You guys don't really care who's going to be your next Councilman, right?

Tomorrow, a column of (mostly) old men will lock themselves inside a white building and cast a secret vote that will likely decide who will get a say in running Philadelphia.

No, it's not some secret Catholic cabal or the beginning of an Alex Jones-inspired fanfiction, it's just another day in the life of Philadelphia's Democratic ward leaders. The party's elite will gather at the Democratic Committee Headquarters, near Second and Spring Garden streets, to decide who will run in a special primary election to fill the seat vacated by Councilman-at-large Bill Green.  Greeen recently left Council for a seat on the School Reform Commission. The meeting will not be open to the public.

City Commissioner and activist ward leader Stephanie Singer was perturbed enough by the process to draft an email, noting that in every other county in Pennsylvania, primary nominations are made by an open vote by committeepeople. Committeepeople are lower level party affiliates who are chosen by Democratic voters. They, in turn, vote on who gets to be ward leader.

In Philadelphia, where an overwhelming Democratic majority means primary decisions often end up being final, this model allows a handful of elites (ward leaders), who were not publicly elected, to make closed-door decisions that can have huge political rammifactions.

This is nothing new, and Singer's proposal to bring Philadelphia in line with the rest of the state is hardly radical. But devolving power within the existing party structure would at least remove a sliver of cynicism from a political system that already sees more than its fair share.