Several years ago,Philadelphia wasso mired in a cul-ture of quid proquo that it was

barely governable. A federalinvestigation into formerMayor John Streets adminis-tration yielded 24 convic-tions, but it did not eradi-cate the culture. AlthoughMayor Nutter has donemuch to clean it up, the nextmayor cannot relent.One key sign of a mayoral

candidates commitment tohonest government is sup-port for a more powerful, in-dependent governmentwatchdog through a perma-nent city Inspector Gener-als Office. A 2013 proposalto accomplish that wasdropped like a cash-stuffedenvelope when it went be-fore City Council. Thats part-

ly because an inspector gen-eral enshrined in the CityCharter could investigateCouncil.Since 2008, the Inspector

Generals Office has savedtaxpayersmore than $50mil-lion and forced more than200 badly behaving city em-ployees off the payroll. Butthe office operates under anexecutive order and there-fore could be dropped by afuture mayor.In response to an Editori-

al Board questionnaire, allthe mayoral candidates saythey support making the In-spector Generals Office per-manent (except MiltonStreet, who did not partici-pate). However, former Dis-trict Attorney Lynne Abra-ham hedges on changing theCity Charter, saying thatquestion should be evaluat-ed by a commission to con-sider the charter as awhole. Her full answer, andthose of the other candi-dates, are featured on to-days op-ed page.Former Judge Nelson

Diaz advocates the addition-al step of combining thefunctions of the citys inspec-tor general, chief integrity of-ficer, and Ethics Board intoa sort of ethics czar position.The plan is worth consider-ing as long as the watchdogsremain independent.

As a former city council-man, Jim Kenney is the onlycandidate who had a chanceto advance the cause direct-ly. He deserves credit forsponsoring a bill to includethe inspector general in thecharter, though he could notpersuade his colleagues topass it.Marketing consultant Me-

lissa Murray Bailey, the loneRepublican in the field, pro-poses a welcome extensionof the inspector generalsreach to other city offices,including those of the dis-trict attorney, city controller,sheriff, and register of wills;former Philadelphia GasWorks executive Doug Oliv-er also suggests an expan-sion of the offices purview.These agencies have longoperated without sufficientindependent oversight.State Sen. Anthony Will-

iams and Diaz offer an addi-tional ethics proposal, say-ing they would prohibit offi-cials from taking outsidejobs with city contractors.Its an idea that is overdueas well as a jab at Kenney,who worked for an architec-tural firm that did work forthe city while on Council.Nutter has set Philadel-

phia on a course towardgovernment that puts thecitys interests before spe-cial interests. Now votershave to hold the candidatesresponsible for continuingthe journey.

H.F. Gerry Lenfest PUBLISHERMark Frisby ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

StanWischnowski VICE PRESIDENT, NEWS OPERATIONSWilliamK.Marimow EDITOR

SandraM. Clark MANAGING EDITOR / FEATURES, OPERATIONS, AND DIGITALGabriel Escobar MANAGING EDITOR / NEWS AND DIGITAL

TomMcNamara DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR / SUNDAY AND SPORTS

Harold Jackson EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORAcelMoore ASSOCIATE EDITOR EMERITUS

Jim Brulte, Californias Re-publican chairman, has so-bering but useful words forhis partys leaders and 2016candidates: If they dont

learn from what happened to theGOP here, they may doom them-selves to repeating its decidedly un-pleasant experience.California is the leading edge of

the countrys demographic chang-es, Brulte said in an interview.Frankly, Republicans inCalifornia did not reactquickly enough to them,and we have paid a horri-ble price.One measure of the

cost: In the three presi-dential elections of the1980s, California votedtwice for Ronald Reaganand once for George H. W.Bush. The state has notgone Republican since,and it wont get any easier in 2016.The hole is deep enough that

Brulte has concentrated his own en-ergies on rebuilding the party fromthe bottom up. He has enjoyedsome real successes at the local andcounty levels, and the GOP eliminat-ed the Democrats veto-proof major-ities in the state legislature in the2014 midterms.But the Republicans are still vast-

ly outnumbered in both houses 25-14 in the state Senate, 52-28 inthe Assembly and the Democratspicked up a seat in 2014 in the U.S.House of Representatives. Theyhave won all of Californias state-wide offices in three of the last fourelections. The last time that hap-pened: 1882.The principal cause of the GOPs

troubles is its alienation of Latinos,Asian Americans, and African Amer-icans in a state whose population isnow majority nonwhite. Republi-cans can win in 2016 without carry-ing California, but the partys strug-gles here highlight the extent towhich the GOP is making its life inpresidential years very difficultwith its increasingly hard line onimmigration, its image as a bastion

of older, white conservatives, andits solicitude of Americans withvery high incomes. When House Re-publicans in Washington voted torepeal the estate tax last week, theywere helping all of 5,400 of thewealthiest households in America,not exactly a move with mass ap-peal.As has often been the case in

American history, California is sim-ply the harbinger of changes in

this case demographic that are happening moreslowly elsewhere.The one thing no one

can stop, says Rep. TedLieu, a Democrat who waselected to Congress in theLos Angeles area in 2014,is that every month, therest of America looksmore like California.The Republicans prob-

lem with Latino voters isespecially pronounced here. Thepassage of Proposition 187 in 1994with the strong support of Republi-can Gov. Pete Wilson the ballotmeasure barred illegal immigrantsfrom a variety of state services simultaneously alienated Hispanicvoters from the GOP and mobilizedmany of them into the political pro-cess.The same thing is now happening

nationally. The growing anti-immi-grant sentiment in the GOP has cutthe Republicans share of the Latinovote from the 40 percent range forGeorge W. Bush to 27 percent forMitt Romney in 2012. The partysstrenuous opposition to PresidentObamas executive actions on immi-gration will only make this problemmore acute.But even more remarkably, Re-

publicans have also suffered severedeclines among Asian Americans.According to the exit polls, a majori-ty of Asian Americans voted forGeorge H.W. Bush in 1988. But in2012, Romney won only 26 percentof their ballots.Rep. Xavier Becerra, a Democrat

whose Los Angeles district includesKoreatown, Little Tokyo, China-

town, and Historic Filipinotown,notes that when he was first electedto Congress in 1992, a large share ofAsian Americans leaned Republi-can. Thats no longer true, and bothBecerra and Lieu pinpointed the im-migration issue as the primarycause for the shift.Republican opposition to the

Dream Act, designed to give reliefto illegal immigrants brought to theUnited States as minors, especiallyrankled Asian Americans, Lieusaid: Republicans were saying,Come support us, we like you, butwe want to deport your children. Brulte thus takes particular pride

in his outreach efforts to AsianAmericans. His partys victoriouslegislative candidates last year in-cluded state Sen. Janet Nguyen, aVietnamese American, and YoungKim, the first Korean American Re-publican woman to serve in the Cali-fornia Legislature.But this was only a start, and as

2016 approaches, every GOP candi-date should tack this reminderfrom Brulte on a headquarters wall:In 2012, Mitt Romney carried 59

percent of the white vote and hecarried independents. In 2004, thiswould have elected him president.In 2000, it would have given him anElectoral College landslide. In 2012,it gave him second place.

E.J. Dionne is a Washington Postcolumnist.+ejdionne@washpost.com"@EJDionne

Amy Kurland, the citysinspector general. File

EDITORIAL BOARDHarold JacksonEDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

Josh GohlkeDEPUTY EDITORIALPAGE EDITOR

Kevin FerrisASSISTANT EDITORIALPAGE EDITOR

Russell CookeSENIOR EDITORIAL WRITER

Cynthia BurtonEDITORIAL WRITER

Trudy RubinCOLUMNIST

By Renee Amoore

L ists of the most importantinventions of the past 115years include the afford-able automobile, the electriclightbulb (along with the grid topower it), and the Internet.While advances in technology

have made todays cars far faster,safer, and more fuel-efficient thantheir distant relatives that firstrolled off the assembly line, thebasics of most cars are the same:four rubber tires, an internal com-bustion engine, a steering wheel,a windshield, and so on.Its been 135 years since Tho-

mas Edison received a patentfor a lightbulb, but only recentlyhave they begun to evolve fromtheir incandescent roots intoLED bulbs. But the concept re-mains the same: You screw alightbulb into a socket (imaginetrying to get that through themaze of safety and consumeragencies today!) and, voil,light.The Internet, however, has

evolved far more quickly. Thefirst Internet message was sentin 1969 from a computer at theUniversity of California, Los An-geles, to a computer at Stanford.Those two computers were thefirst two the only two nodes on the Internet. Today theInternet is a worldwide techno-

logical wonder that we nearlytake for granted. According tothe Internet Society, there aremore than three billion billion Internet users around theworld.During that time, the Internet

has gone from a tool for the gov-ernment and academic institu-tions to a toy for hobbyists to(following the passage of theTelecommunications Act of1996) a basic system to moveinformation among people, insti-tutions, and businesses.Since 1996, when the Internet

became available for commer-cial use, the growth, penetra-tion, speed, bandwidth, and ser-vices available have all beenfunded by publicly traded com-panies. With the Internets rapiddevelopment, there has alsobeen infinite possibility.When I founded the nonprofit

Ramsey Educational Develop-ment Institute (REDI) in 1998,we envisioned a way to unite theaffordability and accessibility ofthe Internet to empower individ-uals. Today, we provide vocation-al, educational, and life skills tohelp more than 5,000 people im-prove themselves and the livesof those around them. REDI isonly one small example of thepower that can be harnessedwhen people not the govern-ment are permitted to let an

idea and the Internet come to-gether and grow. There arecountless other examples of howthe Internet is helping developideas, industries, and jobs in ourregion and around the country.To show how important the In-

ternet has been to the common-wealth economically, considerthat the Federal Reserve Bankof St. Louis estimated the grossdomestic product of Pennsylva-nia in 1997 in the infancy ofthe Internet at $3.5 billion. Itestimated Pennsylvanias GDPin 2013, with the Internet in fullflower, at $6.4 billion. That is anincrease of nearly 83 percent.Unfortunately, in February,

the Federal CommunicationsCommission, chaired by Thomas

Wheeler, took the astonishingstep of removing the Internetfrom the hands of the organiza-tions that have built it into themost important information ser-vice in history and declared it atelecommunications service,meaning it will fall under thesame regulatory concept as tele-phones when the new rules gointo effect in June.With the governments involve-

ment, we risk making the Inter-net less accessible and more ex-pensive. Do we really want tomake people who are alreadystruggling to gain Internet ac-cess struggle more?The future of the Internet

should not be in the hands ofthree unelected commissioners.

Nor should the Internets futurebe tied up in the inevitable courtproceedings that are takingshape as a result of the commis-sions unilateral action. Thechange is too massive; the ser-vice is too crucial.Instead, Congress should make

it clear that it has the authorityto shape the future of the Inter-net. And currently there are bills with Democratic and Republi-can support working their waythrough House and Senate com-mittees to do just that.Rather than allowing perhaps

years for the FCCs unilateral de-cision to work its way throughthe federal courts, Congress cansolve this in a matter of months.If not, it is likely that the invest-ment necessary to maintain theconsistent innovation and inven-tion that has created the Inter-net we know today and theInternet we cant even imaginetomorrow will slow to a trick-le as investors wait to see how itall comes out.Congress should act soon. The

Internet is too important to itsthree billion users includingthe parents, children, and sib-lings who rely on it for life-im-proving training and skills atREDI to be stuck in the courts.

Renee Amoore is president of theAmoore Group.+amoore521@aol.com

COMMENTARY

E.J. DIONNE"@EJDionne

Inquirer.com/opinion"@PhillyInquirer

MONTE WOLVERTON / Cagle Cartoons

A watchdogwith teeth

Dont let FCC slow innovation of the Internet

FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler testifying before Congress. Bloomberg

Calif. trends should worry GOP

George H.W. Bush, in 1988, was thelast GOP presidential candidate towin California. Associated Press

| EDITORIALA permanent, independentInspector Generals Office iscrucial to honest citygovernment.

A14 | THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER | TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015 C | PHILLY.COM