I had a young man stop by my house yesterday with a petition saying he was running for committee person. I've done a little web research, but I can't find an authoritative description of what a committee person does or how one gets elected to the position. Is it just by petition? What are the responsibilities? Can anyone run for the position?

Thanks

Committee people run within their respective parties, so there are presumably committeepeople for both the Democrat and Republican parties in theory. In practice, there are often far fewer Republican committeepeople only because there are far fewer Republicans in most areas of the city.

The committeeperson is unpaid. They have traditionally served as the "go-to" person for constituent services. They are also supposed to "get out the vote" on Election Day, for which they receive a relatively small sum of street money from the party. Committeepeople are also often the people who receive patronage jobs through their respective parties.

Committeepeople do run for election, but the Ward Leader generally has rather wide latitude in recognizing them. In order to be on the ballot, petitions had to be filed by yesterday. However, you can run via a write-in campaign.

Check out thesew two threads

Flyering for Election Opportunities
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=14125
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/sho...588#post184588

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Yes anyone who is registered member of whatever Party (lets assume Dem in this case) can run for committee person. A committee person is the lowest rung in the ward leader system and covers a relatively small area - basically a couple of blocks worth of voters. I think every two committee people make up a voting division and each ward has in the neighborhood of 12 or 14 divisions.

For years committee persons have been as the bottom rung of the ward leader system have been a postition where the district councilperson parks their most loyal "eyes and ears" in the neighborhood - which sometimes can be good (a leg up in getting the council persons attention on local neighborhood issues) or bad (the neighborhood "spy" keeping tabs on neighborhood issues for the party boss). Their job at the most basic level is to do Get Out The Vote work in the beat on election day. An awful lot of the positions are empty, particularly in wards or councilmatic districts where teh ward leader really is more of an authoritarian "my way or the high way" demander of political loyalty.

Recently a number of groups, Nieghborhood Networks, Philly for Change, and the AFLCIO have been making an effort to get people to run for empty slots and in some instances actually challenge folks in existing slots as way to establish a voice from the inside of the local Democratic Party. Basically the theory is about focusing on getting a seat at the table in terms of setting the agenda/direction of the Party without it all being about $$$ by establishing yourself as someone the party needs for GOTV work - whether the voice you are trying to articulate is one for reform (pay-to-play) or union issues or whatever. There was a recent article about why so many folks are running for committee person these days in the City Paper you might want to check out. Don Engel who is quoted in the article posts here on PB in the politics section and he would be an excellent source for more information if you are interested.

Check out the City Paper article - it really give a better breakdwon than I do.