Dems divided: Ward leaders won't back Quiñones Sanchez's Council race

City Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez won two terms in office without support of Philadelphia's Democratic Party.

The third time will not be a charm for Sánchez.

A dozen ward leaders in Quiñones Sanchez's Seventh District gathered Monday to endorse a candidate in the May 19 Democratic primary. Sánchez and the ward leaders disagree on whether she was even invited to attend the meeting.

Everyone agrees that the leaders of 11 wards that make up the Seventh District voted to endorse Manny Morales, a committeeman in the 62d Ward, who last week resigned as a labor law investigator for the state Department of Labor and Industry.

A lone ward leader spoke up for Quiñones Sánchez but abstained from voting.

Quiñones Sánchez said the ward leaders called her during the meeting to ask where she was. She turned down an offer to pitch herself to the group via speaker phone.

"This is an example of the mediocrity of the party," she said, calling Morales a "puppet" for State Rep. Angel Cruz, one of the ward leaders who endorsed Morales. Quiñones Sánchez plans to kick off her reelection campaign Tuesday.

It's also an example of the periodic infighting, name-calling, and dynasty-dueling that has marked politics in her North Philadelphia-centered district for years, notwithstanding the fact that all involved are Democrats.

In this latest tiff, Quiñones Sánchez called 23d Ward Leader Dan Savage, the Democratic Party's endorsed candidate for the seat when she won in 2007 and 2011, a "credible" candidate. She dismissed Morales as a "bottom-of-the-barrel candidate."

Morales was offended.

"That's very low," he said. "It's very unprofessional for her status."

Cruz and Morales each said Cruz had supported Quiñones Sánchez for Council in her 2007 race before a political falling-out.

"Was she his puppet?" Morales asked Monday of Cruz's support.

In 2009, Quiñones Sánchez and her husband, Tomas, founded the Latino Empowerment Alliance of the Delaware Valley, a political action committee that has often backed candidates against Democratic Party-endorsed candidates.

Tomas Sánchez challenged State Sen. Tina Tartaglione in last year's Democratic primary. He came in third, while Savage took second place in that three-way race.

Tartaglione's mother, Marge Tartaglione, former nine-term chairwoman of the City Commissioners, was one of the ward leaders backing Morales on Monday.

Cruz accuses Quiñones Sánchez of driving away Democrats.

"She chooses to make enemies of those who supported her," he said. "They see the light, that it's all about her, that she uses the power she has to hurt people."

Quiñones Sánchez said she was confident she would win a third term because she has beaten her own party twice in the Seventh District, which stretches 10 miles from just north of Northern Liberties to Bustleton in Northeast Philadelphia.

"We've always had to go directly to the people and the voters," she said. "We're prepared to do it again."

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@byChrisBrennan