CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland City Councilman Tony Brancatelli is a Democratic Party loyalist who fights for the poor and working class in what one resident calls “the richest poor neighborhood in Cleveland,” Slavic Village. The neighborhood, known nationally as “Ground Zero” of the foreclosure crisis, is where he grew up and where he still lives.
He was the protagonist in a New York Times Magazine cover story more than a decade ago as he fought greedy banks and house flippers at the height of the devastation from the subprime mortgage crisis. He testified before Congress on fair housing issues.
And before he was a councilman in Cleveland’s Ward 12, he headed the local nonprofit community development corporation, working to improve life for his neighbors.
Brancatelli doesn’t wear his Democratic Party affiliation on his sleeve, he carries it in his heart. “This is what I’ve devoted my life to,” he told me this week.
He cares about what happens to the many who struggle to make it in Cleveland and he cares deeply about housing issues, having worked closely with Cleveland Housing Court since its inception under Judge Ray Pianka, who died in 2017. He also worked with Pianka’s successor, Ronald O’Leary, a Republican appointed by then-Gov. John Kasich and a former director of the Cleveland Building Department.
So, it stands to reason that last year, as O’Leary announced his run for re-election in the nonpartisan race, Brancatelli endorsed him. Among other things, he appreciated O’Leary’s support for a right to counsel for poor tenants in eviction cases and his push to seal eviction records that can be a barrier to finding housing.
“He had a number of significant initiatives and accomplishments that made him a superior judge,” Brancatelli told me. Brancatelli threw his support behind a guy who had been doing right by his constituents.
But the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party’s by-laws say he did wrong by the party. Supporting anyone other than a Democrat means trouble.
Never mind that we’re not talking about supporting someone from the other party for governor or senator or president. He endorsed a candidate in a nonpartisan race for a judge, which should be the least partisan of the elected offices. And he made his endorsement before anyone had even pulled petitions to run against O’Leary. He said he didn’t knock on doors. He wasn’t on the campaign mailings. But he supported O’Leary because he was a good judge and O’Leary shared the news on Facebook on May 6, long before the election.
W. Mona Scott eventually jumped in as a Democrat, and later filed a formal complaint against Brancatelli for endorsing a Republican. A complaint must be filed for discipline to be handed down by the party Unity Rules Committee. But a funny thing happened on the way to the disciplinary hearing: Scott won the race, despite Brancatelli’s lack of support. Still, she persisted with her complaint against her fellow Democrat.
At a hearing shortly after the election, Brancatelli didn’t claim confusion or retract past statements as others have done. He laid out his case: That O’Leary had distinguished himself, that it was a nonpartisan race, that Scott had never asked for his endorsement, nor had she provided information for vetting, such as to the nonpartisan ratings put out by five local bar associations at judge4yourself.com. O’Leary got “excellent” marks from each association. Scott got “refused to participate.”
“She never filled out anything where you could make a good assessment of whether she would have been a good judge or not,” he said. “Her credential was that she was a Democrat and she was carried across the finish line by (U.S. Rep.) Marsha Fudge and (Cleveland Councilman) Anthony Hairston.”
Brancatelli was acting the way we hope voters do. Looking to judge candidates on their merits. He should have just looked to the right of the name, for the party affiliation, according to the Democrats.
“Rules are rules,” Democratic Party Chairwoman and Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown told me this week. “I’m not seeking to kick anyone out of the party. That is not what I desire to do. That was a blatant violation.”
He was kicked off the party’s executive committee bounced out as deputy leader of his ward, and he will not be eligible for his party’s endorsement when he runs for re-election next year. He can still have the “D” next to his name, but it might as well be a scarlet letter.
This is how partisan politics is played and how political machines keep their cogs in line. But is it really necessary? What does it say about party unity — and temperament, for that matter — when a winning candidate has no capacity to forgive a fellow party member and no desire to bury the hatchet and work to forge a partnership with one of the city’s foremost housing advocates as she takes over the housing court?
We will, no doubt, hear Democrats in Cuyahoga County decry the fall-in-line Republicans when President Trump’s impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate ends in acquittal. They’ll talk about how the vote should be principles over party.
But they don’t have a very good example of that at home.
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