Latest effort to change Philly’s ‘resign-to-run’ rules no longer to be included on May’s primary ballot

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The latest effort to allow City Council members to remain in their seats while running for state or federal office is off the table.

Under current rules, city lawmakers cannot keep their seats while they campaign for another office. That’s why six council members, including now-Mayor Cherelle Parker, resigned from office in the lead-up to the 2023 mayoral election.

In February, City Council voted 15-1 to have voters decide via referendum in May’s primary election whether lawmakers should be allowed to keep their seats while running for state or federal office. Running for mayor as a member of Council would still be banned.

But on Monday, the Council’s Committee on Law and Government approved a bill that would remove the question from next month’s ballots.

“I don’t necessarily know if right now is the right time and I don’t know if this is the right version,” said Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who initially pushed for making the change. He said his reason for pulling the question of the ballot is “based on where we are right now and some of the feedback that we’ve gotten and when we look at the importance of the election this year and all the other concerns that we have.”

Thomas said he received pushback after the bill only included elected officials, and not other city workers.

“I think what we tried to do is instead of getting rid of resign to run, which is what we’ve seen in the past, we tried to do it in phases,” he said. “So we said, ‘OK, well, let’s just start with the elected officials, and because there was some reluctance about city employees.’”

Thomas pointed to the importance of the mid-term congressional elections, adding that he did not want to create any problems with what had become a controversial move to end resign-to-run, even for city elected officials.

He is not ruling out bringing back an end to resign-to-run at a future date.

City Council has tried and failed to change the resign-to-run rules on three separate occasions in recent years. It was voted down by the public in 2007 and 2014. In 2020, the bill was never approved by City Council.