Transcripts For CSPAN2 Michael Nutter Mayor 20180224 : vimar

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Constitution and now its my pleasure to Institute Two great friends of the National Constitution center, Michael Nutter was elected mayor of philadelphia in 2007 and served it to terms. Esquire magazine named him in 2011 to its american of the year list and he was named public official of the year by governing magazine in 2014 and is executive fellow at the university of Pennsylvania School of social policy and practice and a professor of professional practice in urban and Public Affairs at the university. He joins us today to discuss his latest book, mayor the best job in politics which he will sign copies of following the discussion. We are pleased to welcome tonights moderator. Michael is the host of the michael program on sirius xm. A newspaper columnist and on offer. Hes been on msnbc contributor and guest host of hardball for Chris Matthews and prior to returning to broadcasting he practiced law for 10 years of the namesake of the University School of law here please join me in welcoming Michael Nutter. [applause]. Could evening, ladies and john. Mayor, good evening. Mayor the best job in politics, why is that the best job in politics . As you get stuff done. You see the value and impact of your work and you could help to change peoples lives and its a whole lot of fun. Is it fair to say that if you had been able to master the periodic table when youre 10 that you would never have pursued a career in politics . Tell the story. [laughter] it is pretty likely, but there came a point where i really didnt give a damn about the table of elements. I went to pen premed, a Biomedical Engineering major and made it to the Engineering School and it became very clear and much like an auditorium like this only bigger that by midsemester you could pretty much sit wherever you wanted and i think after pretty much failing the first three exams it was clear that a i wasnt passing this course, b i really didnt give a damn about the table of elements and c you arent going to be a doctor. [laughter] how were you able to achieve this . This is being recorded [laughter] i will respect the university of pennsylvania. It was a long torturous kind of paths, about 95 of that torture was by myself, by not necessarily being the most studious person in. I started working at the impulse nightclub and probably worked about 60 hours a week studying may be about 60 minutes. [laughter] and so i tried to again, it was clear there was no future there for me so after my first true master i tried to transfer. Might application was denied because i had not had the full course load which at the time was for courses in the Engineering School found out i tried to transfer and said if you do it again and arent successful we will kick you out of school. So, then i said okay, but i want to go toward in and keep taking course of study for entre Door Management so i switched to faculty of arts and sciences and never declared a major but i taking wording close courses so they sent me a letter saying youre not a a working student and you have below average and if you dont get yourself together we will kick you out of school so i finally got more serious about my work and i did take a number of courses multiple times because i really enjoyed them. [laughter] and so in may of 1979, i was six courses short of graduating. For some bizarre reason they let me walk in graduation. My mom was thrilled at my grandmother and i was like i dont know what york so excited about, i have to go to Summer School tomorrow. Maybe kind of my First Political deal, had an agreement with the dean of undergraduate warden and said you have six courses and i said im not coming back in september this is it and he said if you achieve a certain average you will be good to go. I hit the number right on the number and he said you are in and year out, goodbye. [laughter] its been nice knowing you. You mentioned a moment ago the impulse disc attacking you write about this in the book. Did mayor mark mayor mike learn anything from mix master mike, any lessons in that disco that applied to governance . Possibly some of the best training and i will tell you why at the club i met a lot of people. I shook a lot of hands. I had to remember a lot of people and every now and then we might have just throw someone out. Im not like the biggest guy around so i learned negotiating skills and people skills on how to nicely put someone out of a nightclub and as mayor i met a lot of people, shook a lot of hands, had to remember a lot of folks and every now and then i had to put some people out. [laughter] went to talk about some of the political battles that you have waged over the years. Lets begin with mrs. Lewinsky, 282 votes to Michael Nutters 48 who was she and what happened . She was a Committee Person in the 52nd lord your chi had just gotten involved with councilman John Anderson who is seeking to become would later and 9082 and i lived in a division where they were looking for a Committee Person and do so i went down to Voter Registration. I mean, i was a Wharton School of graduate so i was about data and information and regression analysis and i was going to figure this thing out and i went down to Voter Registration and started looking because i wanted to understand the constituents. There were three apartment buildings. I lived in the really cool building and the other two were more senior residents. Im like eight 1898 date of birth, 1901, 1905, so i realized its very old constituency and i was in my early 20s and there were a part of buildings, so there were days where i would literally wait until someone came out of the building and suddenly i realized maybe i can go in this way to put stuff under peoples doors, which you are not supposed to do in the first place, but lillian with everyone and i virtually knew no one and she kicked my butt. At the Time Committee people ran every two years and now they run every four years. I ran again, without a little closer, but it was clear would probably take about 20, 25 years and two of her beat her peer she may have passed away so another big political decision, i moved. [laughter] funny how you never forget the lessons from that first campaign. When i was i ran for the state legislature in bucks county and lost by 419 votes and i has since located 236 of those people. [laughter] so, you get elected to city council and one of your First Initiative sort of ahead of your time as we live in this era of black lives matter was the formation and Police Advisory commission. How come . There have been a series of events prior to my time and city council i had legitimately done some research. Councilman anderson have looked at this issue when he was a city council in his term and it does seem that at the time at least once a complaint when in it pretty much went nowhere. Had lost confidence in a times the credibility of some of the investigations. Other cities had similar civilian related bodies, new york in particular, so research all around the country on this issue. Put it forward and was controversial. Of the mayor at the time had been the former District Attorney and really hated it, like a lot. That was like september 1992 when i introduce this piece of legislation, 78 months into the job in creating this controversy president a street at the, very supportive. A lot a battles back and forth. We pass that bill 11six. The mayor vetoed it, but to the credit and i think he knows i know this there are a lot of behindthescenes conversation it became clear the mayor wanted to end the controversy and in a pretty dramatic fashion. Then councilman changed his vote on the override in the bill passed 12five. Im not giving away the whole book for free. We want people to buy the book. We would like people to buy the book. But a number of the stories i want to pull from it. You expressed regret in the book for your position initially on the Domestic Partnership bill. Talk about dealing with that issue in this book. I think it was very well known at the time, but councilman anderson was gay. This was not the totally loving open progressive city that we are today socially, at least, in the late 70s, early 80s. I saw at experienced in a pretty personal way the impact that his status i guess if you will had politically. Threats of people trying to out him, other comments made from time to time and so i developed a great sensitivity to some of the challenges of folks in the lgbtq community. The politics got collocated because i was pushing the Police Advisory commission. At the same time the councilman was pushing for Domestic Partnership benefits. The councilman was very much in favor of the Police Advisory commission and very much against Domestic Partnership, but i got caught in i think kind of a freshman rookie mistake of not being able to separate those two things in the way that i should have based on my own perspective and feelings. I didnt do anything to undermine councilman ortiz, but i felt personally i was not as supportive publicly as i shouldnt because i didnt want to jam it myself up on the Police Advisory Commission Piece it ended up not going anywhere at the time, but i made a commitment to myself in a moment that this issue was going to get resolved and i was going to be the person to do it. The Police Advisory commission, one example of where councilman Michael Nutter was ahead of his time. As i look back at your record and focus on the year 2000, the smoking ban which was really the First Initiative on this scale and scope was a pretty significant achievement for a still young councilman. I want to get your thoughts, and later in my career a lot of credit goes to our daughter who is right there. Lisa was working at a firm and did a lot of consulting and the travel and rather than completely torture over via with my cocaine i decided to take her to do it with my cooking, i decided to take her to dinner. We were sitting there and i got like some paper and crayons and drawings, she loved doing that work she observed there was a man smoking in the restaurant and the said that man is smoking does he know thats bad for him and i said yeah. Some people do that. She went back to drawing and then said well, arent you a city councilman. [laughter] we going to do about that . Shes five years old. Not a whole lot you can say to that. Yes, im on the city councilman i guess i need to do something about it, so we started the journey. It took six years to get that piece of legislation passed and one of was one of the last bills voting on before i resigned. Police advisory commission, smoking ban, Campaign Finance representative form is another feather in your. Yeah, did a lot of work in that area, but i was making a point the first Campaign Finance law was actually passed by counsel and would junior. Right after the 2003 election i think we all remember a lot of things from the 2003 election. You know, the bug and all of that, but it was also clear that there were concerns about Campaign Finance, about pay to play, about how the government was functioning and operating, so late november, early december, 2003, the first piece of legislation came through and the mayor at the time was opposed to it. Council passed it anyway and then i subsequently did another piece with different restrictions, new contracting legislation that if you did business with the city you can only give a certain amount and whole host of things and then subsequently the ethics board. I Read Everything subsequent to that election and we made numerous amendments i think it was one of those moments where only in that kind of crisis could we have ever gotten that kind of legislation passed any people were not excited about this. We are the only place in the state that would have campaignfinance limits which is subsequently were litigated all the way up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and we were successful. As you look that cash back now at the bug, what does Michael Nutter think of the successful effort to cast ballots as John Ashcroft and the republicans from washington try to dictate the outcome of a philadelphia may or will raise . I think we now know that, i mean, that story was a complete fabrication total bull [bleep], in the moment it worked. I mean, many of us knew that there was no way in the world that it was really what was going on, but its a heavily democratic city and folks didnt like John Ashcroft, so there was a narrative was already made, i mean, after they come in two or three days after that big explosive story everyone was kind of radio silent and we couldnt figure out was going on and then we they laid out that scenario and people bought it. You point out in the bucket i think a lot of folks forget the margin in that cycle, which was cash and street to was bigger than it was four years prior. I think i dont know if he is here, but neil will know this well. I think the 99th street cats race i think the margin was somewhere 9400 neighborhood, one of the closest in modern history and i think the rematch i think mayor street one by like 85000, i mean, like some absurd number based on this whole fiction that had been created about the republicans in washington trying to take down the black democratic mayor of philadelphia , which would then lead to the republicans of being able to win pennsylvania in 2004 was the fundamental theory, which made no sense whatsoever. Summer, 2006, you resign from counsel and have your eyes set on the mayor. I was surprised it may be ended at the, but forgot what a shoestring operation it was at the outset of your campaign. Describe it. We may have borrowed some shoestrings. [laughter] i mean, you know, so in may of 2006, we take a poll, im still on city council. I mean, it was a wellknown firm , nationally recognized pollster, paid money in the poll said basically no matter who runs you cannot win. Well, how much did we pay for that . Back and forth, back and forth and you know at the end its like what are we going to do and said to the firm what you think and they said difficult not impossible. Okay. But, this point and, i mean, we just jump right in the face, you know, you dont just decide you shouldnt. You just dont decide youre going to quit your job and run for mayor of small, medium or large city without a whole lot of conversation with a lot of folks. The first one really has to be home. Having support i mean more than support, having real support from lisa and olivia just really , i mean, you cant do it. So, we had a lot of conversations about that. There was one discussion, i mean, when the final decision was being made and olivia said dad, this is what you really want to do then that is what you should do and we will support you. About five minutes leaders later she said by the way, you have to quit your job on the city council and i said yes. Quiet and she said, so do i need to get a job. [laughter] theres no interest like self interests. [laughter] so, they are all in and we are starting to assemble this team and we get this office at 123 south broad street, about 500 square feet. Aaron is down there and then this redhead guy comes in the Office One Day and i said who is that and i was with butler. Maybe its dissipated a bit over time but, i mean, it was pretty clear he was not from west philly. A little british accent. He came here to go to school and some well found his way to me. He was involved in politics in the uk. We are sitting in our little 500 squarefoot office with plenty of space and is suddenly like people are coming to volunteer. We had to move to 42 south 15 and in the operation became bigger, but no one thought we could win. And of course, you had a secret surprise on your side. I have a video screen here for a reason. I hope it works and if it does, roll it. Olivia nutter, this is my dad this is the house my dad grew up in west philadelphia. This is our dog. This is my favorite food. A hes pretty cool for an old guy. This is where i go to middle school. My dad is the only democrat for mayor with a child in the public s