Let the games begin: Sources say Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh is poised to kick off an investigation of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the District’s largest health insurer, on changes that it shirks obligations to provide public benefits to District’s residents.

LL teed up the issue in his column last month. Currently, the portion of CareFirst that operates in the District is running a surplus in excess of $700 million, and some politicos believe that money is owed to District residents as part of CareFirst’s responsibility as a “charitable and benevolent institution,” according to its charter.

CareFirst, of course, disagrees, holding that the charter language means nothing of the sort.

The investigation is pending a vote by Cheh’s public services and consumer affairs committee this afternoon. The committee action would grant Cheh subpoena power to inspect company documents and command testimony from executives.

Meanwhile, rumors abound that Attorney General Peter Nickles has plans of his own to take on CareFirst, through a legal attempt to make CareFirst comply with its alleged obligations. A complaint has been drawn up, sources say, and an announcement of the lawsuit’s filing could come before the end of the week.

UPDATE, 3:45 P.M.: Cheh has issued a statement, explaining her interest in pursuing CareFirst was prompted in no small part by former CEO William Jews‘ $18 million severance, which is currently being challenged by the Maryland government.

“I want to know why, in the face of rising insurance premiums, [CareFirst's local subsidiary] is sitting on three-quarters of a billion dollars of surplus and paying fabulous sums to top executives,” Cheh says.

Meanwhile, WTOP’s Mark Segraves is reporting that Cheh has confirmed that Nickles will be filing suit against CareFirst shortly.

On Saturday afternoon, LL was watching the weather report with bated breath, as a line of thunderstorms threatened to put the kibosh on this year’s Capital Pride Parade, the centerpiece of the yearly gay-community celebration and the first chance for the players in this year’s campaign season to truly come out. (Yes, pun intended.)

Luckily, the show went on. The big news of the parade were the mystery signs:

All along the parade route, posted on lampposts were signs reading “Ask Carol Schwartz why she OPPOSES marriage equality” in Schwartz’ trademark yellow-and-white. The signs carried absolutely no indication of where they might have come from. Shady!

Gay activist Peter Rosenstein told LL he had seen folks on stepladders posting the signs earlier in the afternoon, but neither he nor anyone else LL consulted had any idea who they were. The challengers who marched in the parade—Adam Clampitt, Dee Hunter, and Patrick Mara—all denied having anything to do with the signs. (A Clampitt aide, in fact, phoned in a preemptive denial, before LL even showed up for the parade.)

Schwartz called it “the work of a cowardly liar” and furthermore implored LL not to “rain on my parade” (har har) by giving the cowards any ink—sorry, Carol! (For more on the does-Carol-support-gay-marriage theme, read Washington Blade articles by Rosenstein and by Schwartz.)

LL thought he might have solved the mystery when, right on the middle of the 17th Street NW commercial strip, a spectator holding one of the signs in one hand and a drink in the other marched right out to confront Schwartz, who was walking behind her yellow Pontiac Firebird. From a distance, LL seemed to see Schwartz saying to the interloper, “I do! I do!” in response to the sign’s query.

After Schwartz passed, LL asked the man, Andrew Campbell of Dupont Circle, whether he’d been involved in the signmaking. Nope, he said—”I pulled it off the lamppost.”

LL quizzed him further on the reasoning behind his anti-Schwartz stance. “I dunno,” he said. “Look at what the sign says!”

The crowd rest of the crowd seemed not to care much. Take this spectator reaction to the confrontation: “Tell him to fuck off, Carol!”

Many more pix after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the final reading on the Fiscal 2009 Budget Support Act, which includes the language closing part of Klingle Road NW for a bike path.

And, just to make sure we wrap all this up on a classy note, this just appeared in LL’s inbox, from the Coalition to Repair and Reopen Klingle Road:

LL called up anti-Klingle pro-Klingle Road leader Laurie Collins and asked if she was responsible for the Photoshopping. Said Collins, “Am I gonna get sued?” To that, LL advised that this seems to qualify as fair use parody. But on second thought, Mary Cheh is a law professor….

UPDATE, 2:35 P.M.: LL mistakenly referred to Collins as “anti-Klingle.” He now awaits his own Photoshop treatment.

The battle over the noise bill, recently brought back from the dead, comes to a head today at the D.C. Council’s legislative meeting.

Actually, the battle is well underway: At this morning’s council breakfast meeting, councilmembers got pretty huffy over the bill’s prospects. Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans described an amendment he plans to introduce that would distinguish between amplified noise in residential areas, where it would be limited to 80 decibels as measured inside a residence, and commercial areas, where there would be no limits. The distinction, he explained, was necessary to protect the interests of unions (Local 25 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees was specifically mentioned) who want to hold protests—including protests outside three large hotels located inside residential zones (the Washington Hilton, the Wardman Park Marriott, and the Omni Shoreham).

Also, rather than empowering police officers to enforce the law as originally proposed, the amendment would require readings to be taken by noise inspectors from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. That, Evans explains, is because the unions “have an enormous distrust of the Metropolitan Police Department.”

Ward 6 Councilmember and bill cosponsor Tommy Wells initially suggested a compromise amendment that would keep the residential/commercial distinction, but lower the threshold to 70 decibels, as measured outside a residence. To placate the unions, Wells proposed allowing amplified speech within 100 feet of a hotel with 50 rooms or more.

So what does 70 decibels sound like? Some said “freight train”; Evans likened it to one of his favorite hangouts: “It’s Cafe Milano on a busy night,” he said.

Wells took a dig at Evans, who had loudspeaker-equipped protesters outside his Georgetown home early on a Sunday morning earlier this year: “As Jack learned, noise is used…as a weapon.”

Then At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania said, essentially, screw this union shit: “What offends me about this is in the effort to pander to one constituency…we’ve basically said to the community, ‘Good luck!’” After Catania’s spiel, At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz also spoke again the union pander, and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh stood up for the provisions in the original bill, which she cosponsored. The hotel exception, she says, is “beyond pandering.”

The meeting broke up when Evans stalked out shortly before 10 a.m.; Cheh, Wells, and others huddled to discuss strategy.

Shortly before the start of the meeting, Wells told LL that he and his allies would offer no amendment unless Evans’ amendment passes.

This afternoon, the D.C. Council’s public works and environment committee voted to strip $2 million meant to reconstruct Klingle Road NW from Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s budget proposal. Furthermore, the committee voted to add language to budget legislation requiring the road to remain closed, effectively overturning a 2003 council vote to reopen the road.

For LL’s take on the whole sordid story and how it got to this point, read this.

Committee chair and Ward 1 councilmember Jim Graham supported spending the money, as did Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser. Ward 3’s Mary Cheh, Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander, and at-large member Kwame R. Brown opposed doing so. Ward 8’s Marion Barry, though not a committee member, also showed up to speak in support of keeping the road closed.

The full council is free to revisit the decision when the budget legislation moves forward next month.

Updates to come.

UPDATE, 3:50 P.M.: A subsequent amendment by Cheh moves the $2 million in local money to alley repairs and earmarks another $2 million out of the District’s federal funds for environmental remediation of Klingle Valley and construction of a recreation trail.

UPDATE, 4:17 P.M.: After the markup ended, Graham vowed to take the matter to the full council at the May 13 budget session. He also said he intends to hold a public “roundtable” on the Klingle issue in the two weeks interim. “I think there’s going to be a lot of discussion,” he says. During the hearing, Graham had proposed delaying any vote until such a roundtable could be held. Cheh & Co. voted it down; “The public had had ample time….I don’t know anything that’s been debated more than Klingle Road,” she said.

UPDATE, 7:30 P.M.: The Fenty response, from spokesperson Carrie Brooks: “The Mayor will defer to the judgment of the members of the Committee on Public Works and the Environment on this issue. Having served as a councilmember for six years, he certainly appreciates the legislature’s role in shaping the District’s budget.”

This morning, at a D.C. Council oversight hearing, Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh continued her bulldogging of interim Attorney General Peter Nickles, pressing him repeatedly on issues related to his relationship with former AG Linda Singer prior to her December resignation.

Among the biggest issues of contention: Nickles’ decision not to immediately pursue legal action against Bank of America for any potential liability in the now $50 million tax scam case. Earlier this week, Cheh sent a letter to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (and copied to Nickles) on her stationery, co-signed by At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson and Council Chair Vincent C. Gray, in order to “seek assurance that, in connection with the OTR scandal, all steps are being taken to preserve the District’s legal rights against possible culpable third parties.”

The issues at stake are whethere delaying any action against B of A would cause complications with a three-year statue of limitations associated with such claims. Also at issue: whether the bank’s document retention policies might mean evidence could be destroyed before a suit could be filed. Nickles holds that the District is exempt from any statue of limitations, and that pursuing a case before the federal prosecutors have presented their case to a grand jury would be difficult, considering that the feds have crucial documentation in their possession.

In an interview this afternoon, Nickles said of Cheh’s questioning today, “I think it was over the top.”

“I have every intention after this grand jury proceeding is over to pursue any third parties very agressively,” he said. “I am very comfortable in my position on this.”

Full Cheh letter after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone doubting the strength of organized labor in this town, think again: A bill that would allow the District to enforce limits on daytime noise was tabled without debate this morning at a meeting of the D.C. Council’s committee of the whole, thanks in no small part to union protesters.

The Noise Control Protection Amendment Act, sponsored by Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh and Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, was prompted, among other things, by the amplified demonstrations of the Black Hebrew Israelites on or near H Street NE. Under the bill, noise greater than 70 decibels, or 10 decibels above ambient noise levels, would be subject to sanction.

Cheh introduced the bill, citing the need for some checks on daytime noise that’s currently unregulated “no matter how long, no matter how unrelenting, no matter how amplified.” She mentioned that she had met with members of the labor community, who were concerned that the bill might interfere in union protests, but noted that the bill had gained the support of the Service Employees International Union. Cheh, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, also said she “completely confident in the ultimate constitutionality” of the bill.

Immediately afterward, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans moved to table it, a manuever that under council rules requires no debate. The motion passed 7-5, with Evans, Jim Graham (Ward 1), Muriel Bowser (Ward 4), Yvette Alexander (Ward 7), Kwame Brown (At-Large), Phil Mendelson (At-Large), and Chair Vincent C. Gray in favor; Cheh, Wells, Marion Barry (Ward 8), David A. Catania (At-Large), and Carol Schwartz (At-Large) opposed the tabling. Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. was absent.

What gives, you may ask? Our man on the scene, Arthur Delaney, reports that more than 100 members of the Metropolitan Washington Council AFL-CIO and its affiliated organizations showed up for the council meeting wearing red T-shirts. After the vote the group set off around the Wilson Building thanking members and their staffers for putting the kibosh on the bill.

Loose Lips queries D.C. Councilmembers about The Real Super Tuesday, the Potomac Primary on Feb. 12.

Every month (sometimes more often) the D.C. Council meets on a Tuesday for its legislative meeting, where the full body sits in the chamber all day and actually passes bills and things like that. There’s usually some fairly interesting stuff, but there’s usually even more not-so-interesting stuff. Of late, Chairman Vincent C. Gray’s started doing a press conference the day before to get reporters acquainted with the concil’s business. LL goes to these things so you don’t have to, and he will now be rounding them up in convenient bullet form:

• The tally this morning: Four reporters (myself, the Examiner’s Michael Neibauer and Jonetta Rose Barras, and the Post’s Nikita Stewart), eight of 13 councilmembers (Gray, Ward 1’s Jim Graham, Ward 3’s Mary Cheh, Ward 6’s Tommy Wells, Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander, and At-Large members David A. Catania, Carol Schwartz, and Phil Mendelson), and approximately three dozen staffers and randoms. In other words, about a 10-to-1 nonpress-to-press ratio.
• Gray announced that he’s hired a new communications director to replace Denise Reed, a longtime Wilson Building fixture who left Gray’s office in December for a job with the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency. Her replacement is familiar face: Doxie McCoy, who’s served as the press aide to congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton since October 2001. She starts next week.
• Graham announced emergency legislation to force the mayor to issue rules implementing mandatory inclusionary zoning. (Here’s the whole complicated background on “IZ”—long story short, the rulemaking’s been delayed to give the development community a chance to weigh in.) Graham had introduced a nonemergency bill last month that would have given the mayor 30 days after enactment to issue the regs. This bill gives him until April 1.
• While we’re talking emergency legislation, there’s 10 emergency bills on the agenda coming out of the mayor’s office, all of which are contract approvals (the Council has to approve any contract greater than $1 million). Barras questioned Gray on why this stuff’s being done by emergency legislation. Blame, naturally, went to the mayor’s office and a blown contracting and procurement system. Good question, Jonetta!
• Mendelson announced a pair of bills coming out of his committee. One will require the sale of “fire-safe” cigarettes in the District by July 1. (Fire-safe cigs use a different type of paper that cause them to extinguish themselves if not actively puffed.) The other is the Motor Vehicle Theft Prevention Act of 2007, which creates a fund dedicated to fighting, yes, auto theft, funded mainly by a $5 hike in the yearly car registration fee. The money’s overseen by a mayoral-appointed board and can be spent on more cops, bait cars, public-awareness campaigns, and things like that.
• Schwartz got up to talk about her “Paid Sick and Safe Days Act of 2007,” which is now the “Accrued Sick and Safe Days Act of 2007.” The new name reflects the fact that the bill stands to be heavily amended, mostly to make it more palatable to folks who do the hiring. “We have really worked hard to win a buy-in from the business community,” Schwartz said. Despite the changes, the votes haven’t been counted yet (members of the Service Employees union rallied at the Wilson Building this afternoon, citing “wavering as Tuesday’s vote nears” in a press release) and there’s rumors of mayoral veto being bandied about.
• Gray gave some early, rough numbers on the budget surplus from FY07: Total surplus is about $248 million. About $50 million of that has been earmarked for spending, and another approximately $100 million was allocated in a December supplemental appropriations bill. Of the remainder, Gray indicated he’d hoped to put that money away for a rainy day, and given the economic outlook right now, looks like things could get rainy indeed. Revenue projections won’t be in from the CFO’s office for another few weeks—but LL did get this fun tidbit from Gray: “Dr. [Natwar M.] Gandhi has informed us it will not be like we’ve seen in the recent past.”
• The Fenty steamroll on school closings is all but complete. Last month, Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry and Ward 5’s Harry Thomas Jr. introduced their “School Closing Fairness and Accountability Emergency Act of 2008,” which would have given the Council a chance to vote on the proposed school shutterings. On Friday, both Barry and Thomas stood behind Fenty as he announced the final closings list (as Marc Fisher pointed out in his column over the weekend). And today, Gray quiety announced that Barry and Thomas had withdrawn their bill.

This week, Loose Lips ran his Secret Santa column, resurrecting a tradition in which LL gives back to all those who have given him so much. Problem is, LL had to skip of lot of deserving folks in the Wilson Building and elsewhere, which has made for several unhappy politicos. All this week, LL’s been going around, saying he’d make a “supplemental appropriation.”

That’s a job I’m pawning off on you, readers. Here’s a selection of folks LL didn’t have room in his stocking to bestow with gifts, but are probably deserving all the same. Let ‘em have it in the comments:

• Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham
• Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans
• Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh
• Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser
• Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells
• Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander
• At-Large Councilmember Kwame Brown
• At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz
• Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil Albert
• Fire Chief Dennis Rubin
• Fenty Communications Director Carrie Brooks
• Soon-to-be-former Attorney General Linda Singer
• Legendary tax thief Harriette Walters
• And anyone else is fair game, too…

Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh says the resignation of Attorney General Linda Singer is “shocking and extremely disappointing.”

“She’s one of the best attorney generals we’ve ever had,” she says.

Cheh, who heads the council’s public services and consumer affairs committee, worked closely with Singer on several initiatives, and she expresses concern about the hazy division of labor between the AG’s shop and that of Fenty general counsel Peter Nickles.

“I think naming Nickles [as interim AG] furthers blurs the line, and somewhat inappropriately,” she says. “[The Attorney General's office] should have a degree of independence to have integrity.”

Cheh declined to comment on whether she’d support Nickles if his name was put forward for the permanent AG spot.

“I’m not ready to think about that,” she says. “He’d have to move into the city.”

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.

“President Jarvis told me, ‘This is not a roast,’” said WRC-TV newsman Tom Sherwood, warming up as MC of this year’s Southeastern University Gala at the Washington Hilton.

The yearly benefit for the private school in Southwest D.C., headed by former Ward 4 Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis, is well-known as a forum for elected officials, business bigwigs, media types, and other big shots to loosen up and show their sense of humor. Sometimes they get a little too loose: Last year, Sherwood got in a bit of trouble for referring to himself as “not as white as Jack Evans, [but] blacker than Harold Brazil.” The MC alluded to having to write an apology letter to Brazil for last year’s act.

Sherwood, in fact, did keep things less controversial this year, with a few jabs at the likes of developer Victor MacFarlane and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig. The killer material of the night fell to others. And it did turn into a roast of sorts, mainly of D.C.’s most roastable character, Marion S. Barry Jr.

The entertainment, billed as “As the District Turns: A Humorous Spin on the City We Love,” kicked off with a “Dreamgirls” act featuring the ladies of the D.C. Council. Ward 3’s Mary Cheh, Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser, and Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander all donned slinky black dresses (a sequined number for Bowser), feather boas, and long white gloves for their act. None of the three’s dance moves were ever quite in sync, but Alexander—definitely the Beyoncé of the group—clearly knew the words better than the other two. Not in attendance: At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz, who was represented late in the act by a proxy holding a campaign picket.

Next up was a skit lampooning the distribution of those coveted low-numbered license plates—Channel 9 anchor Derek McGinty played the low-tag czar, and among his supplicants was former Mayor Anthony A. Williams. (Williams, of course, was not included on Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s low-tag list earlier this year.) Williams’ begging—”Remember me? Tony Williams? We’re talking…executive baldness”—didn’t get very far with McGinty.

His retort: “Only Marion Barry gets to be mayor-for-life and gets a low tag.”

After that was a Top 10 list of sorts—”If D.C. became a state”—given by a number of other D.C. councilmembers, plus Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi. Gandhi had a lame joke about how the state bird would be a cockatoo because it’s “always talking but never really saying anything”—you know, like a chief financial officer! Ward 6’s Tommy Wells saved the groaner: “I thought the state bird would be the Anthony Williams, because of its propensity to fly.”

At-Large Councilmember David Catania also had a good one: “The state drug czar is….I’m not even touching that one.”

Then WRC-TV weathercasters Chuck Bell, Veronica Johnson, and Bob Ryan engaged in a painfully bad singing sketch, exacerbated by a malfunctioning microphone, that sent dozens to the ballroom doors.

Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton took the podium to put a little bit of a federal perspective on things, lightly bashing Michigan Sen. Carl Levin and WTOP commentator Mark Plotkin. Her sharpest line, however, connected a neighboring state’s proposal to tax immigrants to the long-proposed D.C. commuter tax: “Interesting idea, Virginia: Tax people who cross your borders for good and services. Good thinking!”

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton recorded a video message for the occasion; it made fun of, among other things, her own controversial laugh, but there were a couple of local zingers. The best: “This is an exciting time for the District….There’s a bold new baseball stadium to delight 40,000 fans. And there’s parking for at least a thousand of them.”

The skits were over, but the Barry roasting continued. Council Chairman Vincent Gray took to the podium for a valedictory speech that was supposedly to be low on laughs, but the chairman read a selection of straight-from-the-dais quotations from his colleagues.

His closer: “Marion said, ‘Mr. Chairman, I want everyone to know that everyone should get a piece of the rock,’” Gray recounted. “True story!”

This photo, from Wednesday’s announcement that the city will be spending a portion of a budget surplus on the D.C. Schools, is currently in rotation on the front page of dc.gov:

I know the Mayor & Co. don’t want to look too gleeful when spending taxpayer money, but jeez–turn those frowns upside down!

Look up, guys–you got a $155 million surplus! It’s not so bad!

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.”