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U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, as chairman of Philadelphias Democratic City Committee, is often spoken of as a big-city political boss.

But Bradys job is more akin to a full-time mediator, trying to keep competing factions from shaking apart the local Democratic Party.

Nowhere is the fractious nature of the party more frequently on public display than the heavily Latino North Philadelphia neighborhoods, east of Broad Street and south of Roosevelt Boulevard.

The constant squabbling among Democrats there now has a new embarrassing cost: yet another in a series of high-profile party messes.

The state will hold a special election on March 21 in the state Houses 197th District, which includes parts of Feltonville, Hunting Park, Glenwood, Fairhill, North Square, and Francisville.

As of now, there will be no Democrat on that ballot, even though the party controls 85 percent of the voter registration in the district.

Only Republican nominee Lucinda Little is on the ballot. Her party holds just 5 percent of the registered voters there. Independents and smaller political parties make up the other 10 percent.

Bradys frustration is clear when he discusses the area and its Democratic leaders.

Theyve got to get their act together, Brady said of the ward leaders and elected officials in the neighborhoods that include the 197th District. They just dont get along together. Theres too much animosity. The Latinos, its a shame they just cant get their act together.

The 197th seat is open because former State Rep. Leslie Acosta pleaded guilty last year to a felony embezzlement charge but then, to the consternation of her party, won reelection and waited until Jan. 3 to resign, just before her colleagues in Harrisburg planned to eject her.

Acosta, who replaced another convicted felon, former State Rep. Jose J.P. Miranda, had pushed for the local Democratic ward leaders in the district to select as their candidate for the special election Frederick Ramirez, president of Pan American Mental Health Clinics.

But state Commonwealth Court Judge Anne E. Covey on Feb. 23 removed Ramirez from the ballot, ruling that he does not really reside in the home he owns in the district.

Another Commonwealth Court judge previously prevented Green Party candidate Cheri Honkala from being listed on the ballot because her nomination papers were filed one day late. Sheappealed that decision to the state Supreme Court, which on Friday in a 4-3 decision rejected her bid to get on the ballot. Honkala has vowed to run a write-in campaign for the seat.

Covey, who was elected to the court as a Republican, on Friday rejected a request from the Democratic Party to allow Emilio Vazquez, a Philadelphia Parking Authority revenue auditor on a 30-day leave from that job, onto the ballot as a replacement candidate for Ramirez.

Vazquez, the Democratic leader of the 43rd Ward, has been involved in the efforts to replace Acosta since the special election was called in January.

The party doesnt run it from the top down, Brady said of selecting special-election candidates. I let people be independent. The ward leaders in the district have the say.

As if on cue, the ward leaders and elected officials in the area promptly blamed their problems on each other.

State Rep. Angel Cruz represents the 180th District, next door to the 197th District. He previously represented parts of the 197th until the decennial redistricting plan was approved in 2012, shifting his district eastward. That plan made the 197th a majority Hispanic district, at 53.5 percent.

Cruz, who is also the Seventh Ward leader, concedes that a power struggle roils the area. He spent part of last week arguing on Facebook with people who back other potential candidates.

I try not to make those kinds of comments, Cruz said. But you can only take so much.

Cruz is an on-again, off-again political ally with Carlos Matos, Democratic leader of the 19th Ward.

Complicating the conflict, Matos is married to Renee Tartaglione, daughter of former City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione and sister to State Sen. Tina Tartaglione.

Renee Tartaglione is awaiting federal trial, accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Juniata Community Health Clinic, where Acosta previously worked before taking office.

Acosta is now a cooperating witness for the prosecution who is expected to testify at Tartagliones trial in May.

Matos, who had supported Acostas bid for office, feuds frequently with City Councilwoman Maria Quiones Snchez, except when he is allied with her against other foes. Snchezs Seventh District shares some of the same territory as the 197th District.

I think people have to put the community first, said Matos, after suggesting Snchez does not. They cant be worried about how much power they can gain or whatever.

Snchez, who supported her husbands unsuccessful run against Tina Tartaglione in the 2014 Democratic primary, said she is not a party leader but tries to work within the framework.

She blames the partys inability to secure a candidate in the 197th on the shifting alliances in the district.

I think its part of what has to happen for people to see how bad it is, Snchez said.

Former City Councilman Angel Ortiz laughingly calls the local Democratic leaders a dysfunctional family."

He wants the party to give more opportunities to young, active Democrats. But a lack of leadership prevents that from happening, he said, and puts the 197th seat at risk.

I think were going to make national news on March 21, either way it goes, Ortiz said. It would be a heavily embarrassing situation for the Democratic City Committee.

The Republicans already hold a sturdy majority in the 203-seat state House with 121 members. So picking up a formerly Democratic seat won't signal any major shift in power. Still, justtwo members of the Philadelphia delegation to the House are Republicans, and both hail from Northeast Philly.

And the Pennsylvania Republican Party pounced on the ruling. New chairman Val DiGiorgio quickly issued a plea for campaign donations and volunteers to help Little.

"We now have an opportunity to shock Philadelphia's Democratic machine because of their sheer incompetence and corruption," DiGiorgio wrote in that plea.

For now, the Democrats have appealed Coveys ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Brady says the Democrats will run a write-in campaign for the seat if Vazquez is kept off the ballot. But he acknowledged that the Republicans could win the seat, at least until the next regular election for a two-year term next year.

Until then, Brady will keep mediating.

The Hispanics have been fighting for years, Brady said. And the common denominator is they all talk to me. I try to keep them together.

Published: March 3, 2017 3:26 PM EST | Updated: March 3, 2017 6:24 PM EST

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North Philly feud costs Democrats a shot at a state House seat - Philly.com

The Pennsylvania Senate Democrats have been hit by a ransomware attack that has locked senators and employees out of their computer network since the early morning hours of Friday, state officials told NBC News.

In a statement, Sen. Jay Costa, the Democratic leader, said the Democrats were working with law enforcement agencies and Microsoft to resolve the problem. He did not say what payment has been demanded to unlock the data, or whether the attackers had suggested any political motive.

In a ransomware attack, hackers inject a network with malware that typically encrypts important data, and then demand payment in exchange for a key that releases the data. They threaten to destroy the data if they aren't paid.

The Democratic senators in the state capital of Harrisburg are on their own computer network and there is no indication that other state agencies of the Republicans have been affected, said a state official who declined to be identified. The official said the Democrats had no idea whether they were targeted for any specific reason.

A spokeswoman for the FBI was looking into whether that agency had been called in. A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Democrats, Stacey Witalec, declined to say whether the data was backed up elsewhere or whether the attackers had identified themselves or any motive.

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Senate Democrats in Pennsylvania Are Being Held Cyber-Hostage - NBCNews.com

Having apparently temporarily misplaced his Android phone after his joint address to Congress, President Trump has relocated it (probably on the nightstand in the Lincoln bedroom) and has resumed his habit of angry early morning tweeting about his political opponents.

On Friday morning, his target was Democrats on Capitol Hill who he said are still blocking his Cabinet picks from being approved.

Its hard to overstate what nonsense this is.

It is true that, at one time, Senate Democrats were dragging their heels on Trumps Cabinet picks. In January, members of the party boycotted committee votes to advance nominees to the full Senate, slowing the process. In recent weeks, however, the process has happened in regular bursts. Three Cabinet picks have been approved in the last two days.

How does Trump compare to past presidents? At this moment, he has two unconfirmed Cabinet positions the same as Barack Obama had on Mar. 3, 2009. In fact, only three of the last six presidents have had their entire Cabinets in place at this point.

Remember: The Democrats dont control the Senate. While they were able to throw some hurdles in the path of the president hurdles that Republicans overcame by changing the rules to allow a vote without Democrats present there was nothing they could do to block nominees entirely.

So whats the hold-up on the two empty slots? Well, one is his nominee for Secretary of Labor. His first pick, Andrew Puzder, withdrew last month and Trump nominated Alexander Acosta in his stead. Theres a natural delay built-in to that switchover.

But the main problem is that neither that pick nor Trumps pick to run the Department of Agriculture have been sent to the Senate yet.

Senate Republicans are baffled that the White House hasnt yet sent over the necessary paperwork for Sonny Perdue, his late pick to run Agriculture. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chair of the Senate committee that will forward Perdues nomination, told ABC News on Wednesday that he didnt know when to expect Perdues formal nomination. I wish to hell I did, Roberts said. We need a champion for agriculture, we need him on board.

Trumps team also hasnt sent over Acostas paperwork something that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) subtly pointed out in a tweet on Thursday evening.

The president has embraced the idea that the opposing party is behind all of his problems, blaming them for Attorney General Jeff Sessions current troubles and for the regular protests over the course of his presidency. But in this case in particular, the Democrats arent to blame.

The buck, as they say, stops with the president. Whether he likes it or not.

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President Trump's blaming the Democrats for Cabinet delays that are normal and his own fault - Washington Post

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

WASHINGTONSen. Sherrod Brownunveiled a set of populist, pro-worker policies on Friday that he says could strengthen the middle class, increase wages, and serve as a blueprint for Democrats as his party searches for ways to reconnect with working-class voters.

In a speech Friday in Columbus, the Ohio Democrat called for a dramatic shift to the political left on a series of economic and labor issues including stronger collective bargaining rights for workers, creating a national paid leave fund, and requiring corporate freeloaders to reimburse taxpayers if low-wage employees have to rely on federal assistance to make ends meet.

We need to change the way we think about the American economy, Brown said in remarks delivered at Ohio State University.

The view that businesses drive the American economy and that helping corporations by extension help workers has been discredited, Brown argued. Its not businesses who drive the economy its workers, he said.

Browns proposals, spelled out in a 77-page proposal full of footnotes and graphics, are not likely to go anywhere in the current Republican-controlled Congress. But his ideas could serve as a rallying point for Democrats as they gear up for the 2018 election, when Brown and others will be on the ballot.

They could also serve as fodder for Brown's GOP opponents, who may seize on his new platform as out of themainstream.Even before Brown began his speech, a Republican opposition research group attacked it as bad for the economy and a sop to his liberal base.

By pushing rejected ideas that would eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and penalize entrepreneurs, Browns proposal is only meant to curry favor to his liberal, special interest donors, said Jeremy Adler, a spokesman for America Rising Squared, a GOP group that does not disclose its donors.

In a document dubbed Working Too Hard for Too Little, Brown broadly calls for changes in four areas:

--Increasing workers wages and benefits, including raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour and providing employees with 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.

--Giving workers greater bargaining power and cracking down businesses that misclassify workers as independent contractors or that deny workers overtime pay.

--Helping workers save for retirement, by offering tax credits to match retirement contributions and expanding retirement programs for part-time and hourly workers.

--Encouraging companies to invest in their workforce by giving them a tax break if they commit to staying in the U.S. and providing good wages and benefits to employees.

"I can accept that the workforce is changing. But what we cannot accept is that more and more of our workers are paid less and have little economic security," Brown said. "We need to update our economic policies, our retirement policies, and our labor laws to reflect todays reality."

Read more:

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In an interview before the speech, Brown said he began work on the proposal in 2015, well before Trump won the presidency, and he dismissed questions about whether it would serve as his campaign platform as he vies for a third term in the Senate. Brown is expected to face a tough re-election in a state that Trump won by 51 percent of the vote, compared to Democratic nominee Hillary Clintons 43 percent.

As he gears up for that race, Brown will have to walk a tightropewooing the blue-collar workers who supported Trump while not alienating his own liberal base. But in an interview Thursday, Brown said this was not a political pitch, noting he has long been focused on worker-related issues, such as raising the minimum wage.

Its not addressing Trump. Its not addressing Hillarys loss, Brown said. Its addressing what we do to empower workers, all workers.

Still, Brown conceded that his ideas could serve as a roadmap for his own party, as Democrats look for a way out of the political wilderness and come to grips with their stunning 2016 election losses. Brown said he also plans to share his proposal with the White House, noting that Trump won in part because of his populist pitch to working-class voters in Ohio and across the country.

I hope anybody steals these ideas and moves forward, whether its Secretary of Treasury (Steven) Mnuchin or whether its Tom Perez, the newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Brown said. I want it talked about. I want people to try to move that agenda.

Read more:

Josh Mandel plans another U.S. Senate bid

Democrats elect Tom Perez, former Labor secretary, as new party leader

Here are some of Brown's specific proposals:

*Require employers to provide workers with a minimum of seven paid sick says;

*Create a national "paid leave fund," paid for via employee and employer payroll contributions, to provide workers with 12 weeks of paid family or medical leave;

*Increase penalties against employers who discriminate against workers trying to form a union or who commit unfair labor practices'

*Require businesses to allow certain part-time workers to participate in thecompany's retirement plan; and

*Create a "corporate freeloader fee," levied against large corporations who pay poverty-level wages.

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Can Sherrod Brown's plan save the Democrats? - Cincinnati.com

As the number of documented contacts between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials grows, congressional investigators are increasingly looking at the events that occurred around those meetings to determine if they provide evidence of a Russian influence campaign.

Whether there was any collusion there is of keen interest to our committee, said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. This could all be coincidence or could be collusion.

Trump has continually denied lingering allegations that associates of his campaign had been in contact with the Russians. In a Feb. 16 news conference, Trump underlined previous denials, saying, "I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything," and said that "the news is fake."

Senior Republican leaders in Washington have said they remain unconvinced the timeline points to anything out of the ordinary.

We have seen no evidence from any of these ongoing investigations that anybody in the trump campaign or the trump team was involved in any of this, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) told ABC Newss Mary Bruce. We've been presented with no evidence that an American was colluding with the Russians to meddle in the election.

A key period that is gaining interest from investigators is July 2016, as the Republican National Convention got underway in Cleveland. On July 18, party insiders took the unusual step of altering the official GOP platform by watering down its position on the use of force to protect the Ukraine from Russian incursions.

The champagne corks were going off when that happened, said Paul Joyal, a Russian intelligence expert and managing director of National Strategies.

Two days later, on July 20, the Russian Ambassador to the United States surfaced in Cleveland, meeting at different points with then-Senator Sessions (R-AL) who served as a campaign advisor and now as Trump's Attorney General and with a one-time Trump foreign policy adviser named Carter Page. Page later denied any meeting had occurred, telling PBS Newshour, I had no meetings. No meetings.

That same week, on July 22, WikiLeaks posted the first of the hacked Democratic party e-mails.

July seems to be a key month, Schiff told ABC News.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told ABC News he considered that month to be a turning point. He said investigators are likely to explore how hackers changed their approach to releasing stolen material.

The selective leaking of that information in a way that was I think initially just to throw chaos into the election but increasingly about mid-summer switched from let's just throw chaos into let's favor Mr. Trump at the expense of Hillary Clinton, Warner told ABC News.

He specifically noted the timing of leaks revealing Clinton campaign chairman John Podestas emails. The first of those leaks occurred just hours after Trump had suffered a public relations blow from the release of embarrassing hot mic recordings of Trump on the Access Hollywood entertainment program in 2005.

That was more than coincidence, Warner said.

Schiff cautioned that it remains far too soon to draw any conclusions.

I see as my responsibility is to follow the facts wherever they lead, Schiff said.

ABC News' Cho Park, Alex Hosenball and Paul Blake contributed to this report.

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Democrats plumb election timeline for Trump-Russia clues - ABC News