Butkovitz wins Controller primary battle
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
By: Susan Phillips
sphillips@whyy.org
Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz fended off two challengers to win the Democratic Party nomination for the city's fiscal watch-dog. Butkovitz took nearly 42 percent of the vote in a race that marked the first significantly contested primary for the position in decades.
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Alan Butkovitz says the results show voters are confident in how he and his staff have handled the job, in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
Butkovitz: For four years, we've been in the communities, for four years we've been doing cutting edge, national award winning audits, we've been producing hundreds of millions of dollars of savings, we've been out in the community and people get it.
But a majority of voters, about 57 percent, went against Butkovitz. Former Common Pleas Court judge John Braxton took about 30 percent. Tax-reformer Brett Mandell gained newspaper endorsements, but only 27 percent of the vote.
In the general election, Butkovitz will face Republican Al Schmidt, who ran unopposed.