Six Out of Seven Convicted

Six Philadelphia City Council members convicted since 1981. Records show that all six involved corruption tied to the councilmember’s ability to control development and permits in their district.

It is not a law. It is an understanding: any project in your district dies if you say no. In practice, no one votes against a fellow councilmember’s veto. The developer who needs you will come through you. The developer who will not play ball will not get built.

That is the whole mechanism. Once you understand it, the convictions stop being surprising. They become predictable. A council seat is a blank check written by every developer, contractor, and property owner who needs city approval. The only question is which council members decide to cash it.

Six out of seven did.

The seventh was the exception that proves the rule. Everyone else found the same tool and reached for it.

You could call it bad actors. Individual council members who crossed lines. But that misreads what is in front of you. The system does not tempt bad actors into corruption. It makes corruption the obvious move. The good ones who refuse the blank check are not heroes — they are just the ones who never had the right project come through at the right moment.

What is most striking is the repetition. Seven indictments across 40 years, six ending in conviction. Each time, a new person takes the seat. Each time, they find the same tool waiting. The system has not changed. The convictions have not stopped it. They could not. The prerogative still exists because the city still wants it. Because the people with development money still want it. Because it works for everyone involved except the public.

Six out of seven convicted is not a scandal. It is a machine running exactly as designed.

Notes, Sources, and Methodology

The “six of seven” figure comes from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ 2015 report Philadelphia’s Councilmanic Prerogative: How it Works and Why it Matters, which documented that six councilmembers had been convicted of offenses related to councilmanic prerogative since 1981. The “seventh” is Kenyatta Johnson, who was indicted in January 2020 on federal bribery charges, acquitted on all counts in November 2022 after a mistrial in his first trial.

The seven councilmembers whose cases are commonly counted: George Schwartz, Harry Jannotti, and Louis Johanson (ABSCAM, 1980–1981); Leland Beloff (1987); Jimmy Tayoun (1991); Rick Mariano (~2005–2008); Bobby Henon (2021). The Pew report and The Philadelphia Citizen’s February 2020 obituary of the prerogative both characterize the practice as informal and enduring, and the practice remains in force today.