Democrat Pat Catena was re-elected president of Allegheny County Council Monday, possibly foreshadowing continued turbulence in Democratic Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s relationship with council.
Catena prevailed in a 9-6 vote against fellow Democrat Bob Macey in a body where Republicans hold just two of 15 seats.
Catena struck a note of unity after Monday's vote. “I hope to work with each and every one of you and continue to move this county forward,” he told his colleagues, “and obviously work with the administration and benefit all the residents of Allegheny County.”
But Catena was first elevated to the presidency in 2020 by councilors who viewed him as favoring more independence from Fitzgerald’s administration. He won the job after cobbling together an alliance that included council’s most left-leaning members, conservative Democrats, and Republicans.
Democrat Bethany Hallam said her vote for Catena Monday stemmed from her continued belief that he will not act as a “rubber stamp” for Fitzgerald. Hallam, a standard bearer for progressive Democrats, has often been at odds with Fitzgerald in the past, not least in her capacity as council's representative on the Jail Oversight Board.
Hallam said Monday that Catena had promised to retain her as his designee on the board, where she has been an unapologetic critic of administrators at the Allegheny County Jail.
Aside from Hallam, Catena’s supporters included newly minted councilors Jack Betkowski and Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis, as well as returning councilors Liv Bennett, Paul Klein, John Palmiere, Bob Palmosina, and Anita Prizio.
Meanwhile, Catena lost the backing of Republicans Sam DeMarco and Cindy Kirk, who voted for him in 2020 but threw their support behind Macey this time. Fitzgerald’s Democratic allies, Tom Duerr, Nick Futules, and DeWitt Walton, also backed Macey.
Walton said his vote for the five-term Democrat came down to his desire for change.
“I believe that we have been stagnant for the last two years,” he said. “There’s been a good deal of internal bickering and vitriol. There’s a real difficulty trying to move and develop a common collective agenda.”
Walton said that dynamic took hold two years ago, when Bennett and Hallam joined council. Both councilors represent the progressive wing of the party and have long demanded that council exercise more power independent from Fitzgerald’s policy priorities.
Those efforts have achieved mixed results: A ban on police use of "less-lethal" weapons stirred debate but had nowhere near the amount of support required to become law. By contrast, an effort to expand the scope of a countywide police review board foundered on Fitzgerald’s opposition, but was followed by a less sweeping version that received the executive’s blessing.
Macey, meanwhile has sometimes inflamed tensions himself. Last spring, he drew the ire of some on the left when he jokingly criticized the implications of allowing transgender athletes to participate in youth and collegiate sports. He has also suggested that Hallam lacks credibility on matters involving the county jail because she herself has done time at the lock-up for past drug offenses.
The acrimony between Hallam and Macey grew so intense by the summer of 2020 that Hallam sought the help of her social media followers in finding someone to run against Macey the following year. Macey easily won his election regardless.
Although he drew the backing of progressives, Catena himself tends to take moderate policy positions. For example, in 2020 he voted against the proposal to ban Allegheny County Police from using less-lethal weapons to disperse protests.
But last spring, he supported the creation of the county's police review board, after helping to kill the idea in 2019. He was also a prime sponsor of legislation enacted in the fall to mandate paid sick leave at workplaces with more than 25 employees.
In addition to running council meetings and determining which committees take up specific bills, the council president has the power to name the chairs of those committees and their members. The committee chairs, in turn, decide whether to advance legislation or to let it languish without receiving a vote.
Catena could scramble committee chair assignments in light of Monday’s vote. When he was first elected president in 2020, he awarded all but one of the posts to his supporters.
“I’m really excited to see, looking at the way that the votes fell [in Monday's vote for president, that] the people who did not support the … president are probably going to be trying to figure out if they still have committee chairs or not,” Hallam said.
Catena did not respond to a call for comment Monday.
