This is my second diary. My first was about my uplifting experience as a phone banker for a special election in Connecticut. We lost that election, but we expected to: it was a deep red district and a long shot. And we held the Republican to a 10 point win, in a district they’d won by 32 points in November. It was a loss, but we felt really good about it.

This diary?

This diary is exactly the opposite.

This diary is about an election that we absolutely should win… but that we’re not going to feel good about.

This is not an uplifting story. It isn’t nice or happy. If you need a daily inspiration, turn away now, because this is a diary about real problems with a local Democratic Party organization.

(Why am I choosing this as the topic for my second diary? Well, first, because I think special elections are important, now more than ever. And second, because I also think that being a Democrat means you have to take the rough with the smooth. You can’t just tell happy stories. Sometimes, things suck, and you have to acknowledge that.)

Still here? Okay. Take an aspirin, and then let’s discuss Pennsylvania’s 197th Legislative District.

* * * * *

The 197th is an urban district in northern Philadelphia. Here are the key facts about it:

— It’s poor. Really poor.

— It’s majority-minority, with Hispanics the biggest group but a sprinkling of everything.

— It’s gerrymandered.

— It’s massively Democratic. Like, Democrats regularly win elections here by 80 points or more. In 2014, the Democratic candidate beat the Republican by 90 points, 95% to 5%. The 197th hasn’t sent a Republican to the State House since forever.

With me so far? Okay, so: once upon a time, the State Rep for the 197th was a guy named Jose Miranda. Then in January 2014 Jose pled guilty to a felony charge of conflict of interest and was sentenced to five years’ probation. I’m not even going to go into that sad story, except to note that Jose seems to have done something amazingly stupid. Convicted felons aren’t allowed to serve in the Pennsylvania legislature, so that was that for Jose.

Jose was replaced by Leslie Acosta. Leslie was the first Latina ever elected to the Pennsylvania State House. (Yeah, this was in 2014. I don’t know, either.) So, yay for Leslie! Except… in 2016 it was revealed that Leslie had pled guilty to her own corruption-related felony. (If you want the details, you can google it. Stupidity again.) In this case, she pled guilty secretly, so that she wouldn’t have to give up her seat. Yes, really. It took about six months, but someone eventually broke the story, and Leslie had to step down because, as noted, convicted felons aren’t allowed to serve in Pennsylvania’s legislature. But before she stepped down, she won re-election in November because, hey, really Democratic district.

So now it’s early 2017 and, okay, there’s going to be a special election to fill that empty seat. The election is scheduled for March 21 — that’s two weeks from this Tuesday. The ballot deadline approaches. The Republicans submit their candidate. The Democrats submit *their* candidate. (“Their” in this case meaning the ward leaders of the Democratic City Committee.) The Democratic candidate is a guy named Freddy Ramirez. So, all well and good… except that Freddy doesn’t actually live in the 197th District. He has an apartment there, but it’s basically a crash pad; he spends most of his time somewhere else. The Republicans bring a court challenge, thoughtfully timing it until the filing deadline has passed. And… bam, Freddy’s knocked off the ballot.

Oh, there was also a Green candidate, Cheri Honkala. Apparently she’s been running for stuff in Philadelphia for some time now. But she didn’t complete her filing before the deadline, so she didn’t get on the ballot.

So now the ballot for this very poor, majority-minority, overwhelmingly Democratic district has just one single candidate:

The Republican.

The Democratic City Committee has been scrambling to get a new candidate on the ballot. His name is Emilio Vasquez and nobody seems to know much about him. He’s an auditor at the Philadelphia Parking Authority; he never seems to have held public office before. Unfortunately, the Republican Secretary of State has denied his application to get on the ballot because, you know, the deadline has passed. There was a previous case where a (Republican) candidate was allowed on the ballot after another candidate withdrew, but the Secretary of State kindly pointed out that that wasn’t a *special* election, and special elections are different. So, too bad. The case is going to court but don't get your hopes up.

(Let’s pause here a moment and note that electing Democrats to seemingly boring statewide offices — like, you know, Secretary of State — matters. A lot.)

If the court case fails, Emilio will have to mount a write-in campaign. That’s actually do-able. Write-ins are usually steep uphill struggles, but this district is so strongly Democratic that he’s got a shot. And, honestly, even if he loses, any half-competent Democrat should be able to win in 2018 anyway.

That said… we’re left looking at a district where the last two Democratic office holders both were convicted of corruption-related felonies, and where the most recent Democratic candidate got tossed off the ballot because he didn’t actually live in the district.

Something is very wrong in the 197th.

Okay, so: what then should we do?

My strong instinct is to say: support the Democrat anyway. If you live in Pennsylvania, do some phone-banking or throw a few dollars at his campaign. If you live in Philadelphia, think about volunteering. Yeah, we screwed up, but that doesn’t mean we should just hand the Republicans a seat in the State House. They have a majority there already, and every vote counts.

But it’s not my state, and I’m blogging from a distance here. So, here’s a bleg: Pennsylvanians, Philadelphians, and people who live in districts where the local Democratic party is kinda screwed up? Represent, please. It would be great to hear what you guys think.

And for the rest of us… get involved with your local Democratic Party organization. So that screwups like this don’t happen in your district.