David Cohen (politician) - City Council

City Council

City Council redistricting left Northwest Philadelphia without an incumbent councilman, and Cohen was elected to that position in 1967, quintupling the November victory margin of the previous incumbent.

Sworn in as a member of City Council in 1968, Cohen became a leader of the independent factions of the City Council, and worked to focus the City Council on previously slighted problems dealing with zoning, public health care, air pollution, governmental ethics, delivery of city services, and race relations. Elected a delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Cohen supported the Presidential campaigns of Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, and frequently spoke at rallies opposing the War in Vietnam.

Cohen resigned to run for Mayor of Philadelphia in 1971. After failing to garner adequate support to win the Democratic mayoral nomination, he withdrew and supported Congressman William J. Green, who lost to former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo.

Cohen remained active in Philadelphia politics and civic life, campaigning for George McGovern, running unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for City Controller in 1973 and for Councilman at large in 1975. He joined an unsuccessful effort to recall Mayor Rizzo in 1976 after Rizzo, who had won two elections opposing tax increases, pushed through the largest tax increase in Philadelphia history. Cohen was one of the leaders of the successful opposition to Mayor Rizzo's campaign to amend the City Charter in order to allow Rizzo to seek a third consecutive term as mayor.

He returned to the Philadelphia City Council in 1980, this time as a Councilman at Large. He began his tenure by working to make the rules of City Council more effective and democratic. When City Council President George X. Schwartz, Council Majority Leader Harry Jannotti, and Councilman Louis Johanson were taped accepting bribes from FBI agents posing as Arab sheiks in the nationally prominent Abscam scandals, he and freshman councilman John F. Street, who later became Mayor of Philadelphia, began regularly demanding explanations and resignations from the implicated City Council members. When Schwartz resigned as City Council President in the fall of 1980, Cohen backed his successor as District Councilman in the 8th Councilmanic District, Joseph E. Coleman, whom Cohen had defeated in 1967 for the Democratic nomination, as Council President. Coleman, the first African-American to serve as Council President, later appointed Cohen as Chairman of City Council's Rules Committee.

Cohen's 25 years as at large councilman were the longest tenure in that position since it was created by City Charter amendment in 1951. Throughout it, Cohen was an independent voice in City Council, actively examining and often seeking to modify or defeat the proposals of Mayors William J. Green, W. Wilson Goode, Ed Rendell, and John F. Street. He identified with people who did not have institutional power and were adversely affected by governmental decisions he considered arbitrary and unfair. His achievements included legislation providing sixty day notice for mass layoffs by employers, which served as a model for national legislation signed into law by President Ronald Reagan; divesting city pension funds of investments in South Africa; making Philadelphia a pioneer in the recycling of trash, saving the city of Philadelphia $1.5 billion in estimated costs of establishing a trash to steam plant; shutting down Philadelphia's existing incinerators; restricting increases in locations for billboards; and achieving improvements in Philadelphia's service delivery systems.