WaPo's Ben Pershing writes that the vast majority of GOP congressmen voted against a House measure introduced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer congratulating the Terps for making the NCAA tournament.

This was payback, because Hoyer would allow a vote on a Republican member's resolution congratulating the UC-Irvine men's volleyball team for NCAA championship last fall.

The member, John Campbell, then pointed out on the House floor the Terps' lousy graduation rate. "Given that this is being put forth in the Education and Labor Committee, if we were going to look at all the 65 teams in the NCAA championships, should we be considering the academics of the teams that are in or not in?"" he asked.

All of this, well, it's almost enough to turn this Georgetown partisan into a Republican.

(Also: If you're interested in checking out LL's bracket, check away.)

A joint appropriations press release [PDF] says that an omnibus spending bill, almost certain to pass "[e]liminates a prohibition on the use of local tax funds for abortion, thereby putting the District in the same position as the 50 states. Also allows the District to implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in other states, allows use of Federal funds for needle exchange programs except in locations considered inappropriate by District authorities, and discontinues a ban on the use of funds in the bill for domestic partnership registration and benefits."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton says in a release that the abortion provision is a particular victory, noting that it "became an issue as a result of the Senate debate on abortion in the healthcare reform bill."

"The D.C. abortion rider has created severe hardships for low income women in the District," Norton says in a statement. "It has singled out the District and its women for unfair and unequal treatment.”

But perhaps the most interesting development is the death of the marijuana rider.

LL explored over the summer what might happen if the rider disappeared. There's a real possibility that the 1998 ballot initiative approving medical marijuana in the District might simply go into effect:

What exactly would happen is up for debate: The reigning school of thought is that the Barr amendment essentially placed Initiative 59 in a deep freeze—the votes were counted and certified by the elections board, per the federal ruling, but city officials were still barred from expending any resources to move forward with it. So, the thinking goes, the bill should be able to be thawed out, so to speak, sent to Congress for its usual 30-day review, and become law.

Brian Flowers, general counsel to the D.C. Council, says there is “a very real possibility” that once the president signs a rider-free District budget bill, the law can simply be sent to Congress and then become law. No new initiative necessary.

Even in that scenario, the District body politic would have plenty of opportunities to weigh in. Flowers says there’s a possibility that the council would have to appropriate money to put the initiative into effect, and then there’s the simple fact that no District ballot initiative is out of the reach of the council: If lawmakers don’t like it, they can strike it down, much as they did to the term-limit statute passed by 62 percent of voters in 1994.

[...]

If Initiative 59 were do go straight into law, the Fenty administration would be required to do a number of things. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs would be required to license nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations “for the purpose of cultivating, purchasing, and distributing marijuana” for medical marijuana patients. The health department would have to come up with a plan to get medical marijuana in the hands of patients in Medicaid or government-funded HIV/AIDS programs. And the mayor himself, along with the council, would have to “deliver a copy of this act to the President and the Congress to express the sense of the people of the District of Columbia that the Federal government must develop a system to distribute marijuana to patients who need it for medical purposes.”

LL will update with any developments along these lines.

The District lost.

The implications of the ruling are narrow but sharp: It pretty much puts the kibosh on any attempts, short of congressional action, to expand the Office of the Attorney General's prosecutorial bailiwick beyond the smattering of low-rent misdemeanors it already handles.

As Scarcella noted in his original story back in June, the dispute pitted Attorney General Peter Nickles and his congressionally castrated office against the federal Department of Justice, which prosecutes the vast majority of District crimes, in a "rare public turf battle."

The conflict is rooted in the misdealings of Emerson Crawley, a D.C. Public Schools employee who stuck the city with $7,400 in bills for fancy meals that turned out not to be work-related. His bosses found out, told the U.S. attorney's office about it, but the federal prosecutors decided in 2007 not to bring charges—apparently the offense was too piddling to warrant the feds' valuable time.

OAG decided they wanted a crack at Crowley anyway, and filed charges against him under the District's "false claims" statute. Back in 1997, when the D.C. Council passed that law, making it illegal to defraud the D.C. government, they mandated that OAG prosecute those offenses.

But Crowley had a very good lawyer who happened to have once run the city legal shop—Fred Cooke, noted for his representation of Marion Barry, was in charge back when it was called the Office of Corporation Counsel—and Cooke questioned whether OAG had the authority to press the case.

After all, under the District's home-rule charter, the feds are entitled to prosecute all crimes, save for violations of "police or municipal regulations, where the maximum punishment is a fine only or imprisonment not exceeding one year." Moreover, the D.C. Council, Scarcella notes, is "specifically prohibited from enacting any law 'relating to the duties or powers' of the U.S. attorney's office."

So Crowley's trial judge sent the matter to the appeals court. In a hearing there last June, Scarcella reported, the District argued that the restrictions on the local AG's authority ran only to laws in place prior to home rule. After that, the council can make new crimes and let OAG prosecute them. The U.S. attorney's office "argued that Congress never meant to give the D.C. Council free rein to create new crimes and assign a prosecutor."

The court didn't buy the District's arguments. If the city wants more local prosecutorial power, it's going to have to go to Congress to get it.

The weird part about all this is that the feds can allow the District to prosecute cases it doesn't want to handle. They didn't do that in this case—meaning at DOJ made an affirmative decision that Crowley shouldn't be prosecuted by themselves or anyone else.

Nobody knows why, Scarcella writes: "Federal prosecutors have not stated their reasons for declining to file charges against Crawley."

UPDATE, 5:05 P.M.: Asked why he hasn't been able to reach an agreement with the feds to prosecute the case, Nickles says, "As best as I can fathom, it's a matter of establishing jurisdictional prerogatives."

Nickles points out that the District has a pointed interest in prosecuting crimes against the government itself and seems perplexed that there would be a dispute over doing so: "It seems to me awfully strange. It seems part and parcel of the whole home rule idea."

In the wake of today's decision, by a three-judge appeals panel, Nickles says he's considering either an appeal to the full appeals court, an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or lobbying Congress to change the law.

"We're not just going to accept it, that's for sure," he says. "To me, this is serious."

For the last few weeks, we've published stories on Councilmember Marion Barry's zany relationship with ex-girlfriend Donna Watts-Brighthaupt and his pressuring her to sign another problematic contract. We've also written two stories on the issues surrounding the nonprofits run out of his offices and staffed with ex-campaign workers. These stories did not seem to impact one Barry worker—Jackie Ward.

Ward stuck to a simple script: standing by her work and refusing to comment any further.

Ward is one of the lucky ones. She's pulling in $40,000 to head up an entity called Clean and Green Inc. She is also listed as an incorporator for the Ward 8 Education Council, and as a board member and incorporator for the Ward 8 Health Council. Ward's previously known experience: working on Barry's 2008 campaign.

This is what Ward said to us last week when we called seeking answers about her work. "I have no comment," she said. "My work is there. Everything I do is a matter of public record." She added that she stands by the work she refuses to comment on.

Ward did say that she had worked as a volunteer for the all-volunteer Environmental Council. She only got paid after it became Clean and Green Inc., and got public funding.

When asked how her work changed from volunteer to paid employee, Ward declined to comment. "I'll have someone call you back," she said. Of the workload change, she'd only say: "It's more detailed."

Ward did say that she "kinda" uses an office in Barry's constituent services offices on MLK Avenue SE.

As for her work on the Ward 8 Health Council, Ward said: "I am saying no comment. Thank you."

Ward had previously told Washington City Paper about her work:  “I have no comment. You can print whatever you like. You are free to. It’s a free country. Whatever I’ve done is a matter of public record. I know everything I’ve done has been above board.”

On Friday, Ward actually called us to say that we had printed errors and that she had contacted an attorney to look into the matter. When asked what those errors were, she refused to comment.

After the news broke today that a federal probe had been launched to investigate Barry's contracts with Brighthaupt and his funneling money to the fishy nonprofits, Ward slightly altered her no comment message to reflect law enforcement's interest in the work of the nonprofits under her guidance.

Ward told City Paper: “I suggest that you contact Marion Barry’s people. I have been instructed by my attorney to not comment.”

Ward refused to reveal the identity of her attorney. But she added that it was not A. Scott Bolden, the lawyer recently hired by Barry staffer Brenda Richardson.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

LL covered the possible arrival of medical marijuana here in his column a couple of weeks back (a column that was widely read for other reasons). LL had tried to get in touch with Barr, now a libertarian political activist and presidential candidate, for the story, but didn't connect with him in time.

But now, via a Libertarian Party press release, we have his feelings on the matter.

The House vote last week, Barr says in a statement, "represents an important step in the direction of individual freedom and properly limiting the power of the federal government."

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, Barr doesn't mention the essential propriety of smoking marijuana in his comments, for medical use or any other—just that the federal government has no business telling states and their citizens how to regulate it.

It's not time just yet to celebrate/consult your doctor—the measure still exists in the Senate version of the budget, and its fate is likely to be decided in conference committee.

Full statement follows:

Last week’s vote by the House of Representatives lifting the 11-year old prohibition on the District of Columbia from taking steps to pass and implement any measure decriminalizing or legalizing the sale or use of marijuana in the District, represents an important step in the direction of individual freedom and properly limiting the power of the federal government.

“While I in fact sponsored the initial appropriations limitation in 1998, the years since then have witnessed such a dramatic increase in federal government power and an unprecedented decrease in individual liberty, especially since 2001, that I have come to realize that such limitations as the so-called “Barr Amendment” are not and cannot be justified. It has become necessary to reevaluate the power of the federal government that I and others once were able or willing to justify, and do what we can to roll back the tide of government control.

“I have applauded also the indications by Attorney General Eric Holder to begin easing federal efforts against individuals in states that have moved to decriminalize or legalize the use of marijuana, and the fresh approach to the federal anti-drug effort as articulated earlier this year by Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drup Control Policy (the so-called “Drug Czar”).”

Photo by Joeff Davis—Creative Loafing

Amendments proposed so far include a number of social-policy riders that have been removed in subcommittee and committee actions. They also include attempts to prevent gay marriage in the District.

Here's a rundown:

• More than 25 members, including GOP leadership members Eric Cantor and Tom Price have proposed Amendment 87, which would "ensure that low-income DC students are able to receive a scholarship through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program by removing the requirement that students must be OSP recipients during the 2009-2010 school year."
• Reps. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), and Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) have proposed Amendment 50, which would "reinstate the prohibition on all public funding of abortions within the District of Colombia [sic]."
• Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) proposes Amendment 37, which would "ensure that none of the local or Federal funds appropriated to the District of Columbia by this Act can be expended for any abortion except in instances where the life of the mother would be endangered or where the pregnancy was the result of incest or rape" and Amendment 38, which would "ensure that none of the funds appropriated by this Act to the District of Columbia could be used to operate a system for registering privately-owned firearms."
• Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have proposed Amendment 16, which would "provide that any law enacted by the D.C. Council that recognizes any definition of marriage other than a union between one man and one woman shall be invalid unless approved by the electors of the District of Columbia in the first general election that follows the enactment of that law. This provision would apply to any law enacted by the Council at any time before, on, or after the enactment of this Act."
• Chaffetz and Jordan have also proposed the stricter Amendment 19, which would "prohibit D.C. funds from being used by the District of Columbia to implement or enforce any recognition of a marriage between two individuals other than a marriage between one man and one woman."
• Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) proposed Amendment 65, which would "prohibit any funds appropriated by the act from being used to violate the Second Amendment rights of the residents of the District of Columbia."
• Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) proposes Amendment 64, which would "require the District of Columbia to comply with section 104 of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services Establishment Act of 2004 (Sec. 2—1515.04, D.C. Official Code) and section 1102 of the Omnibus Juvenile Justice Act of 2004 (Sec. 24—941, D.C. Official Code) in operation of the New Beginnings Youth Facility located in the State of Maryland.."
• Rep. David Souder (R-Ind.) proposes Amendment 18, which would "Would prohibit District of Columbia funds from being used to enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. section 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative. It also would prohibit funds in the Act from being used to carry out the Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Act of 1998 (Initiative 59) approved by D.C. electors on November 3, 1988." In other words, Souder's the new Bob Barr.

The D.C. budget made it out of its appropriations subcommittee without the so-called Barr amendment—a rider, first introduced by Georgia Republican Bob Barr, which has graced the District budget since 1998. But this evening Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson attempted to put it back on.

After a short debate, with Jim Moran (D-Va.) standing up to defend District home rule, the Emerson measure failed by a voice vote. The bill still has to survive the House floor, Senate consideration, and conference committee.

Presently, the committee is debating an amendment that would preserve the rider banning the District from funding abortions. It's unclear whether an amendment regarding the District's gun laws will come up this evening.

UPDATE, 10:05 P.M.: The abortion amendment has failed, 26-33. If the bill as passed out of committee is made law, the District will be free to spend local funds on abortion.

Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign has told colleagues that he plans to admit an extramarital affair, a senior Republican source tells POLITICO.

WaPo's Chris Cillizza has more: 'The affair, which was with a woman who worked for both Ensign's re-election campaign and his Battle Born leadership political action committee, began in December 2007 and ended in August 2008. Ensign's wife, Darlene, said that the couple's "marriage has become stronger" and added: "I love my husband."'

Gee—couldn't be happening to a nicer guy bigger dick!

UPDATE, 7:15 P.M.: Politico has their big story up: Ensign forced to reveal because he was being blackmailed by the jealous cuckolded husband!

Assuming the bill becomes law, plenty of observers see two fronts of possible conflict. First is that the law will set off a frenzy of congressional intervention. To wit, American Prospect's Ezra Klein.

Nope, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton says to LL this afternoon: "I anticipate being able to be able to protect it....In order to do something someone is going to have to introduce a bill or otherwise get something through the Congress. Well, you gotta pass by me on that....I believe I can prevent any bill from moving to the House floor to overturn the bill that was passed yesterday."

What Klein doesn't quite get right is that Congress need not actively "approve" D.C.'s decision. If lawmakers do nothing about the bill for 30 days, it's law.

In fact, no District statute has been actively disapproved by Congress; what is more common is that "riders" are attached to District appropriations prohibiting spending on the controversial legislation—which is what happened when D.C. first passed domestic-partnership laws. The chances of an active disapproval wending its way through a Democratically controlled Congress are slim—but of course LL and others had the same thought on guns and D.C. voting rights.

Norton says the gun issue was a special case, due to the power of the National Rifle Association. "Unfortunately, the gun amendment is controlled by a big lobby that specializes in out-and-out intimidation of members and big donations. There's no such organized lobby against gays or gay marriages....There are a lot of little organizations and a even larger ones, but they don't have the money or the bullying tactics that have been used by the NRA. The NRA stops just short of putting guns at people's heads. It's a classic back-alley bully."

The second conflict is that the law would conflict with the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which essentially prohibits the federal government from recognizing a same-sex relationship as a marriage. That's the hope of "traditional marriage" defender Brian Brown, who did a washingtonpost.com chat yesterday with David Catania.

Here's the text of the language: "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

Seems the questions are: (1) is District law the same as an act of Congress? and (2) does the District count as one of the "various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States"?

Norton says, in both cases, absolutely not: "It's a self-governing jurisdiction....Congress could reassert jurisdiction over the District, but it's delegated that jurisdiction to the District, and I have insisted at least since I've been here that that delegation remain."

Don't count on that argument to satisfy conservative jurists. Once a D.C. gay-marriage law is on the books, expect to see them in court.

All of the OCTO employees on the premises have been sent home. "Administrative leave," is what LL is told.

CTO Vivek Kundra, you might remember, was recently tapped by Barack Obama for a high federal post. There is no indication that he or anyone particular person is under investigation.

UPDATE, 10:50 A.M.: Says a spokesperson for the FBI's Washington field office: "It's an ongoing investigation...I can't confirm anything at this time."

UPDATE, 11:15 A.M.: Segraves is reporting an arrest: "Yusuf Acar, 40, was taken into custody this morning by FBI agents at his home in Northwest Washington" in connection with a "federal bribery sting."

UPDATE, 11:30 A.M.: WaPo has a brief item up: "Acar serves as an information systems security officer in the D.C. government." No comment from U.S. Attorney, mayor.

Agency source tells LL, "Somebody like him has access to a whole bunch of shit."

This morning, OCTO personnel were told by acting CTO Tommy Jones not to access office computer systems, lest they engage in obstruction of justice.

UPDATE, 11:45 A.M.: Segraves is reporting a second arrest: Sushil Bansal.

Acar had been listed on numerous city contract proposals as "contracting officer's technical representative," indicating a central role in the OCTO contracting process.

UPDATE, 11:50 A.M.: D.C. Wire found a video of Acar:

UPDATE, 12 P.M.: ABC's Jake Tapper has scene of Acar's arrest.

UPDATE, 1:40 P.M.: Acar has been employed by the city as a "information technology specialist" since November 2004. He'd been making $127,468. Bansal isn't listed in the District's personnel system, says mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson, likely because he was working as an independent contractor.

A statement from federal and District authorities, Hobson says, will likely come this afternoon.

UPDATE, 2:20 P.M.: The relationships are beginning to clarify: Bansal is CEO of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp., which, according to WTOP, "received .Net Development Support and Peoplesoft Consulting Support contracts from the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Office totaling $350,000" and "has also received contracts from the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles."

Acar and Bansal are scheduled to be arraigned in federal court this afternoon.

UPDATE, 2:30 P.M.: Thus far there is nothing to indicate that Kundra is directly involved in this investigation, but here's is one nexus between the former CTO and those charged: Kundra years ago did a stint at Virginia megacontractor SAIC as consultant working on projects with the Department of Health and Human Services. Bansal's AITC lists an alliance with SAIC and did work for HHS. Thin stuff, but there it is.

UPDATE, 2:40 P.M.: Here's a pic of Bansal, from a 2007 Voice of America tech story:

Moments ago, LL received an e-mail from a DeMint aide, who says, "The Washington Times completely misreported Senator DeMint's comments, leaving out the opening of his statement that he was told this by a DC parent. As the New York Post points out here, Senator DeMint was simply quoting from a mother who said those words to him this week, that she was concerned her child was likely to end up in a gang instead of graduating if forced out of the scholarship program."

The quote as reported by the NYP reporter: "Parents tell us...if they are sending their kids off to public schools, the chances are very good that they are going to end up in a gang rather than graduating high school."

LL did not attend the press conference and has thus far not been able to locate a recording, so he cannot independently judge who's on the side of the angels here.

Here's the question: Does the preface attenuate the shock value of DeMint's quote? It definitely seems to indicate that DeMint knew it was shocking.

These days, Nevada Sen. John Ensign's playing the role pretty well.

Ensign's the guy who introduced the amendment to D.C. House Voting Rights Act last week that gutted that gun laws passed by the D.C. Council and signed by the mayor. It looks like his legislative maneuver has the potential to derail the larger bill, which would leave Ensign pleased as punch.

The senator strolled up to the Senate daily press gallery this afternoon to talk guns, voting rights and vouchers with a gaggle of reporters. LL was not present, but frequent City Desk commenter Ryan Grim was, and he passes on audio of the discussion.

The recording starts with a question about whether Ensign would be OK with separating the gun language from the D.C. House Voting Rights Act.

"It's best to keep it on the bill simply because if it's taken off the bill, there's no guarantee that it won't just get shoved someplace in the dark, and they can't guarantee that. We've seen that too many times."

Then things turned to vouchers. Ensign lamented the fact that it looked unlikely that the Senate would have the opportunity to strip language threatening voucher reauthorization from spending bills: "They know they can pass the reauthorization and this program dies anyway because the D.C. city council will vote to kill this bill....The problem that I have with that is that people are voting with their feet; they are saying—these families, these poor kids are saying that they want...their kids to have a better education than what the D.C. public schools are allowing."

Then a reporter raised the fact that in the rest of the country, Congress doesn't get to meddle in local educational affairs.

Responded the senator, "First of all, under the Constitution we absolutely have the constitutional authority to regulate Washington, D.C. We have that guarantee under the constitution. Now, having said that, also one of the reasons that D.C. was chosen [for vouchers] was because of the constitutional authority and to prove whether the system works."

A reporter then raised the fact that Eleanor Holmes Norton is having a civil-rights group "score" a House rules committee vote on the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, much as the National Rifle Association is threatening to.

"Well, first of all, the D.C. voting rights bill all by itself is completely unconstitutional...and if she wants to change it then she needs to change the constitution, that would be the proper forum to address it."

Would you support an amendment? asked another reporter.

"I would not support that simply because I believe that the founders wanted to see the District as not controlled by any of the states. There were a lot of political reasons that they did that and I believe that they had a lot of wisdom in doing that, and that has nothing to do in my mind with civil rights."

Ensign went on to point out that the District gets a whole lot of federal funds. To which a reporter pointed out that it can't say how much of it gets spent—"Isn't there a bit of a conflict there?"

"I go back to the constitution. The constitution didn't want the politics of the city that housed the seat of government—that was the whole compromise: Let's have a District of Columbia that was not part of the states. There was a lot of wisdom in that because they would be disproportionately powerful."

After speaking about the omnibus spending bill now wending its way through the Hill, Ensign fielded a simply question: "Is the gun amendment designed to move forward or to implode the D.C. vote legislation?"

"The gun amendment is to, figuring that the D.C. bill was moving forward and there was no way to stop it—we didn't think we could stop it—so on a bill that was moving forward, to restore the 2nd Amendment rights to people in Washington, D.C."

Then one reporter asked Ensign if he'd rather see the House Voting Rights Act defeated or see his gun legislation enacted into law.

Said Ensign, "I'd rather see the legislation go down and my legislation passed."

Any room for compromise with D.C. folks on the gun language? a reporter then asked.

"I dunno. They haven't offered it," Ensign said before expounding on the District's gun laws: "What they've done now is just made the burdens too great on gun ownership—way too burdensome, much more burdensome then anywhere....Matter of fact, I think they are more burdensome than any place in the country. and when you have the highest murder rate of anyplace in the country for decades and the strictest gun control laws, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense."

Later another reporter asked, "Do you oppose the idea of District residents having a vote in Congress?"

"Yes," Ensign replied, "because of the constitution."

He then expressed some extremely measured support for retrocession to Maryland though he did have some awareness of reality: "I understand Maryland doesn't want it."

LL's old colleague Grim then asked Ensign his opinion, given all of his meddling in District affairs, of home rule.

"I mean, there is nothing wrong with giving them some say-so over what they do," Ensign said, "but you still have to have the federal government oversight."