Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. is running for reelection. Some Democrats are questioning whether he should.
People close to Jones have encouraged him to reconsider seeking a new term and to clear the way for State Rep. Morgan Cephas to run for City Council’s 4th District.
City Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. held a campaign fundraiser featuring Mayor Cherelle L. Parker at the Cobbs Creek Golf Course on Thursday night, a show of strength as he gears up to seek a sixth term in next year’s municipal election.
But that hasn’t stopped a whisper campaign among Philly’s political class about whether he’ll actually appear on the Democratic primary ballot next spring, with as many as four potential candidates said to be eyeing his seat representing parts of West and Northwest Philadelphia.
People close to Jones have recently encouraged him to reconsider seeking a new term and to clear the way for State Rep. Morgan Cephas to run to represent Council’s 4th District, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Other possible candidates include criminal justice reform advocate Celeste Trusty, ex-Service Employees International Union staffer Leigh Owens, and developer Ryan Spak.
The intrigue over Jones’ political future follows an Inquirer report in June that Jones and his wife, City Representative Jazelle Jones, who is a top official in the Parker administration, stand to reap up to $752,000 in payouts from the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP.
Jones, who makes $165,000 per year, told The Inquirer in June that he may need the extra money from DROP to pay for medical bills in retirement because he is suffering from glaucoma, an incurable disease that Jones said has already caused him to lose 40% of his vision.
State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a West Philadelphia Democrat who said he has been friends with Jones for 44 years, said he will support Jones no matter what he decides, adding that “no election is automatic.” But Hughes also said he has encouraged Jones to consider his health when deciding how to proceed.
“I think the councilman has earned the opportunity to try to make an accurate determination as to what he wants to do for his future,” Hughes said in an interview Monday. “I have encouraged him to think about the personal side of this, the physical challenges.”
Hughes said he would like to see Cephas eventually succeed Jones in the 4th District. But if Jones decides that he can serve another term, Hughes said he will back his reelection.
“He’s been serving with this challenge, and he’s been serving well,” Hughes said.
Jones said Thursday that he intends to run for reelection and serve a full term.
DROP allows city workers to “double-dip” by accumulating four years of pension payments, which is usually paid out in a lump sum upon their retirement, while they are still working and receiving their regular paychecks.
The Joneses’ enrollment in DROP is legal, but his use of the program resurrects a scandal from the early 2010s that ended the political careers of several prominent figures in City Hall.
Elected officials, who were not initially envisioned as being eligible for the program, took advantage of it by briefly retiring at the end of their terms, collecting lucrative DROP payouts, and then getting rehired at the beginning of their new terms.
As a junior Council member, Jones in 2010 voted for a bill banning future elected officials from enrolling in DROP. But the bill “grandfathered” in current elected officials at the time, he said, and Jones is now poised to become the first lawmaker to use the program in years.
Jones enrolled in DROP in August 2024, meaning his mandatory retirement date would be in August 2028, during the first year of the next Council term. He would be eligible to collect a $432,000 payout then, and upon retirement he will be begin collecting his regular city pension payments.
But Jones in June said he plans to retire just before the start of the next Council term in January 2028, take a slightly reduced DROP payout, and then serve his entire next four-year term, if he is reelected. He has held the seat since 2008.
The person familiar with the discussions about Jones’ future said 4th District voters are unhappy about his enrollment in DROP and that speculation about his potential successor is becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“This is a district that reads the newspaper and works to stay informed,” the person said. “And they don’t like what they’ve been reading and hearing.”
In June, Jones said he has had four eye surgeries and that he enrolled in DROP to ensure he can afford the healthcare he needs in retirement, “so that if I was blind, I wouldn’t have been without resources.”
He added that, due to his health challenges, he is grateful he was not elected Council president. He ran for the leadership post in 2023, losing to Kenyatta Johnson, a South Philadelphia Democrat.
“I am functional. My staff kind of helps to keep that good,” Jones said. ”I am thankful to God that I did not get elected [Council] president. Do you know how much reading they do? I could have not kept up with all of the numbers and stuff like that, so I know my limitations.”
Jazelle Jones, who has served in multiple mayoral administrations, enrolled in DROP in 2020 and was originally set to retire in 2024. Parker, however, has pushed through a series of exceptions to personnel rules allowing her to continue serving and collect a more lucrative DROP benefit of about $320,000. Those approvals were processed months after the fact, city records show, and the administration has not yet explained the gaps in paperwork.
Curtis Jones, 69, has also said he hopes that Cephas, 42, a West Philadelphia Democrat, will succeed him when he retires after his next four-year term, meaning she would run in the 2031 municipal election cycle.
Philadelphia politicians sometimes retire in the middle of their terms, triggering a special election in which Democratic ward leaders, and not primary voters, choose the party’s nominee, who usually ends up winning the seat thanks to Philly’s deep-blue electorate. That can sometimes allow outgoing politicians to handpick their successors.
But Jones has said he would not retire in the middle of his next term, and he instead plans to endorse Cephas to run in a Democratic primary in 2031.
Amid the heightened scrutiny over his retirement plans, some allies of Jones and Cephas, who both got their start in the West Philadelphia-based political organization previously led by former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, are encouraging him to speed up the transition. That could prevent a worst-case scenario for Cephas: if Jones lost to another challenger in next year’s Democratic primary while Cephas sat out the race in deference to Jones.
Cephas, the chair of the Philadelphia delegation to the state House, ran for Congress earlier this year in a high-profile contest but dropped out of the race two months before Election Day.
She declined to comment through a spokesperson.
» READ MORE: Three Philly City Council districts emerge as key battlegrounds in the 2027 election
Several other potential candidates are considering running for Jones’ seat, setting up what could grow into a crowded primary.
Spak — an affordable housing developer based in West Philadelphia who has in recent years been critical of some Council members’ more restrictive housing policies — is rumored to be considering a campaign. He declined to comment.
In addition, the city’s progressive organizations are eyeing the district as a potential opportunity to grow their influence on Council. Candidates aligned with the left are already lining up to run against incumbents in at least two other districts.
Three sources close to that effort, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly, said Trusty and Owens, both criminal justice reform advocates, are considering getting in the 4th District race.
Trusty is the ex-secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons and has also worked with the national organization FAMM, formerly known as Families Against Mandatory Minimums. She declined to comment.
Owens, a former staffer at SEIU who was also a political aide to progressive ex-Councilmember Helen Gym, is now the education and advocacy director at the Pennsylvania Prison Society. He said in an interview that he has been considering running for Jones’ seat for about two years.
He said he is a native of the district, and sees an opportunity for new voices on Council to advocate for stronger public education and more affordable housing.
Owens, 46, said the revelations around Jones’ use of DROP made clear that it’s “time for the old guard to step down.”
“When I see what he’s doing with this DROP money and people using politics as a tool to line their pockets and stifle progress, it’s upsetting,” Owens said. “It’s time for people that really have the lived experience and who are doing this for the right reasons to get these seats. That’s the only way the city is going to be better: if our leaders care about the people and not their own interest.”
Staff researcher Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
