 William Meehan

William "Billy" Meehan was the de facto leader of the Philadelphia Republican Party for the second half of the twentieth century, though he formally held a title of "of counsel".The Philadelphia Republican Party, in the wake of the political realignment in Philadelphia politics starting with the Home Rule Charter in 1951 and the election of "reform" Democrats, Richardson Dilworth and Joseph S. Clark as Mayor of Philadelphia, entered a period of gradual and persistent decline, after having dominated the city's politics for a century prior to home rule.