The Worst Legislative Body in the World?

The good news: Philadelphia City Council isn’t as inept as it used to be. The bad news: That’s a low, low bar

For a time, it looked as if the next Council would have even more turnover. Six current members are enrolled in DROP, meaning that technically, they have to retire after the next election. Krajewski was enrolled in the program and ran for reelection anyway, retiring for a day, pocketing her cash payment, and then beginning her eighth term with everyone else. This go-round, it’s not clear which of the six will actually leave, with Verna and Tasco, among others, publicly hedging. But there’s little doubt that if they want to stay, the voters will let them.

In January, Goode — another mayoral son on Council — introduced a measure calling for term limits. Goode says it’s important to bring more people into the process. But new blood wouldn’t necessarily mean change. Newcomers would emerge from the same pool of Philadelphia politics, whose gospel involves the same change-averse obsession with personalized assistance as Council’s. More interesting is what the change would do to sitting members. Know that you’ll have to leave someday, and you’ll start to do some planning. If you’re a politician, you might even start to think about what other offices you’ll run for, and what sorts of accomplishments could help you win them. The end result, just maybe, would be to focus the mind on actual, like, lawmaking.

Goode’s colleagues, naturally, greeted his term-limits proposal with tepid enthusiasm. The resolution congratulating the Presbyterian Children’s Village’s employee of the year, on the other hand, passed by 17 to nothing.