On January 7, 1952,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
's current city charter took effect. The
city council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
created under that charter consists of seventeen members. Ten are elected from equal-sized districts, and seven are elected at-large in a citywide vote. For the seven at-large seats, each political party may only nominate five candidates and voters may only vote for five. The result of this
limited voting
Limited voting (also known as partial block voting) is a voting system in which electors have fewer votes than there are positions available. The positions are awarded to the candidates who receive the most votes absolutely. In the special case ...
system is that at least two of the seven members elected will be from a different party than the other five. In practice, this has resulted in the at-large seats being filled by five
Democrats and two
Republicans. The ten district seats are usually held by Democrats, as well, with the exception of District 10, which covers the
Far Northeast section of the city. The Democratic party's dominance in the city has resulted in a body with little turnover from year to year, although there have been periods of widespread retirements from City Council, such as during the
ABSCAM scandal of the 1980s, or the
DROP controversy on the early 2010s.
1952 – present
See also
*
List of members of Philadelphia City Council from 1920 to 1952
Notes
Sources
*
*
*{{cite web, last1=Sane, first1=Maneesha, title=Members of the Philadelphia City Council, url=https://maneeshasane.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/councilmembers-1952-to-2013.pdf, website=MANEESHA SANE, accessdate=2 June 2015
Government of Philadelphia
*
City council 1952