A little story from our neighbor to the north, Montgomery County.
Just like Delco has it's crybabies and sore losers, like Gil Spencer, Montco has former DA Bruce Castor.
Some background and comparison: Delco's GOP solidified their political power 30 years ago when they changed the county charter to remove the guarantee of minority party participation. Since then, the 5-member Delco County Council has been all-GOP and votes almost exclusively in 5-0 decisions that seem to have been made behind closed doors (and likely by GOP party bosses pulling the strings). The nepotism and corruption in Delco are infamous throughout the state.
In Montco, their County board has 3 members, with minority representation (often 2-Rep and 1-Dem). In 2007, something interesting happened...
Bruce Castor left his popular DA position to run for County Council. The result was Castor getting the most votes, then Chris Matthews' brother (Rep) and then Joe Hoeffel getting the most Dem votes.
But here's where it got interesting: it turned out that Matthews and Castor hated each other, and Hoeffel was able to work with Matthews, so Castor wound up being the odd-man out. After crying publicly about what a traitor Matthews was, Castor found himself on the perpetual losing end of 2-1 votes and the loss of whatever power he hoped to have, and basically left pouting in his office with nothing to do.
Matthews' decision to work in a bi-partisan manner with Hoeffel (rather than ignore the Democrats) makes sense because the Dems actually became the majority party in Montco.
Now, ex-DA Castor finds himself in some legal hot water. Testifying in the Vince Fumo trial, the tables got turned on him when he admitted conducting political campaign activities from his taxpayer funded government job/office and work email. (This was Castor's losing 2004 campaign against Tom Corbett.) There also seems to be some funny business with Christian Marrone, a former assistant district attorney who had worked on Castor's campaign and some timing on when he got hired/fired based on what was happening in the campaign.
Joe Hoeffel asked the current Montco DA to investigate Castor's admissions under oath. However, the current DA appears to be a protege of Castor, and will likely drag her heels on this. Given the court testimony, the State could step in if the DA doesn't.
I think the coroner should be able to sign the death certificate for Castor's political future.
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Here in Delco for 2009, we have two of the five Council seats up for election. This is an opportunity to get some Dems on the Council since Obama won 60% of the county, and the GOP opposed him and are out-of-touch with the majority Delco voters.
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2 comments:
I believe if you learn a little more about the recent bogus ethics reforms passed by Matthews and Hoeffel you will discover that Castor is the last remaining voice of reason during Montco commissioners meetings.
Also, if you look at the context of Castor's testimony in the Fumo trial along with these ethics reforms, the real problems are revealed. Hoeffel is thrilled to attack Castor on the ticky-tacky stuff, like e-mails. And, in fact, has already been hoisted on his own petard on that one.
But he's was unwilling to pass ethics reform proposed by Castor limiting patronage and potentially hindering pay-to-play arrangements.
Of course, this is all too inside-baseball for most people to follow, so the takeaway is likely to be "Hoeffel and Matthews pass ethics reform."
Pleasure to meet you on www.pa2010.com, btw. I look forward to more real, productive exchanges. And don't worry about me meddling in your Delco stuff. I'm a Chesco/Phoenixville guy first, with a sideline in Montco and statewide issues.
Cheers, Karl
Karl-
I'm enjoying our exchanges. I adjust my level/tone depending upon the opponent. I enjoy having civil discussions, and enjoy injecting a little humor/sarcasm into the mix.
My understanding is that Matthews and Castor didn't get along before and Hoeffel's happy to jump in.
The only significant I took away from the whole situation was at the beginning when Castor threw quite the hissy-fit after he wasn't put in charge. I thought Castor came off looking very bad publicly.
The inside-baseball minutia of Montco is not something I follow. However, no pay-for-play there beats Delco. It's a 5-0 shutout on our county council without minority party representation. The county courthouse doesn't even employ any registered Democrats in their voter department. Corrupt from top to bottom. I'm not saying that an all-Dem replacement would be better, either.
However, Rep vs Dem registration is almost equal in Delco, and the courthouse employment should reflect it.
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