In late April, the D.C. Democratic State Committee realized it had a little problem. Its own rules allowed presidential candidates to pay $2,500 to get on the Feb. 12 primary ballot. That’s easy enough.

D.C. law, however, had a different requirement: Candidates needed to gather signatures, a messy task requiring all manner of political organizing. The committee quickly made calls to several councilmembers, says delegate selection Chair Donald Dinan. Lo and behold, eight months later, the trouble disappeared.

On Dec. 11, the D.C. Council passed legislation decreeing that candidates may follow the rules outlined by their own party, meaning they didn’t have to get the signatures after all, as long as they paid up. The Republicans, on the other hand, had no clue that a fix was in the works and didn’t learn of the new policy until Dec. 10.

“If there had been a council that represented both Republicans and Democrats, the council wouldn’t have bailed out the Democrats and just [chosen] to ignore all the laws,” says Republican National Committeeman Tony Parker.

For months, Republican volunteers and staffers have staked out grocery stores and banged on doors in the hope of collecting the roughly 300 signatures—1 percent of registered D.C. Republicans—required by the old District statute. But given proper notice, they probably wouldn’t have abandoned their grassroots approach, say both Parker and D.C. Republican Committee Executive Director Paul Craney. They just want the Dems to play by the rules:

“There’s one party in this town that decided to change the rules last-minute because they couldn’t do [the signature-gathering],” says Craney. “It’s the equivalent of driving a car without a license and saying, ‘Oh, but I’m going to get one soon.’”

The D.C. Council earlier this afternoon approved the legislation reclassifying most DCPS central office employees as “at will,” meaning schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee can start firing them soon.

Voting against: Marion Barry, Phil Mendelson, Harry Thomas Jr.

From Mayor Adrian M. Fenty:

“Our city has lost a true legend today,” said Mayor Fenty. “From the earliest days of Home Rule to the present, as an elected official and a private citizen, Hilda Mason was a force behind the voting rights movement and the education of thousands of young people. On behalf of the entire District of Columbia government and the residents we serve, I want to extend my deepest condolences to Councilmember Mason’s family and friends.”

From Councilmember Kwame R. Brown:

“While I was saddened to hear of the loss of former Councilmember Hilda Mason, I have been and continue to be inspired by her steadfast dedication to the District,” said Brown. “I believe that her spirit of civic involvement will continue to encourage more residents to become active members of the community. I’m grateful for her tireless commitment to education and to providing our city with full voting representation in Congress. She helped lay the foundation for a brighter future for all District residents.”

And the Post’s obit is up. Unsurprisingly, it’s been in the can for a while—co-byline J.Y. Smith’s been dead himself almost two years.

UPDATE, 4:02 P.M.: From At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson:

I am sad to have learned of the passing of former Councilmember Hilda Howland Mason. But it is a blessing that she lived a long life full of great contributions to humanity – as a teacher, civil rights activist, warrior for Home Rule and statehood, and legislator. The shoes of her predecessor, Julius Hobson, were hard to fill, but I think she filled them. Her many years on the Council were marked with progressive legislation aimed to improve the lot of the average citizen. She was always known as a lady of grace and dignity. Her passing is another moment in closing of the curtain on a great generation.

Hilda Mason, who served more than 20 years on the D.C. Council, died Sunday morning at Washington Hospital Center. She was 91.

Mason was a longtime DCPS teacher, counselor, and administrator before gaining the Ward 4 school board seat in 1972. When At-Large Councilmember Julius W. Hobson died in 1977, Mason was appointed to finish his term. As a Statehood party member, Mason was elected to five additional full terms. She ran for a sixth, but was defeated by David A. Catania in 1998.

Here’s a couple of the tributes now rolling in. From DC Vote:

…Mason, who dedicated her life to the civil rights movement, was a staunch supporter of congressional voting representation and statehood for the District of Columbia.

Her ceaseless support for progressive issues, including human and civil rights, socio-economic opportunity, quality education, affordable and accessible housing, public transportation, and health care, had enormous impact of the residents of the District….

Hilda Mason and her late husband Charles were recently recognized as DC Vote Champions of Democracy, and her grandson, Stefan Nicholas, serves on the Board of Directors of DC Vote. He and his family are in our prayers.

From Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray’s office:

“Hilda Mason was the kind of champion for education in her time that drives people like me today,” said Chairman Gray. “Her brand of fortitude and tenacity is what we all aspire to in our public service.”

Stop the presses! The DC Young Republicans straw poll results are here. McCain and Giuliani dead heat! On Tuesday night, the DCYR club held their annual holiday party at Garrett’s in Georgetown. Drinks were drunk. Votes were cast. Here’s the breakdown of results, according to Marcus Skelton, Chair of the DCYR and 2006 candidate for At-Large City Councilmember:

Tom Tancredo: 2%
Fred Thompson: 7%
Ron Paul: 13%
Mitt Romney: 15%
Mike Huckabee: 19%
John McCain: 22%
Rudy Giuliani: 22%
Total Ballots: 54

Sweet little scoop from WTOP’s Mark Segraves: The D.C. Council has hired William McLucas, former head of enforcement for the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, to investigate the $40 million tax scam.

Writes Segraves,

The investigation, which will be announced Tuesday, signals the D.C. Council’s desire to take control of the worst fraud case in the District’s history.

McLucas was head of the forensic audit of Enron and alerted the board of directors of the massive fraud that was occurring at the company.

OK, folks, they’re about to get started in the Council chambers. After your typical round of grandstanding opening statements from councilmembers, you’ll have a panel of civic activists before getting into the real meat of the lineup: fired Deputy CFO Sherryl Hobbs Newman, District Auditor Deborah Nichols, and, the man himself, CFO Natwar M. Gandhi. Follow along on Channel 13.

Things to watch out for:

Who’s running the show? Right after the scandal broke, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans almost immediately announced that his Committee on Finance and Revenue would investigate. By the end of the week, the hearing was a joint production with the Committee of the Whole, which essentially means that Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray bigfooted Evans.

What’s Newman’s excuse? Dozens of fraudulent six-figure checks, some as large as a half-million dollars, went out the door without Newman catching on. How exactly did that happen?

How far back does the malfeasance go? The CW before Tuesday was that Gandhi was bruised by the scandal, but that he would survive. But an Examiner story Tuesday suggested that the phony checks date back as far as 1999, when Gandhi was overseeing Tax and Revenue. Then yesterday’s Post accounting put the total losses at almost twice the original estimates of $16 million.

Who goes after Gandhi? The CFO has built up tremendous political goodwill over the years, and now he’s going to have to cash it in. Virtually the only councilmember willing to take on Gandhi over the years has been David A. Catania. But Catania told me earlier this week he was not planning to nail Gandhi personally.

***

1:14 P.M.: OK, so Vince is in charge. He’s gracious enough to introduce his “co-chair,” Jack.

1:18: Jack: “I thought I’d been here long enough to see it all.”

1:23: Evans’ question for Gandhi: “Why should he not bear the same responsibility as those who have been fired?” It’s gonna be a long day, Nat.

1:28: It took Kwame Brown eight months to get his reimbursement check for a Vegas convention trip, thanks to zealous auditing. Where were the auditors this time? he wants to know.

1:30: Oof. So much for Catania laying off the jugular: “To be honest at this point, my prejudice is not in favor of [Gandhi's] continued tenure.” But not just yet, he says. Gotta find out what happened first.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s hearing on the tax scandal, a joint effort between the Committee on Finance and Revenue and the Committee of the Whole, kicks off at 1 p.m. Check back around then for the liveblog.

Here’s the witness list:

Panel 1: good-government types Marie Drissel, David Mallof, Anna Escobar, and Gail Dixon

2. Sherryl Hobbs Newman, former deputy CFO, Office of Tax and Revenue. (Read all about Newman in this week’s LL.)

3. Deborah Nichols, D.C. Auditor

And the main event…

4. Dr. Natwar M. Gandhi, Chief Financial Officer

In a fine Washington Post rundown, D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin went before the D.C. Council and got hammered over the sexual misconduct allegations among his ranks. He refused to give up any details other than, yeah, there’s a real potential that some of it might be true.

The Post wrote: “When a reporter sought further explanation of Rubin’s comments during a break in the hearing yesterday, the fire chief said he was referring to ’sex for overtime,’ but he did not say that during the hearing.”

I love his phrasing: Sex for overtime. Thank you Chief Rubin for introducing this nugget to our world. It won’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Explaining why he can’t talk about the sex for overtime was easy. After all, it’s still under investigation. But he had serious problems explaining what is already known about the racial disparities in discipline cases. The Post reported that Rubin provided stats that plainly show that “African Americas were the subjects of 80 percent of the department’s discipline cases in fiscal 2007. Whites composed 15 percent, and Hispanic personnel 4 percent. The numbers were similar in the two previous fiscal years”

Rubin would only say that the numbers concerned him.

Great. Thanks for your concern.

Right now, a whole bunch of union leaders are lined up in front of the council dais to smack down on the plan from Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to make hundreds of employees at D.C. Public Schools headquarters “at will”—i.e., that they can be fired at any time for any reason management sees fit.

Call it the first big roadblock for the Fenty/Rhee juggernaut since the mayoral takover of the school system last spring. Several councilmembers have already expressed skepticism of the administration’s plan.

Most of the labor leaders—which include representatives of the Washington Teachers’ Union, the Metro Washington Council of the AFL/CIO, and locals of the Teamsters and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees—put forth a slippery-slope argument. None of the affected employees are unionized, but the concern among the union honchos is that their members are next.

Josh Williams of the local AFL/CIO council adapted the famous line of Lutheran minister Martin Niemöller about the Holocaust: “They came for the management workers, and we were silent. They came for the nonunion workers, and we were silent. Then they came for the unionized workers and we were on our own.”

A particularly interesting case in the WTU, whose members’ contract expired recently and is soon to begin negotiations with Rhee on a new employment agreement. President George Parker and General VP Nathan A. Saunders both testified against the legislation, citing a meeting Tuesday where more than 200 WTU members voted “overwhelmingly” to oppose the central-office firings. Last month, Saunders sent a letter to union leadership urging them to fight the “at-will” bill.

But there’s plenty of support out there, too: A previous panel at the hearing, composed of parents from Ross Elementary School in Dupont Circle, each strongly endorsed passing the Fenty/Rhee legislation.

Also of note: Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray took a pretty big smack himself at Fenty. Gray noted on the dais that mayoral aides wanted him to attempt passing the bill as emergency legislation at next Tuesday’s council meeting. (Emergency legislation goes into immediate effect after a single council vote.) When he refused, Gray says, mayoral staffers approached other councilmembers, trying to get someone else to introduce an emergency bill. No one bit, apparently.

Doing emergency legislation, he says, “would have been an incredibly disingenuous way of dealing with an issue of serious importance.”

On Tuesday, D.C. Vote held its 7th annual “Champions of Democracy” awards reception at the Carnegie Library (né City Museum). The festivities, like at many a fundraising bash, included a silent auction of lunches with D.C. politicos, with the proceeds to benefit D.C. Vote’s general operations.

Such a fundraising tactic has always held a certain appeal for LL because it’s about as close as one can get to a free-market determination of a councilmember’s relative clout. After all, who shells out big bucks to have lunch with a politico who can’t get things done? Herewith, an accounting:

$275 - Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh*
$250 - At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown
$200 - Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr.
$105 - Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham
$90 - Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells
$70 - Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser
$60 - Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander
$60 - Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.

Now to be fair: Cheh’s number is inflated, considering a bid gave you a shot at an eight-person dinner with the councilmember at the home of local filmmaker and D.C. Vote board member Aviva Kempner, rather than the usual restaurant lunch for two.

The true champion of clout, though, was Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who got $500 for his offering. That, however, was a little bit more than just lunch: four spots in the city’s Verizon Center luxury box for a Wizards game.

Since the deal to sell Greater Southeast Community Hospital to Specialty Hospitals of America was announced in August, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and Health Committee Chair David Catania have made a big deal about gaining unanimous support for the deal. Their pitch to their colleagues: If you don’t get behind this, the only hospital east of the river has no hope.

Such unanimity was nearly foiled this afternoon, as Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr. raised questions about whether Specialty was equipped to run a hospital that serves mainly black patients. At one point, Barry introduced an amendment requiring Specialty to come up with a plan to ease his concerns that would then require another council vote, further delaying the approval of the deal.

Catania instead suggested that the Council attach a condition that Specialty work with the mayor’s office on “cultural competency” issues. After Catania’s substitute passed, but Barry’s didn’t, Barry threatened to vote against the deal with a company he said has “no experience with managing a majority African-American population.”

“I’m not gonna have someone coming in experimenting on us,” he said. “Reminds me of Tuskeegee.”

Barry also invoked the Brown v. Board of Education decision, to no particular effect, and promised that if the Specialty did not show progress on these issues within 30 days, he would lead a campaign on behalf of his constituents to boycott the hospital.

Councilmembers Carol Schwartz and Harry Thomas Jr. implored Barry to change his mind, which he did. The bill passed by acclamation.

At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown is introducing a bill at today’s Council meeting to finally give some names to buildings on the University of the District of Columbia’s Van Ness campus.

Right now, the buildings are numbered, which, in a perverse way, has always seemed to fit the campus’s cold, ’70s-era architecture. And the numbers don’t really make sense. The campus has nine buildings; the numbering starts at 32 and goes to 52, obviously skipping a whole bunch of numbers along the way.

Brown’s proposal, which has gained a number of cosponsors, would name each campus building after a different UDC alum, as determined by a seven-member commission. Good move, Kwame, but one question: Why not do what just about every other campus on the face of the planet does and use the names to raise some money for the school? Restricting the names to UDC alums is a noble gesture, but wouldn’t throwing some high rollers up there be even better for UDC?

UPDATE, 11:45 A.M.: Brown, via a spokesperson, says that “while it doesn’t specifically mention it in the bill, the idea is ultimately to work with sponsors to support the renaming of each building when an alumnus is chosen to be honored.”

The city has agreed to cap the population of the D.C. Jail, finally complying with the terms of a 2003 law passed by the D.C. Council and settling a two-year old lawsuit.

Phil Fornaci, who chairs the D.C. Prisoners Project, which helped wage the lawsuit on behalf of a group of jail inmates, says the settlement agreement will be entered on Friday. The population will be capped at 2,164, which represents the high end of a permissible range determined by a consultant hired by the city in 2004.

Last week, the city had floated setting a cap of over 3,000, which was well above the consultant’s figures and drew a stiff rebuke from Superior Court Judge Melvin R. Wright last Friday.

In Saturday’s Washington Post, Peter Nickles, general counsel for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, announced that the city was planning to appeal Wright’s decision to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The city had previously argued that the judge had no authority to order the executive branch to comply with the council’s legislation.

Nickles says the city decided an appeal was not worth the time or expense. “I believe the judge is always right,” he says. “It is not a good use of taxpayers’ money to litigate forever after the court has ruled.”

One part of the settlement that was important to the city, Nickles says, was that it include a “provision of exigent circumstances,” where the cap could be temporarily lifted in the case of a mass-arrest anomaly.

Without such a provision, he says, “you invite the possibility of violating a court order, which we don’t do.”

More on this issue in tomorrow’s Loose Lips column.

The Payday Loan Consumer Protection Act, which holds once-exempt short-term lenders to the District’s 24 percent annual interest-rate cap, has passed the D.C. Council by a 12-1 vote.

The lone opponent was Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr., who originally cosponsored the bill with Ward 3’s Mary Cheh. In an interview earlier this month, Barry said he didn’t understand the true nature of the bill—which lenders say will kill the payday industry—when he put his name on it.

The bill’s passage follows a pricey effort by the payday loan industry to stall its progress with a PR campaign, lobbying, and donations to community groups.

In remarks before his no vote, Barry cited the widespread appeal of payday loans, noting that there have already been more 60,000 payday transactions in the city this year, and lamented the fact that loan seekers would be forced to go to Virginia. (Maryland already has an interest-rate cap.)

“Let me say, there are some unscrupulous people in this business who have taken advantage of people,” Barry said from the dais. “Just because there’s four or five rotten eggs, you don’t throw out all the eggs.”

Barry mentioned reforms such as limiting loan “rollovers” and mandating financial counseling, but he did not introduce any amendments to the bill or substitute legislation.

Said Barry: “I want my conscience clear that I’ve done all I can do to reform this system.”