the office during a routine check by the 
Philadelphia Police Department.16 FBI officials then acknowledged 
that the device belonged to them, but declined to discuss what they 
characterized as an ongoing investigation. Newspaper reports 
suggested that the device was part of a federal investigation into 
possible corruption in the awarding of contracts, including $13 
million in maintenance contracts awarded for the Philadelphia 
International Airport.17 Some of those contracts were awarded to a 
company that had a relationship with the Mayor’s brother, T. 
Milton Street, Sr.18 

After his lawyer had conferred with the United States 
Attorney’s office, Mayor Street said he was not a “target” of the 
investigation. He would admit later that “target” was a specific legal 
term used by the Justice Department when a person was likely to be 
indicted, and that he might still be the “subject” or “focus” of an 
investigation. Federal officials, speaking on the condition of 
anonymity, confirmed that the Mayor was the “subject” of an 
investigation (which meant that he was being investigated, although 
he might not be suspected of breaking the law). Asked if he 
understood the difference between a target and subject, Street 
replied, “I understand the target is the really, really bad one” 
(Schamberg 2003, 11). Street also confirmed that he had turned 
over his “Blackberry” to the FBI Katz called upon Street to make 
public exactly what he had been told regarding his status in the 
investigation.19 Street assured his supporters that he had engaged in 
no wrongdoing, stating that those listening to the conservations 
recorded on the listening devices would hear “no corruption, no sex, 
and no profanity. Not one word” (Loviglio 2003, A3). 

While federal authorities denied that their surveillance of 
Street’s office had anything to do with the election, Democrats 
portrayed it as a Republican plot to defeat Street and help President 



 

 88  

Bush carry Pennsylvania in 2004. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic 
Leader in the United States House of Representatives, questioned 
the timing of the investigation, stating, “That they would announce 
it’s not campaign-related raises even more questions about whether 
it’s campaign-related” (Associate Press 2003b, A13).20 Democratic 
National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said, “serious 
questions arise when the Democratic mayor of the fifth-largest city 
in the country discovers, just before a close election, that senior 
Bush administration officials approved a plan to bug his office” 
(Getlin 2003, A20). 

Street suggested that party politics might be related to the 
bugging: “I believe that people are very, very concerned about this, 
and I think they have a right to be concerned….The timing of all 
this is very suspicious” (Gibbons 2003, A1 ). For Street’s 
supporters, the probe was perceived as yet another Republican dirty 
trick, reminiscent of the 2000 election debacle in Florida when 
thousands of black voters were allegedly disenfranchised. 

Katz tried to downplay the allegations of political and racial 
bias. In an interview on the Fox News Channel, Katz said: 

 
I don’t know anything about the timing. I do 
know that we’ve learned that this has been 
going on for two years. And there is an attempt 
being made now to create a certain 
victimization of the focus of these 
investigations. The real victims here are 
Philadelphians, the people who pay the taxes, 
the people who need help from the city 
government, the people who are the employees 
of the city, city workers who can’t get health 
care, senior citizens who can’t get police on 
their streets, children in a public school—in a 
charter school who are shivering in the cold 
while the head of that school, who received a 
four million dollar grant, is riding around in a 
Mercedes. (Gibson 2003) 

 
Katz’s effort to deflect the dirty tricks charge while focusing on 

his campaign-long theme that Street ran a corrupt and patronage-
filled administration failed. Joining Democratic partisans in the 



 

 89 

attack were the NAACP, the Urban League, and black clergy, who 
echoed the Democrats, likening the investigation of Street to J. 
Edgar Hoover’s probe of Martin Luther King, Jr.21 U.S. Attorney 
Patrick Meehan defended the inquiry, stating that “Federal law 
enforcement in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has a very long 
history of doing its work without regard to partisan politics” 
(Einhorn 2003, 8). 

The Street campaign also responded by attacking Katz’s 
integrity, bringing attention to a lawsuit brought by some of Katz’s 
former business partners who were accusing him of embezzlement. 
The lawsuit developed from a criminal investigation in which Katz 
was cleared of any criminal involvement while some of his 
associates were convicted.22 In television commercials aired by the 
Street campaign, the Katz embezzlement case was equated with the 
FBI investigation of the Mayor. In a radio debate between the 
candidates, Street challenged Katz to open up the files related to the 
criminal investigation and civil action. When Katz replied that he 
might ask to have the files opened, his lawyers filed a motion to 
keep the documents sealed (National Public Radio 2003). 

The effect of the bugging on the election was significant. In 
September 2003, a Temple University/CBS 3/KYW poll showed 
Mayor Street had the backing of 74% of African-American voters. 
Overall, Katz held a 46% to 40% lead (Smith 2003, 15). In early 
October, Street had taken a lead, with a Philadelphia Daily 
News/Keystone Poll having him ahead by eight percentage points, 
42% to 34% (Center for Opinion Research 2003, 1). By late 
October, after the surveillance had been disclosed, Street continued 
to lead Katz, 48% to 41%. The bug appeared to galvanize Street’s 
support in the African-American community, as 93% of African-
American respondents indicated that they planned to vote for the 
Mayor (Goldenberg 2003, 22). Professor Randall M. Miller, of St. 
Joseph’s University, explained the effect of the bugging on African-
American voters: “To many blacks, this seems like another example 
of someone coming after one of our own…. Even if they don’t like 
Street, there is a sense of collective violation that works to the 
mayor’s advantage” (Dao 2003, 14). 

As Election Day neared, each side accused the other of 
planning to intimidate voters. Both campaigns used the newly-
opened National Constitution Center for their media event. Local 
Democratic Party Chair Brady and DNC Chair McAuliffe warned 



 

 90  

that Republicans would attempt to keep African-Americans from 
voting, as they allegedly had done in other states. Katz supporters, 
who had crashed the Democratic press conference, charged that 
union members backing Street would intimidate Katz voters and 
Republican poll watchers. Carl Singley, a one-time Street partisan 
who now supported Katz, said that “the last thing these men you 
just heard from want is a fair election” (Bulletin’s Frontrunner, 
2003). 

On Election Day, Katz supporters claimed that supporters of 
Street beat up or intimidated Katz campaign workers on at least half 
a dozen occasions. They also claimed that Street supporters had 
tampered with voting machines. Street’s organization counter-
charged that the Katz campaign had intimidated African-American 
voters outside of several polling places by illegally demanding that 
they produce identification. The District Attorney’s office reported 
171 serious complaints, quadruple the number reported four years 
earlier (Benson 2003, A20). The Philadelphia Police Department 
received 110 complaints (Daughen 2003,11). 

 
The Outcome 

Unlike their first contest, the 2003 contest ended with a decisive 
Street victory. 

 
 

Table 2 
Philadelphia Mayoral Election Official Results 

Candidate Party Vote Percent
John F. Street Democrat 267,276 58.35
Sam Katz Republican 189,357 41.34
John Staggs Socialist Workers 1,292 0.28
Write-In  164 0.04

Source: Philadelphia City Commissioners. 

A City Still Divided By Race and A Little Bit More By Partisanship 

The 2003 results revealed that Philadelphia was still two cities, 
with a majority of white (and normally Democratic) Philadelphians 
casting ballots for the Republican while members of Philadelphia’s 
minority communities voted overwhelmingly for Street. On election 



 

 91 

night, Street said, “Frankly speaking, I think the election here today 
belies some of the speculation that this city is as racially divided as 
some people say…. I got more votes out in areas of the city that 
people traditionally don’t expect” (Fleming 2003, 1). 

There was some truth to Street’s comment. While losing in the 
city’s white neighborhoods, Street’s electoral performance there 
improved, as he picked up greater percentages of the vote in all of 
the city’s white neighborhoods. In 1999, Katz’s margin over Street 
in the city’s white neighborhoods had been 134,145. His margin in 
those same neighborhoods, four years later, was 96,366, a 
difference of nearly 38,000 votes. Some white Democrats, who had 
deserted Street four years earlier, returned to the Democratic fold. 
For example, Street’s vote in South Philadelphia increased from 
22.73% to 31.35%. In the Far Northeast (Philadelphia’s only solidly 
Republican neighborhood), Street’s vote inched up from 11.75% to 
15.20% (Committee of Seventy 2003d). 

 
 
 

Table 3 
Philadelphia Mayoral Vote by Neighborhood, 1999 and 2003 

 (in percents) 

Neighborhood 
1999 
Katz 

2003 
Katz 

1999 
Street 

2003 
Street 

South Philadelphia 76.67 68.21 22.73 31.35 

Roxborough, Chestnut Hill, 
Manayunk 75.39 68.44 24.16 31.01 

Center City, Fairmount, 
University City 68.16 60.69 31.20 38.54 

Southwest, Grays Ferry, 
Point Breeze 32.37 23.00 67.15 76.73 

Overbrook, Wynnefield, 
East Falls 26.45 17.02 73.39 82.73 

West Philadelphia 8.10 4.97 91.55 94.73 

Kensington, Fairhill, Juniata 
Park 29.04 18.07 70.27 81.68 

North Philadelphia 5.43 3.31 94.05 96.56 



 

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Mt. Airy, Germantown, 
Logan 13.89 7.32 85.82 92.31 

Oak Lane, Cedarbrook 13.72 8.42 85.91 91.39 

Port Richmond, Kensington, 
Bridesburg 76.12 63.53 23.20 36.15 

Mayfair, Frankford, 
Holmesburg 84.32 78.83 14.32 20.88 

Lawncrest, Rhawnhurst, 
Oxford Circle 78.19 64.05 21.20 35.69 

Far Northeast 87.16 84.75 11.75 15.02 

Source: The Committee of Seventy. 

Street’s dominance among minority voters was even greater 
than it had been four years earlier. In 1999, Street’s margin of 
143,226 in the city’s minority neighborhoods gave him a narrow 
victory over Katz. Four years later, Street attained a plurality of 
173,502 votes in Philadelphia’s heavily Democratic minority 
neighborhoods, resulting in a comfortable citywide victory for the 
incumbent. In West Philadelphia, Street’s vote increased from 
91.5% to 94.7%. In North Philadelphia, his share went from 94% in 
1999 to 96.5% in 2003 (Committee of Seventy 2003d).23 Another 
factor favoring Street was that turnout in the neighborhoods where 
he did well increased (13,358) by more than the increase in his 
opponent’s strongholds (5,848). The Fattah voter registration effort 
was probably a significant factor here. 

 
The Dramatic Impact of the Investigation 

 
There is no question that the disclosure of the electronic 

listening device in the Mayor’s office had a dramatic impact on the 
campaign. While the revelation of the investigation was consistent 
with Katz’s characterization of Street’s administration as sleazy, 
this “October Surprise” worked against the challenger. Public 
opinion polls already indicated that Street had taken the lead, and 
the news of the bugging of the Mayor’s Office insured that the race 
would become a blowout. It curtailed any serious discussion of 
issues in the campaign. Katz had contended that the measures taken 
by Street to deal with the problems of the city’s neighborhoods had 



 

 93 

failed. He also had argued that the Mayor’s contentious relationship 
with politicians in Harrisburg had hurt the city. For Katz to win, he 
needed to convince Philadelphians that Street had failed as mayor. 
The controversy over the investigation meant that Katz’s message 
was being overshadowed by the question of whether the probe was 
politically motivated. 

The investigation also gave Street the opportunity to energize 
his base. The timing of the investigation, and the federal authorities’ 
reluctance to discuss its scope, caused many African-Americans and 
partisan Democrats to question the government’s motives. Invoking 
the Florida ballot debacle of 2000, the California recall effort, and 
Michael Bloomberg’s plan to bring nonpartisan elections to New 
York City, Street’s supporters spread the message that the 
Republicans would stop at nothing to win elections, and defeating 
Mayor Street was part of a Republican plan to re-elect President 
Bush in 2004. The African-American electorate, which Street 
needed to win, turned out in larger numbers than four years earlier. 
It also gave him a 98% plurality, up from 94% four years earlier 
(Fitzgerald 2003, A1). In the city’s white neighborhoods, more 
Democratic voters stayed with the Mayor than four years earlier, 
insuring a comfortable margin for Street. This is a reflection of the 
intense partisanship that has gripped the national electorate since 
the 2000 presidential election.24 By “nationalizing” the contest, the 
Mayor was able to win. Katz may have summed up the turn of 
events best when, in his concession speech, he said, “This is a very 
strange business, and the ball bounces in very strange ways” 
(Fleming 2003, 5). 

 
Postscript 

 
On May 20, 2004, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia 

Daily News reported that a Delaware state court had ruled that Sam 
Katz had “fraudulently” misrepresented key information used to 
attract investment in a failed skating rink development project and 
ordered Katz to repay $2.1 million to his partners. Katz has 
appealed. On June 3, 2004, a federal grand jury returned 
indictments against six people for defrauding the Community 
College of Philadelphia of $224,000 in public funds by setting up 
an adult education program with nonexistent teachers and students, 
and claiming to offer classes that never took place. Indicted on 



 

 94  

conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud were Faridah Ali; Delores 
Weaver, Director of the Adult Basic Education Program at the 
Community College of Philadelphia (CCP); Weaver’s son, Eugene 
D. Weaver, III; and Ali’s children, Azheem Spicer and Lakiha 
Spicer. A sixth person, Zaynah Rasool (Ali’s sister), was charged 
with making false statements to a grand jury. That charge was 
dismissed by a federal judge a month later.25 

On June 29, 2004, Street fundraiser, Ronald White and former 
City Treasurer Corey Kemp were among 12 people indicted in a 
150 page indictment detailing a “pay-to-play tradition” in which 
campaign donors received favorable treatment on city contracts.26 
Street, who was not charged in the indictment, denied an assertion 
that he had instructed his staff to provide White with advance 
information about government contracts and to award contracts to 
firms White recommended if those firms were qualified. At the 
press conference announcing the June 3 indictments, U.S. Attorney 
Meehan stated, “We have a very developed, continuing 
investigation” (KYW 2004). Kemp’s lawyer, Michael McGovern, 
suggested that “indications are that the government has not closed 
the door on higher targets” (Lounsberry, 2004). 

On October 27, 2004, Ali, her two children, and Eugene 
Weaver III were found guilty of all 26 counts of defrauding CCP of 
$224,000 in public monies for adult basic education. On November 
4, 2004, Ronald White, died of pancreatic cancer. A day earlier, the 
United States Justice Department had released a revised indictment 
in which it alleged that White had convinced Commerce Bank to 
approve loans for White and his friends without standard 
underwriting review. Kemp’s attorney, L. George Parry, responded 
to the revised indictment by asserting his client’s innocence, stating 
“my defense of Corey Kemp is going to sound like a prosecution of 
Mayor Street” (Lounsberry, Fleming, and Gelbart 2004). 

On May 9, 2005, Kemp was convicted on 27 charges, including 
extortion, fraud, and filing false tax returns. Four others were 
convicted with Kemp: Commerce Bank executives Glenn Holck 
and Stephen Umbrell, who were found guilty of conspiracy and 
wire fraud; LaVan Hawkins was convicted for wire fraud and lying 
to a grand jury; and Janice Knight, who was found to have lied to a 
grand jury and to the FBI Mayor Street has not been implicated in 
any of these cases. 

 



 

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Notes 
 

1. In 1911, Rudolph Blankenburg, Keystone-Democratic candidate, 
defeated Republican George H. Earle, 134,680 to 130,185. 

2. On May 13, 1985, Goode ordered the Police and Fire Departments to 
bomb the headquarters of a radical group known as MOVE. The action destroyed 
not just MOVE’s building but also 61 neighboring homes in Philadelphia. For 
more on the bombing of the MOVE headquarters, see Philadelphia Special 
Investigation Commission (1986), Anderson and Hevenor (1987), Harry (1987), 
Bowser (1989), Boyette (1989), Assefa (1990), and Wagner-Pacifici (1994). 

3. The CBS News/New York Times New York City Mayoral Election Exit 
Poll from November 1989 offers data on the effect of race on that election. See 
CBS News/New York Times (1989). 

4. Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New Orleans are all cities where white 
support for black incumbents increased. For a discussion of Tom Bradley in Los 
Angeles, see Sonenshein (1993). For Atlanta, see Stone (1989). 

5. The Philadelphia vote for President in 2000 was as follows: 
George W. Bush/Dick Cheney (Republican) 99,234 
Al Gore/Joe Lieberman (Democrat) 441,834 
Howard Phillips/J. Curtis Frazier (Constitution) 1,859 
Harry Browne/Art Olivier (Libertarian) 1,221 
Ralph Nader/Winona LaDuke (Green) 8,514 
Patrick J. Buchanan/Ezola Foster (Reform) 782 
Source: City Commissioners of Philadelphia. 

6. The 2001 citywide election results were as follows: 
District Attorney 
Lynne M. Abraham (Democrat)  124,823 
Joseph N. Bongiovanni III (Republican) 27,155 
Richard A. Ash (Green) 11,341 
Leon Williams (Education) 21,941 
City Controller 
Jonathan A. Saidel (Democrat) 133,274 
Joseph A. Gembaia (Republican) 23,941 
Source: City Commissioners of Philadelphia. 

7. In Philadelphia, Rendell received 339,697 votes; Fisher received 59,223. 
Source: City Commissioners of Philadelphia. 

8. 42 U.S.C. 1973gg-5 (a), (b). 
9. While Rendell was considered to have been successful in revitalizing 

Center City, not all of his plans were achieved. Notable failures included Penn’s 
Landing and Disney Quest. For an account of Rendell’s tenure as Mayor, see 
Bissinger (1997).  

10. Street and Governor Mark Schweiker agreed to a plan whereby the nine-
member Board of Education appointed by the Mayor in March 2000 would be 
replaced by a School Reform Commission. This new commission included three 
appointees of the Governor and two by the Mayor. In April 2002, the Commission 
decided to turn over management of the district’s 70 lowest performing schools to 
a number of Education Management Organizations (EMOs), including Edison 
Schools and community groups. In June 2002, the Commission appointed Paul 
Vallas, highly regarded for his reforms in the Chicago Public School system 



 

 96  

(where he was the School District’s Chief Executive Officer from 1995 to 2001), 
as the School District’s Chief Executive Officer. 

The Parking Authority, created by a local ordinance in 1950, operates off-
street parking facilities, maintains on-street parking meters, and enforces parking 
regulations. It had long been a patronage mill for the Democratic Party, although 
Republicans held a small percentage of the jobs even before the takeover. In 2001, 
the Speaker of the State House of Representatives, John Perzel, orchestrated a state 
takeover of the Agency, whereby a majority of the Board of Directors would be 
appointed by the Governor. Republicans now control the Authority. Between the 
time of the takeover and December 2002, the Authority’s staff increased by more 
than 200 employees, most of whom were assumed to be Republicans (Barg 2002).  

The Convention Center, opened in June 1993, was plagued by 
mismanagement, union problems, and high labor costs that were driving 
convention business out of Philadelphia. In 2001, Perzel, with the help of 
Representative Dwight Evans (an African-American Democrat from Philadelphia) 
pushed Senate Bill 1100 through the legislature changing the composition of the 
Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority Board from one balanced between the 
two parties and between the State, the City, and the suburbs, none of which had a 
majority, to one controlled by Republican political appointees. Mayor Street filed 
suit, claiming that the bill overhauling the Authority’s management violated the 
state Constitution because it covered more than one subject (the Constitution 
stipulates that legislation cover one subject). In November 2003, the Pennsylvania 
Supreme Court ruled against the General Assembly, and ordered it to revise the 
legislation by February of 2004 or restore control of the Authority to the 
previously constituted board. In February 2004, legislation was enacted (House 
Bill 1733) turning the convention center over to a 15-member board: two 
Philadelphia mayoral appointees (one of whom must be recommended by the 
hospitality industry); four appointed by the General Assembly; four appointees 
from the Philadelphia suburbs (one from each of the suburban counties: Bucks, 
Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery); an appointee of the Philadelphia City 
Council President; one appointee by the minority leader of the Philadelphia City 
Council; two appointed by the Governor (who must be confirmed by the State 
Senate), and a Chair selected by the other fourteen members. 

11. Shortly before Katz announced his candidacy, the group agreed to a 
merger with the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Governor Mark 
Schweiker, who had not sought election after replacing Homeland Security 
Secretary Tom Ridge as Governor, was named to head the merged organization. 

12. Katz’s supporters raised the nepotism charge when Street’s wife, Naomi 
Post, an attorney who had worked on children’s services and juvenile delinquency 
issues, was briefly appointed to the position of deputy managing director in the 
City’s Social Services Department. After the charge was raised, Post withdrew her 
candidacy for the position. His brother Milton, a former state legislator, was 
consultant to a company responsible for maintenance at City Hall and had made an 
unsuccessful attempt to take over the city’s animal control service. He later 
became involved with a company that successfully bid on the maintenance 
contract at the Philadelphia International Airport. 

13. By contrast, Street was perceived in some quarters of Philadelphia’s gay 
and lesbian community as anti-gay. In June 1996, while City Council President, 
Street filed a court challenge against then-Mayor Rendell’s executive order that 



 

 97 

granted domestic partnership benefits to municipal employees. At the time, Street 
said that “taxpayer dollars should not be used to support relationships such as these 
that mimic traditional family relationships” (Duffy 2003, 1). In 1997, Street 
opposed gay marriage in a debate sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of 
Philadelphia. By 2003, Street had become a supporter of domestic partnerships and 
had appointed gays and lesbians to high-ranking positions in his administration, 
notably Alba Martinez as the Commissioner of the Department of Human Services 
in 2000. 

14. Assistant City Manager Tumar Alexander and Joey Temple, an 
employee with the Recreation Department, were charged with misdemeanors. 
Alexander was suspended from his position for a week without pay for violating a 
Philadelphia Home Rule Charter provision that prohibits municipal employees 
from engaging in any political activity on behalf of a candidate. Temple resigned 
from his position in the Recreation Department. In May 2004, Temple was 
convicted of misdemeanor harassment and making terroristic threats and sentenced 
to two years of probation. In June 2004, Alexander entered a program for first-time 
offenders where, following six months of unsupervised probation, his record was 
cleared. 

15. The drive was a pilot project of the Partnership for America’s Families, a 
voter outreach organization formed following passage of the McCain-Feingold 
campaign finance law, which prohibits the national party committees from funding 
voter registration campaigns. The Partnership’s $12 million budget was 
underwritten by a number of labor unions. It had similar projects in Cleveland and 
St. Louis, cities, like Philadelphia, located in what would be “battleground” states 
in the 2004 presidential election. 

16. The sweeps were conducted every three or four months by the 
Department’s Impac Unit, a division of the Internal Affairs Bureau. One of the FBI 
agents who would be sent to retrieve the listening device was Mark Johnson, son 
of Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson. 

17. During the summer of 2003, the FBI had subpoenaed records from the 
Philadelphia School District concerning the Liberty Academy Charter School, 
which had received $4 million for courses taught at the Community College of 
Philadelphia even though the school was not scheduled to open until 2004. The 
school had been founded by Faridah Ali, whose husband, Shamsud-din Ali, is a 
prominent Muslim leader in Philadelphia and an ally of Mayor Street. The FBI 
raided Keystone Information and Financial Services, a tax collection business with 
ties to Ali that had received a no-bid contract from the city to collect delinquent 
real estate taxes. 

18. In 2001, Philadelphia Airport Services (a subsidiary of Enron) hired 
Street as a consultant. The firm successfully bid on a $13.6 million airport 
maintenance contract for Philadelphia International Airport, beating out Elliott-
Lewis Corporation, which had performed maintenance at the airport for eleven 
years. Shortly after winning the bid, Street became the CEO of Philadelphia 
Airport Services. In June 2003, T. Milton Street, Jr. resigned as CEO of 
Philadelphia Airport Services to form Notlim Service Management Company. 
Notlim was then given a $1 million a year contract to make repairs and maintain 
baggage conveyor systems, passenger bridges, and airport buses at the Airport. 
Notlim had been designated as a disadvantaged, minority-owned company by the 
City’s Minority Business Enterprise Council, and Philadelphia Airport Services 



 

 98  

defended the awarding of the contract to the firm as part of their commitment to 
expanding minority participation. Following public criticism, Mayor Street 
revoked the contract. 

19. The FBI subpoenaed the financial records of Mayor Street, his wife, 
their oldest son Sharif, and Ronald A. White, a Street advisor and fundraiser. 
Documents were also subpoenaed from the City Finance Department, the City 
Treasurer’s Office, the Minority Business and Enterprise Council, the Municipal 
Board of Pensions and Retirement, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority. 

20. While publicly supporting Street, some Democrats were considering 
replacing him if he had been the target. Among those considered potential 
replacement candidates were State Representative Dwight Evans, City Councilman 
Michael Nutter, and John Dougherty, president of Local 98 of the International 
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. 

21. Among the African-American Mayors who have been subjected to 
federal investigations are Bill Campbell of Atlanta, Coleman Young of Detroit, 
and Marion Barry of Washington, D.C. In the early 1980s, during an investigation 
of municipal contract fixing, the FBI bugged Young’s home. While Young was not 
convicted, a close friend, Darralyn Bowers (the owner of Vista Disposal, 
Incorporated, the successful bidder on a sludge hauling contract) and the City 
Water Department Director, Charles Beckham, were convicted on fraud and 
bribery charges. In 1992, Detroit’s Police Chief was convicted of embezzling. 
Young’s reaction was that “the Chief was indicted because he got caught in a trap 
that was set for me” (Swickard 1997, 1). In 2000, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell 
announced that he was being investigated as part of a corruption probe in Atlanta 
and Fulton County. A county commissioner, a county administrator, and a 
contractor had already pled guilty to taking or offering bribes. Federal authorities 
refused to comment on Campbell’s statement. In 1990, Marion Barry was 
convicted of drug possession. His arrest had been videotaped as part of a sting 
operation undertaken by federal authorities. 

22. Katz would eventually lose this lawsuit. 
23. Based on 2000 census data, I have identified the following Philadelphia 

neighborhoods as “white” (having majority-white populations): Bridesburg, Center 
City, Chestnut Hill, Fairmount, Far Northeast, Frankford, Holmesburg, Lawncrest, 
Manayunk, Mayfair, Oxford Circle, Port Richmond, Roxborough, South 
Philadelphia, and University City. “Minority” neighborhoods (more than 50% of 
the population is nonwhite) included: Cedarbrook, East Falls, Fairhill, 
Germantown, Grays Ferry, Juniata Park, Logan, Mt. Airy, North Philadelphia, Oak 
Lane, Overbrook, Point Breeze, Southwest Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, and 
Wynnefield. 

24. For a discussion of the polarized electorate, see Ceaser and Bush (2005), 
Nelson (2005), and Abramson, Aldrich, and Rohde (2005). 

25. U.S. District Court Judge John P. Fullam dismissed the perjury charges 
against Rasool, concluding that it was impossible to determine whether she had 
intentionally lied to the grand jury or was simply confused by the prosecutor’s 
questions (Caruso 2004). 

26. The others indicted were Denis Carlson, an investment banker who was 
eventually acquitted; Rhonda Anderson, an attorney; the Reverend Frank D. 
McCracken, pastor of the St. James Chapel Church of God in Reading, 
Pennsylvania; Janice Renee Knight, described in the indictment as White’s 



 

 99 

“paramour”; Glenn K. Holck, the President of Commerce Bank Pennsylvania; 
Commerce Bank Regional Vice President Stephen M. Umbrell; Detroit 
businessman La-Van Hawkins; Charles LeCroy and Anthony C. Snell, former 
officials of the J.P. Morgan Bank; and Jose Mendoza, an employee of McCracken. 
McCracken agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges and a charge of tax evasion in 
November 2004. 

 
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