WHEREAS, The Philadelphia City Charter, passed in 1951, creates two primary bodies of representative government for the City of Philadelphia, the Mayor and their administration of City functions, and the City Council as the legislative, budgetary, investigatory and oversight body. Within the Administration is the City Law Department, with a Chief Solicitor being a member of the Mayor’s cabinet, all while functioning as the lawyer for both the executive and legislative branch; and
WHEREAS, While the United States’ system of laws is built on a foundation of adversarial parties and the City Charter defines two bodies to check and balance each other, City Council and the Administration has one body of lawyers for them to both utilize, creating conflicts that invariably resolve in favor of the administration; and
WHEREAS, City Council has an important role to play in ensuring that voices across Philadelphia are heard from and that no Mayor can make unilateral decisions for a population larger than 20% of the states in the United States; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That the Committee on Legislative Oversight is authorized to hold hearings on the structure of the Philadelphia Law Department and to consider the separation of the department’s functions between the Administration and City Council.
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