Rep. Robert Brady (D)

The congressman from the 1st District is Robert Brady, a Democrat elected in 1998. He is the personification of Philadelphia’s old-fashioned urban politics, one of the last white ethnic party bosses left in big-city America. He grew up in Overbrook Park in West Philadelphia, with an Irish father who was a policeman and an Italian mother. After high school, he went to work as a carpenter, quickly rose through the ranks of the carpenters’ union, and remains a dues-paying member. He entered politics in 1967, at age 22, when the local ward leader wouldn’t replace a burnt-out streetlight. Brady was elected to the 34th Ward Democratic Executive Committee, and in 1980 he was elected ward leader. In 1986, he became chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. He depicts himself as a roll-up-your-sleeves guy who represents working class voters, and says he’s proud to be the boss of what he calls the nation’s largest big-city machine—or, as he calls it, an “organization.” Brady is known for making “arrangements” with others—“They’re always arrangements, never deals,” he insists—and he has been chairman for more than two decades.

In November 1997, Democratic Rep. Thomas Foglietta, a veteran of South Philly politics, became ambassador to Italy, and Brady ran for the seat. The district’s ward leaders determined the Democratic nomination for the special election and they favored Brady. With the endorsement of many black leaders and a strong Election Day organization, he won the special election with 74% of the vote.

After his election to the House, Brady’s focus remained back home. “Ninety-five percent of my day is not Congress,” he once said. He mediated a local teachers’ strike in 2000, and he sought common ground between the mayor and City Council on a deal for two new stadiums. His ties to City Hall and to local unions gave him credibility with both sides. Brady worked to resolve local intra-party conflicts. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, he chewed out feuding City Council Democrats at one memorable private meeting. “You are a [f_____] embarrassment. You’re embarrassing me, embarrassing yourselves. You’re like a bunch of 10-year-old children. If you’re not careful, you’re not going to be here next year,” he said, banging the table. “I’ve got 30 ward leaders who don’t want to support you and 30 more who want to run against you.”

Brady has a liberal voting record and keeps a low-profile in Washington. For “the most powerful man in Philadelphia,” Philadelphia magazine once wrote, “Washington gas-bagging is not his thing.” His initiatives reflect his local orientation. He says he decided that he was in favor of abortion rights after asking his mother. His loyalty to unions led him to buck environmentalists and most Democrats to vote for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have found the perfect job for him. Brady became chairman of the House Administration Committee, the so-called “Mayor of Capitol Hill” who oversees operations of the House and doles out favors like choice office space. As part of the opening of a new visitors’ center at the Capitol, he approved memorials to honor African-Americans who had been slave laborers during the original construction of the building.

Prior to becoming chairman, he ran for Philadelphia mayor in the May 2007 primary. He joined the field late and had significant opposition, including from three veteran local black officials who had operated largely outside Brady’s organization—U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, state Rep. Dwight Evans and former City Councilman Michael Nutter. Brady’s platform was standard fare, including a call for more open government, safer streets, improved schools and lower taxes—though the details were not always certain. Democratic ward leaders endorsed him, in overwhelming numbers but with varying enthusiasm.

And his campaign ran into an unusual stumbling block: a lawsuit seeking to remove Brady from the ballot because he did not include his union pension on a candidate disclosure form. Brady revealed in court that his pension benefits were accruing as though he was working a full work week, a curiosity, given the fact that he was serving in Congress. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that his “stumbling performance on the witness stand” raised “a harsh question: Is Bob Brady smart enough to be mayor?” He paid nearly $20,000 in fines for violating the city’s campaign-finance laws. He finished a distant third in the primary, with 15% of the vote. Ever the party loyalist, Brady immediately dismissed the results as a “family squabble” and moved quickly to endorse primary winner Nutter. But in Philadelphia’s Byzantine politics, Brady’s weak performance—he lost even his home ward in Overbrook—raised questions about his political vulnerability. There was talk of a 2008 primary challenge from an African-American candidate, but it never materialized. Brady had no opposition in the 2008 primary and won the general election with 91%.