Helen Gym for Mayor Analysis
The Mayor serves as the city's chief executive and is responsible for proposing a budget, signing legislation into law, appointing departmental directors, and overseeing the city's day-to-day operations. The mayor also represents the city on the state, national, and international levels. To see a chart of all the departments that fall under the Mayor click here.
Our city has an incredible opportunity to elect an amazing organizer, a trusted partner of movements for justice, a courageous and visionary trailblazer, and an experienced legislator as our next mayor. Helen Gym will be all of these and Philadelphia’s first Asian American and woman mayor. Helen began organizing as a mom fighting for her kids, a teacher fighting for public schools, and a community member fighting against exploitative development plans. Her insurgent 2015 Council At-Large campaign led the way for using electoral politics to build power for ordinary Philadelphians and grassroots movements. Reclaim members overwhelmingly endorsed her for re-election in 2019 (her questionnaire is available here); she went on to come in first—in a landslide, in every neighborhood in Philadelphia.
On Council, Helen has an incomparable track record of accomplishment. Her office has been a major driver in: ending the 17-year state takeover of Philadelphia’s schools and fighting to restore nurses, counselors, arts, music, and clean water to every public school; building the most successful eviction prevention program in the nation and winning guaranteed legal defense for renters; expanding funding for mental health crisis response teams and intervention programs for high-risk youth; passing Philadelphia’s cutting-edge Fair Workweek law guaranteeing workers stable schedules; fighting youth homelessness and courageously shining a light on abuses in Philadelphia’s residential youth homes when few others cared, and maintaining Philadelphia as a welcoming city for immigrants.
We know Helen from her track record on Council and as an organizer. She prioritizes our public schools and public institutions, from trash collection to libraries and rec centers. She understands that funding public programs requires that corporations and the rich pay their fair share. She relentlessly supports unions and worker rights, as she has shown not only legislatively but also by direct intervention in labor struggles at the Art Museum, Starbucks, and the Philadelphia Defenders, to name but a few. She believes and fights for housing is a human right. She has proven time and again the city’s most reliable political advocate for workers, youth, immigrants, LGBTQ and trans people, and poor and exploited residents. She knows that her—and our—vision of prosperity and opportunity for all Philadelphians is only possible when the most marginal and vulnerable are free.
Let’s be blunt: that a true progressive, a trusted partner of grassroots movements and labor, is the most popular politician in Philadelphia and in an incredibly strong position to be our next mayor is an amazing and all-too-rare opportunity. The Steering Committee believes it is not one to be wasted.
Read our Analysis on City Council at Large Endorsements
Read our Analysis on City Council District Endorsements
Read our Analysis on Judicial Races
Read our Analysis on Ballot Questions and Row offices
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