Three former City Council members have become City Hall lobbyists

Clout has been seeing some familiar faces around City Hall recently. And it turns out there’s a good reason.

Former City Councilmembers Derek S. Green, who ran for mayor last year, and Blondell Reynolds Brown have become registered lobbyists. They join Frank DiCicco, who was a Council member until 2012, as former city lawmakers now lobbying their old stomping grounds.

The “revolving door” of government officials becoming lobbyists has long been an issue in Washington, D.C., but it hasn’t come up much in Philly politics. Maybe that’s changing.

The city’s ethics laws include a “cooling-off period,” in which Philly officials are banned from becoming lobbyists for one year after leaving government.

Reynolds Brown, who left Council in 2020, said she spent the first three years of her post-lawmaker life writing a book called Walking a Tightrope Backwards in High Heels that will come out later this year. (The genre is “self-help memoir,” but Clout’s favorite genre is Philly politics tell-alls. We’re hoping this checks both boxes.)

After she finished writing, she took DiCicco up on an offer to join his eponymous government relations firm, she said.

“I’ve come to the firm as a senior adviser bringing of course decades of experience,” Reynolds Brown said. “Central to any role you play in government is authenticity in relationships, which helps to get an audience.”

Reynolds Brown says she expects to work with clients in DiCicco’s bread-and-butter area — development — but also hopes to get involved in issues such as arts and culture initiatives.

Green, who is a lawyer, has joined the Bellevue Strategies lobbying firm owned by Mustafa Rashed. His clients include Uber, Visit Philadelphia, and the Please Touch Museum, and he is also working for Comcast on national issues, such as the company’s relationship with the National League of Cities.

“For me, this is really continuation of the work I’ve done in Council,” Green said. “I have clients here in Philadelphia, and I have clients nationally.”

Green resigned from Council in September 2022 to run in last year’s mayoral election. He ended up dropping out of the race and endorsing the eventual winner, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

Parker, as it happens, is a former state representative who became a Harrisburg lobbyist while she was running for mayor. She dropped that gig when she took office this year.

With less than two weeks left before the April 23 primary, the three-way rematch to represent parts of West Philly and Logan Square is getting messy.

Incumbent State Rep. Amen Brown (D., Philadelphia), who is seeking a third term to represent the district, has spent the week blasting his progressive challenger, community organizer Cass Green, for canvassing outside his third-grade daughter’s school.

Brown claims the Green campaign intentionally targeted his 9-year-old daughter’s school, but Green’s campaign said it has been canvassing outside at least seven schools during drop-off and pickup as one of its get-out-the-vote strategies.

”Amen Brown is trying to distract voters from his votes for private school vouchers which overwhelmingly benefit wealthy families,” said Farah Muhammad, Green’s campaign manager, in a statement which noted Brown’s past support from Pennsylvania’s richest man, Jeff Yass.

Brown was particularly mad that the flier claimed he was against public schools and had received financial support from people who oppose abortion. Brown said he is a supporter of all schools, including public school and charters, and using state money to send children from poor schools to private ones.

Brown maintains he supports abortion access, despite receiving a campaign contribution last year from former Republican City Council hopeful Drew Murray, who opposes abortion.

”You’re putting out lies and slander at my daughter’s school, just think of the potential harm you could be doing to her,” Brown said. “I get it, it’s politics, but they crossed a line.”

Green, Brown, and Sajda “Purple” Blackwell will all face off on the April 23 ballot.

It’s difficult to describe why the internal drama of the Pennsylvania Convention Center is such a big deal in the world of Philly politics and organized labor. So just trust us when we say this next one is a bombshell:

Parker plans to appoint a carpenters union official to the Convention Center board. She’s letting the union pick its representative, and said she doesn’t yet known who it will be.

It’s a big deal because the Philly carpenters have been in a power struggle with the 30-odd unions in the Building and Construction Trades Council for more than a decade.

Both, however, played critical roles helping Parker win last year’s election, and the mayor said she needs their help to achieve goals such as building 30,000 new units of affordable housing.

“I won’t allow this administration’s goals and objectives to be handicapped by any antiquated outdated beefs of the past,” Parker said.

The union beef climaxed in 2014 when John J. Dougherty — the former electricians union and trades council leader who has recently been racking up guilty verdicts in federal corruption trials — (in)famously crossed a carpenters’ picket line at the Convention Center.

Things have changed. “Johnny Doc” was replaced at the council by laborers union leader Ryan Boyer. And Doc’s rival at the carpenters, Ed Coryell Sr., was ousted in a 2016 shake-up.

Boyer said he has no objection to Parker’s decision and hopes the carpenters will finally rejoin the council following aborted attempts in recent years.

“I don’t think the relationship is beyond repair,” Boyer said. “I expect that they will be under the fold of the building trades sometime soon.”

The Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters did not respond to requests for comment.

The mayor has two appointees, and Parker plans to reappoint one of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s picks: Rich Lazer, who leads the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The carpenters official will replace former City Councilmember Marian Tasco, a Kenney appointee and Parker’s mentor.

It’s unclear if gaining a board seat will lead to the carpenters getting work at the Convention Center. Parker steered clear of that question.

“There’s two kind of politics that you will never get me to engage in,” she said. “You will never get me to engage in church politics ... and I don’t do union politics at all.”

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.