Philly Power Research

Big-money and out-of-state donors helped Josh Shapiro raise $30 million while Stacy Garrity raised $1.5 million from Pa.’s grassroots The Inquirer analyzed the candidates' latest campaign finance filings to find who — and how much money — is pouring into the Pennsylvania governor's race.

"Garrity’s single biggest donation was $250,000 from University City Housing Co., a real estate firm providing housing near Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania."
www.inquirer.com/politics/pen...

How PA agencies under Shapiro’s control cooperate with ICE Gov. Josh Shapiro has not hidden that PA works with ICE, nor has he promised new limits on existing cooperation.

What does collaboration with ICE look like in PA? ICE can access state data without a warrant. Troopers cannot ask about immigration status, but can and do tell ICE if they otherwise discover someone is undocumented. And prisons honor some ICE detainers.
www.spotlightpa.org/news/2026/02...

Library warming centers strained workers and left people without help for complex issues, staff say Library workers and volunteers say people in mental-health crises, struggling with substance-abuse issues, and requiring wound care are coming to the warming centers and they have no backup.

The Parker administration is failing so many of our most vulnerable neighbors while hanging our overworked, underpaid library workers out to dry www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Reminder that the Parker admin chose to allow this tax hike for small businesses rather than trying to defend against a lawsuit challenging the BIRT exemption. But the people most to blame for rising taxes for Philly small businesses are the PA Republicans who refuse to change the uniformity clause.

Philly lawmakers want to restrict cooperation with ICE and ban agents from wearing masks

Two Philadelphia City Council members will introduce legislation this week to restrict cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The push comes as ICE faces mounting national scrutiny over its tactics in Minneapolis.

Seattle Renews Its Unique Approach to Public Campaign Financing The democracy vouchers program hands residents $100 to donate to local candidates and it’s credited with broadening civic involvement. Voters on Tuesday extended it by 10 years.

Despite several attempts to export the idea, Seattle remains the only U.S. city with a democracy vouchers program, which provides money to residents to donate to the local candidates of their choice.

Pretty consistent with the last round of disparate school closings in Philadelphia

from the excel sheets into the streets: data analysis skills for action. Excel for Organizers, Part 1, February 11, 2026 1 pm to 2 pm ET. Geared towards those organizers just getting started with spreadsheets. Excel for Organizers, Part 2, March 11, 2026 1 pm to 2 pm ET. Builds on the first training to provide an overview of how to use formulas for data analysis. Level up your data analysis skills at our new mini-training series! Register: littlesis.org/trainings/ [link in all lower case letters].

Level up your data analysis skills at our new mini-training series!
We’ll feature a few intro-level tips and tricks to get you started cleaning, combining and understanding data.
Register: littlesis.org/trainings/

NDWA PA - ICE Out of Philly! · National Domestic Workers Alliance C3 This week, ICE Out legislation will be introduced at Philadelphia City Hall, led by Philly immigrant communities and Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Rue Landau. Join us outside of City Hall, Tuesday...

Philadelphians demand a city free from Trump’s deportations, fear and violence. The ICE Out legislation puts our values into law and prioritizes the safety of immigrant communities. Show up Tuesday to launch this legislation and get ICE out of our city!

RSVP here: www.mobilize.us/ndwa-c3/even...

TikTok has been under new leadership for like a day and I made a slideshow with posts from the ICE rally today and it immediately got out under review and is not being published. Incredible.

"The group of investors that officially bought TikTok’s US assets includes an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group, the Pennsylvania investment giant owned by billionaire Jeff Yass, which will gain a spot on the spinoff venture’s board."
technical.ly/entrepreneur...

"The American version of the Nuremberg Trials are coming for ICE, and ICE should be afraid. And until they happen, the poets, the helpers, the nurses, the educators, the mothers will be sharing, recording, and watching." thank you @spfelocal28.bsky.social

The firm owned by Pennsylvania’s richest man is now co-leading US TikTok Financial powerhouse Susquehanna International Group, an early ByteDance investor, is now central to the app’s new US leadership.

The firm owned by Jeff Yass, Pennsylvania’s richest man, is now co-leading US TikTok
Financial powerhouse Susquehanna International Group, an early ByteDance investor, is now central to the app’s new US leadership.
technical.ly/entrepreneur...

Philly could close 20 schools, co-locate 6, and modernize 159: Superintendent Watlington shares his facilities plan The 10-year blueprint comes with a $2.8 billion price tag, $1 billion of which would be covered by district capital funds. The rest would depend on philanthropy or state funds.

20 #PHLed schools would close, 6 would co-locate, and 159 get upgrades under the long-awaited facilities master plan proposed by Supt. Watlington today. More: www.inquirer.com/education/ph...

Six Steps for Researching the Corporate Enablers of ICE, By Lauren Parker. Communities are forming campaigns to peel away corporate support of ICE and weaken the various sources of ICE’s financial, political, and reputational power. White text on a black background. The background fades into an image of protesters standing behind a long banner that they are holding up at the front of a conference room. The banner reads, “Stop Avelo, Abolish ICE,” and shows the image of a woman with a baby and a blue collar worker with his fist up, a monarch butterfly is pictured on either side of these two characters. The bottom left side of the graphic reads, Read the full story at: littlesis.org/research/news/ [the link is in all lower case letters]. The bottom right side of the graphic shows the LittleSis logo in white.

Check out our latest post: Six Steps for Researching the Corporate Enablers of ICE
We briefly highlight a few campaigns that are targeting ICE’s corporate collaborators and provide a guide on how you can research these corporations.
littlesis.org/news/six-ste...

Building with MuckRock

The Philly Transit Riders Union used DocumentCloud’s annotation feature to highlight public documents with their members and share them with local reporters and the public.

Join us on Friday to learn more during our Building with MuckRock event. us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Screenshot from Inquirer article with headline "ICE vehicle able to exit garage, helped by Philly police", a picture of police officers standing between a white vehicle and protesters, and text "Just before 9:30 a.m., a white sedan – which had initially been blocked by protesters – was able to exit the ICE headquarters parking bay with the help of Philadelphia Police. No one was arrested."

Any expressions of concern about ICE from the @mayorparker.bsky.social administration are meaningless if they're allowing Philly police to actively assist ICE.

Demand that the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) cut its ties to ICE

Please understand this is happening in literally dozens of locations around the city simultaneously. If an ICE vehicle stops, community members materialize in seconds and do everything they can to stop the kidnappings. We are under siege and using every tool to fight back.

Line chart showing budgeted vs. filled uniform police positions in the Philadelphia Police Department. The budgeted line stays fairly flat, decreasing from 6575 in 2019 to 6380 from 2020 onward. The filled line increases slightly from 6115 in 2016 to 6486 in 2019 and then decreases substantially and fairly consistently each year to a low of 5310 in 2025.

Philly never really defunded its police dept, but the public disdain toward policing in the 2020 uprising era contributed to years of police under-staffing.

(Under-reported sidenote that historic lows in murders last yr happened at same time that police staffing was lower than it had been in yrs)

A quick search on LinkedIn turns up hundreds of people who work for 🧊. People should message them to tell them to quit their jobs. And shame them in front of their communities.

Perhaps do a little background research before turning someone into a resistance icon. www.inquirer.com/topic/rochel...

Help Kensington Voice start 2026 at full strength. Because local news doesn't fund itself. Every dollar donated supports an act of journalism.

Hello, is it possible to share this fundraiser? Kensington Voice is the only reason we know about so many things that are happening in Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. Is it possible to share and retweet?
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

www.kensingtonvoice.com/kensington-j...

Help Kensington Voice start 2026 at full strength. Local news doesn't fund itself. Every dollar donated supports an act of journalism.

I work for the only news org reporting on Kensington from the inside. We hold power accountable, and center solutions and community voices.

But we need help to stay running after January. If you've appreciated our work, please consider donating:

www.kensingtonvoice.com/kensington-j...

This Philly charter awarded a big contract to a board member’s friend, then punished the official who reported it, a lawsuit says The school's business manager raised enrollment, payroll, privacy and tax issues with his managers, after which he experienced ‘increasingly hostile and retaliatory conduct,” a lawsuit says.

This Philly charter awarded a big contract to a board member’s friend, then punished the official who reported it, a lawsuit says
www.inquirer.com/education/al... via @phillyinquirer

Meet the billionaire pushing taxpayer-funded school vouchers How one of the richest people on the planet presses his pet issue: school choice

Pennsylvania’s libertarian billionaire lands a big profile in the WaPo. wapo.st/4iOU6Ph

Pittsburgh Public Schools and Pa.’s largest cyber charter school clash over lawsuit The lawsuit argues the district shouldn’t have to fund a cyber school that is performing poorly, while Commonwealth Charter Academy says Pittsburgh is failing its own students.

👀 "The lawsuit is applying the Commonwealth Court’s 2023 decision that students have a constitutional right to an adequate education.... If successful, some of the arguments in this new lawsuit could be used against other cyber charter schools in the future." www.pennlive.com/education/20...

Philly could be doing this too, but instead we have cyber charters running ads on SEPTA buses

"Defeating Communism" SuperPAC pissing off PA GOP legislators via attack ads criticizing GOP for considering taxes on "skill games" gambling. Sen. Bartolotta: "[Skills game lobby is] acting like criminals. And I don't know what in the world they think this is going to do to engender our support" 🍿

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com.

We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans.

washingtonpost.com/politics/int...