Facing criticism and potential leadership challenges from the state Republican Party, the GOP organization in Philadelphia is changing party rules to give more clout to ward leaders in Northeast Philadelphia, where most of the city's registered Republicans live.

The local party chairman, Vito F. Canuso Jr., has scheduled a Feb. 16 meeting of the GOP's 67 ward leaders to change the rules for filling his own position and those of 10 others in the city Republican leadership.

Right now, those positions are filled by a simple majority vote of the 67 ward leaders. The proposed change would weight the vote of each ward leader depending on how many Republicans are registered in each ward.

The shift is likely to put the party's existing leadership on a more solid footing in the quadrennial reorganization that begins in May with the election of Republican city committee members, the party's foot soldiers.

"We've felt a concern about this for years now, and we've put [an adjustment] off for various reasons," Canuso said. "But it's now come to a point where people are looking at you and criticizing you and saying you're not doing things for the party, then it's only fair that we [provide] equal representation for every registered Republican."

State GOP leaders have been grumbling for years about the difficulty of winning statewide races when Republican candidates lose Philadelphia by 200,000 votes or more.

Last June, state party chairman Rob Gleason asked Canuso to resign. Michael Meehan, the local party's general counsel and acknowledged leader, rejected the request.

In December, the state party hired Al Schmidt, last year's candidate for city controller, to run a party-rebuilding effort, focused on recruiting more Republican committee members.

Registered Republican voters are entitled to elect two committee members in each of the city's 1,684 voting divisions, a total of 3,368 potential slots.

Both Schmidt and Meehan estimate that fewer than 1,000 positions are filled, limiting the party's ability to staff polling places, distribute campaign material and get voters to the polls.

Candidates for city committee need 10 signatures from registered Republicans to get a spot on the primary election ballot May 18. After the election, committee members will elect GOP ward leaders and the ward leaders will elect leaders for Republican City Committee.

Schmidt said he and other organizers have been focused on wards with significant vacancies, where an influx of new Republican committeemen could lead to new ward leaders.

But the proposed rule change would favor more established GOP wards, where the ward leaders are considered less likely to challenge the current party leadership.

Posted on Sat, Jan. 30, 2010
By BOB WARNER
Philadelphia Daily News
warnerb@phillynews.com 215-854-5885