A question of trust

When he signed Act 40 into law as part of a package of budget bills, Gov. Josh Shapiro showed that he doesn’t trust Philadelphia to make its own decisions either.

By Denise Clay-Murray

During a press conference held in City Council Chambers last week, Council Majority Leader Curtis Jones unveiled The Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia and presented it to Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker. The plan was put together with information gathered during a summit held by Jones at St. Joseph’s University in September. It includes things that are both new — an emphasis on using technology to fight crime, community courts, and finally, at long last, an emphasis on witness protection — and old — more police, school safe corridor programs and economic development.

Assembled on the podium were community leaders, anti-violence activists, and politicians both state and local. Everyone pledged to help the Mayor-elect implement as much of this blueprint as possible, including Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner.

But you’ll have to forgive Krasner if he doesn’t have a whole lot of trust when it comes to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and its intentions when it comes to the City of Philadelphia.

The latest example of why the District Attorney might not trust the commonwealth as far as he can throw it came when the budget — and a law that basically calls for a special prosecutor to oversee the prosecution of crimes in large sections of the city — was signed last week.

Under this law, which was proposed by Republican State Sen. Wayne Langerholc, a guy that probably wouldn’t leave his Centre County home to visit Philly on a bet, the state attorney general can appoint a special prosecutor to prosecute any crime within 500 yards of a SEPTA property.

Seeing that there aren’t a whole lot of places here in Philadelphia where crimes are committed that don’t fit that description, any special prosecutor appointed to this position is going to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

The fact that this law doesn’t extend to SEPTA properties outside of Philadelphia tells you who it was aimed at.

Which is why Krasner is more than a little miffed.

“We should never be at the point where anybody who was elected considers it okay to erase 155,102 votes,” he said. “That’s exactly what Act 40 does. There should be no politician from any party who is okay with that notion.”

At a time when Pennsylvania in general, and Philadelphia in particular, has found itself at the center of voter fraud allegations by Republicans that simply can’t believe that a city made up of mostly Black and Brown people wouldn’t vote to re-elect a racist with fascist tendencies, Act 40 sends a bad message, Krasner said. 

And it’s one that Philadelphians need to heed, he said. 

“We’re in incredibly dangerous times, when we have a country that is largely ruled by the party that represents the smaller number of us, not the larger number of us,” Krasner said. “And they know that they will lose power if we have every vote count. So, this is why they work so hard to erase votes. What they are doing is trying to erase 155,102 votes in the city of Philadelphia, which is obviously the biggest city and the most diverse city and the most Democratic Party, voting city in Pennsylvania, it is no surprise. We are the biggest city of a swing state that the party of insurrection very much very much wants to win.”

To say that Krasner has had a problem with Republicans in the legislature practically since his election would be an understatement. They’ve attempted to impeach him because they don’t feel he does his job effectively. Seeing as “doing his job effectively” translates into “putting people in upstate prisons”, they’ve been at odds. Especially since Krasner’s office has gotten more than a few people out of these upstate prisons that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

But what’s causing folks to scratch their heads is that Shapiro, himself a Democrat, signed this into law. While the word on the street is that you can’t invited Krasner and Shapiro to the same parties because they don’t care for each other, Philadelphia played a big part in Shapiro becoming governor.

Seeing as the city, which is basically the Commonwealth’s ATM, gets disrespected by the Commonwealth every chance it gets, you’d think that someone Philly helped to get that job would have thought twice about Act 40. But when I asked State Sen. Sharif Street about it, he said that Shapiro had no choice but to sign it if he wanted his budget enacted.

I’m sure that Street, the chair of the Commonwealth’s Democratic Party, is right about this. But considering Shapiro tried to create a school voucher program in this budget, well, let’s just say that benefit of the doubt is going to be hard to come by here.

The ball is now in the court of State Attorney Gen. Michelle Henry, who will ultimately decide (a) if Act 40 is constitutional, something that Krasner disputes and (b) if she really wants to put someone else in the middle of the ongoing feud between the legislature and Philly’s progressive DA.

Meanwhile, you have this Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia that everyone allegedly wants to help Mayor-elect Parker use to make the city safer. Parker has said in multiple interviews that the reason why she was the best person for the job was because she was able to navigate the Harrisburg landscape.

This may be where she finds out just how much that landscape has changed and how many missiles aimed at Philadelphia she’s going to have to dodge.

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