Post-Election Interview w/Bill Peduto

The line has been attributed to Otto von Bismark. It's old and by now it's cliche - Politics is the art of the possible (Die Politik ist die Kunst des Möglichen, auf Deutsch).

That line was at the heart of the situation facing Bill Peduto in the run up to the recent election for Pittsburgh City Council president.

Prior to the early evening on Sunday, the vote was more or less set. He, Peduto, didn't have the 5 votes needed to secure the presidency of the council and, as I wrote before, 5 votes were already lined up to support Theresa Smith.

But the phone calls kept flying. Peduto was able to confirm to me that he'd called Darlene Harris in the early evening to ask for her vote.

And here's where things get interesting.

By Sunday evening, she responded to Peduto and told him that she could not vote for him. How about a compromise? How about keeping Doug Shields as president? No, she responded again. Her only possible vote was, she said, for either Smith or herself.

So Peduto engineered an end run. His 4 votes plus her 1 vote for her to become president. Not his first choice for the seat (that would have been himself, of course) or his second. Or even his third. While no one's first choice, Darlene Harris (whom Peduto called "honest to a fault" and "incorruptible") sitting as president would at least guarantee the independence of the council.

This was necessary for a city government, Peduto said, rife with graft.

Otherwise with the inexperienced Smith in charge (the plan orchestrated by Patrick Dowd and Luke Ravenstahl would have given those with the least experience the most power) all legislative actions would be controlled by the Mayor's office. Favorable legislation to the Mayor's office would survive and unfavorable bills would be killed.

This - the legislative and executive branches run out of a single office - was unacceptable to Peduto. The first order of business, he said, was to make sure council was not taken over by the mayor. It was necessary to maintain checks and balances.

He added, "When you are in a no-win situation the first order of business is to protect a functional government - if we did not support Darlene, independence is lost. We did not have the luxury to choose our first, or second or even third choice for President. Those options were taken away from us. If you analyze it objectively, rather than subjectively, it becomes the only option."

Hence the deal.