Wondering what happened to LL? Don't worry—it'll be back soon.

This column from Washington City Paper's April 26 issue was Alan Suderman's final one as LL (the issue also featured his cover profile of Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, who's running for mayor). Suderman has a new job at the Center for Public Integrity, writing about money in state politics.

But City Paper is looking for a new LL now, and we hope to have this blog back up and running full time shortly. In the meantime, keep up with local D.C. news on our City Desk and Housing Complex blogs (and also check Arts Desk and Young & Hungry for arts, entertainment, culture, food, and drink), and follow us on Twitter for updates on District politics here and there. We'll announce our new LL here as soon as we can.

D.C. a city of tree haves and tree have-nots. [Post]

Vince Gray says he has a plan to clean up Jeff Thompson's $70 million mess. Awkward. [WBJ]Anita Bonds' victory a blast from the past, says Jonetta Rose Barras. [Examiner]

Paul Zukerberg says he's just getting started, maybe. [Post]

Funny, don't remember Vincent Orange caring so much about a Medicaid MCO's financial health when he voted to give extra money to Jeff Thompson's Chartered.  [WBJ]

Rest of Congress doesn't appear to care about recent budget autonomy vote. [Times]

Bob King's support of Muriel Bowser's mayoral campaign raises eyebrows. [Blade]

New ethics board wants more power, including ability to recommend expulsion of councilmembers. [Examiner]

Most D.C. voters just don't care. [Examiner]

D.C. pols text messages aren't FOIAable, for now. [DCist]

New report questions school Rheeform. [DCist]

Instant run-off elections, please. [Post]

But for Tuesday night, thoughts of bulldozers and cranes were far from anyone’s mind as the Inn was once again the place to be. Much of the District’s political establishment streamed to the hotel to revel in Councilmember Anita Bonds’ victory in this week’s special election. Bonds, a longtime background player in city politics who had helped keep the District government together while Barry was on trial for using drugs as mayor, won the election with 32 percent of the vote by following a tried and true formula in recent elections: Win the vast majority of votes in African-American neighborhoods in the eastern half of the city and watch the white vote elsewhere splinter among multiple candidates.

A 68-year-old grandmother, Bonds was appointed to the Council seat temporarily in December by the D.C. Democratic State Committee, an organization she heads. Bonds was not a particularly effective campaigner, and her victory was far from assured. She was unsteady at candidate forums (she started skipping them with regularity near the end of the contest) and made an awkward appeal to black voters on the Kojo Nnamdi Show based on race. “There’s a natural tendency to want to vote for your own,” she said.

But Bonds had the goods where it counted: luck and institutional support. Former Councilmember Michael Brown’s abrupt withdrawal from the race three weeks ago allowed Bonds to monopolize precincts east of the Anacostia River while her challengers, chiefly former Washington City Paper and Washington Post reporter-turned-liberal budget activist Elissa Silverman and Republican school board member Patrick Mara, scrapped for votes. Bonds also had the support of Barry, labor groups, longtime Democratic activists, and would-be mayors Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser to help pull her across the finish line.

During her acceptance speech Tuesday, Bonds chose to focus on the institutional support.

“Marion Barry’s robocalls, I think, hit the spot,” Bonds said.

Before her speech, Bonds walked into the ballroom followed by Barry, who has trouble walking on his own and placed both hands on Bonds’ shoulders for support. Evans, who wore a smile as wide as a new bride at her wedding reception the entire evening, followed suit and put his hands on Barry. The makeshift conga line made its way through the crowd as McFadden & Whitehead’s disco hit from 1979, “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now,” blared.

Right behind them was Mayor Vince Gray, whose path to re-election should he decide to run again would likely mirror Bonds’. Though Gray didn’t endorse Bonds, it was clear he was clear he was happy with her victory. He hand-danced with a few women and led the crowd in a chant of “Anita! Anita!”

When he introduce Bonds to a cheering crowd of about 100 or so, the usually monotone Gray dropped his voice an octave and gave a guttural yell.

“If there ever was a candidate that deserved to win, it’s Anita Bonds!”

Ward 6 Councilmartyr Saint Tommy Wells, a likely mayoral candidate who stakes a claim to being the Council’s leading voice on good-government issues, chose his words carefully Tuesday as he was leaving Anita’s party after briefly stopping by to congratulate her.

“All the old guard did come together around Anita and I’m sure they should feel very good they were able to win,” he says.

Bonds’ victory will likely lead to plenty of hand-wringing among self-style progressive and/or reform voters, who often tend to be white and relatively new to the city and have seen their votes split among several of their chosen candidates in the last three at-large elections. Bonds’ victory follow similarly patterned wins by Councilmember Vincent Orange in 2011 and 2012. Orange eked into office with 29 percent of the vote in the 2011 special election and won 40 percent of the vote in last year’s Democratic primary, beating Sekou Biddle by only 1,746 votes.

There’s a clear appetite among the majority of the city’s voters for fresh blood on the Council. (Orange had previously been a Ward 5 councilmember and, like Bonds, has been a fixture of the local Democratic Party.) Yet no candidate has been able to bring together the disparate groups of voters looking for change in a strong majority or even a simple plurality. That might be because the reform-oriented candidates just haven’t been that impressive, but it’s more likely because “reform” means different things to different people; there’s no organized effort or group powerful enough to make or break any candidate who wants to claim the reform mantle. It’s an open casting call, and the people who answer it are often convinced of the rightness of their crusade.

In this last contest, Silverman foresaw that Ward 3 school activist Matthew Frumin could likely play the spoiler to her victory. A little more than a week before the election, Silverman awkwardly tried to get Frumin to drop out, stressing in an email that his endorsement would mean that “we can see a progressive win this seat and swing momentum toward an agenda we both want.”

Frumin, who had raised the most money in the race, said no—and went on to win just 11 percent of the vote. If even half of his voters had gone for Silverman, a reasonable possibility since they agreed on many issues, she would have won. But Frumin says he doesn’t think he played the spoiler and he “felt an obligation to go forward” with the campaign and advocate for his version of school reform, which he says was unique.

“It wasn’t up to me to pick who should win or who should lose,” says Frumin.

Might Silverman stick around? She came in a surprising second with 28 percent of the vote—an impressive feat considering she handicapped her fundraising ability by refusing any corporate donations, which made up more than half of Bonds’ $127,000 in contributions, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation.

“The results tonight, in my opinion, are phenomenal,” Silverman told her supporters, who were predominantly young and white, at her election night party at Union Kitchen. “We exceeded everyone’s expectations.”

Tuesday’s contest also marked the likely end of Mara’s ambitions to join the D.C. Council. Mara beat incumbent GOP Councilmember Carol Schwartz in a primary in 2008 (before losing to Michael Brown), came in second to Orange in 2011, and was widely considered a frontrunner in this contest. But despite strong support from the business community and the Post, which penned four endorsements for Mara in a month, he finished third with 23 percent.

At the Mara party in Columbia Heights, the election watch was over before it began. Young staffers were still trying to get election results on a TV when the dismal early returns online showed that there wouldn’t be much worth watching. Around 11, Mara thanked volunteers and announced he would soon fly to a vacation in Costa Rica.

But the next election is never far off in D.C. politics lately, so the District’s wags won’t have to wait long to see whether Tuesday night’s trends hold up. In less than a year—on April Fool’s Day, aptly enough—voters will be summoned for primaries to decide nominees for mayor, D.C. Council chairman, attorney general, two at-large Council seats (including Bonds’), and councilmembers in wards 1, 3, 5, and 6.

This LL won’t be around, though; this is his last column before moving on to ferret out the misdeeds of other politicians in other places at the Center for Public Integrity. Don’t breathe too easy at the Wilson Building, though—City Paper plans to have someone else filling this spot and taking the LL name soon enough. Thanks to all of the sources, readers, coworkers, politicians (straight and crooked) and others who helped this LL along the way.

Aaron Wiener and Will Sommer contributed to this report.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Elissa Silverman defies and mocks skeptics, sets herself up nicely for another run. [LL, Post]

Pat Mara didn't do so well. [LL]

Harry Jaffe can't find any of Vince Gray's true believers. [Examiner]

Tony Williams wants public/private "infrastructure bank" for D.C. [WBJ]

Mark Plotkin says white candidates split vote. [Fox5]

Budget autonomy is the District's, if Congress says so. [LL]

Councilmember Anita Bonds credited broad support among elected officials, labor groups, and longtime D.C. political activists for helping her win the at-large special election tonight and hold on to the seat that she was appointed to last year.

"It took all of us, every little drop every little piece," Bonds told supporters tonight at the Channel Inn while flanked by several councilmembers and Mayor Vince Gray.

The mayor and assembled councilmembers, which included mayoral hopefuls Jack Evans and Muriel Bowser, appeared jubilant at Bonds' victory. Evans was part of a makeshift conga line with Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry and Bonds, who danced into the victory party to "Ain't No Stopping Us Now."

Gray, who did not endorse a candidate in the election, gave a rousing introduction, calling her "outstanding" and "hardworking."

"If there ever was a candidate who deserved to win," Gray said, "it's Anita Bonds."

Anyone looking forward to another citywide election, fear not: The primaries for mayor, D.C. Council chairman, attorney general, and two at-large seats (including the one that Bonds won tonight) are set for April 1, 2014, a mere 342 days away.

Photo by Alan Suderman

Victory had already been declared by the time I arrived at DC Vote's election-night party on the roof of The Brixton on U Street NW after 10 p.m., and the crowd had thinned out. But a celebratory odor of cigar smoke hung over the intimate gathering: More than 83 percent of voters said yes to the ballot initiative amending the Home Rule Charter to allow the D.C. government to spend its own tax revenue without approval from Congress. "It's a pretty powerful number," said James Jones, the communications director of DC Vote (and a former Washington City Paper staff member).

Congress will have 35 days to review the measure, but Jones said he isn't too worried about pushback from Capitol Hill. "We haven't heard anyone level a specific threat," he said, adding that the measure's popularity among District voters—and Congress' unpopularity nationwide—might deter lawmakers from taking on the issue. It probably doesn't hurt that Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the committee with oversight over D.C., has shown favorable interest in granting D.C. more budget autonomy. Nevertheless, Jones said DC Vote has prepared for a fight on the Hill or in court (D.C. Attorney General Irv Nathan has expressed skepticism over the charter amendment's legality). "Anytime you're taking steps to change a relationship like this, it's not going to be easy," Jones said.

So who are the 6,126 District voters who said no to D.C. budget autonomy? "Everyone has a right to their opinion," Jones said. "I can't say, honestly."

The Union Kitchen spread is chocolaty and delicious and the Porkslap free-flowing, but there's a growing sense of unease at Elissa Silverman's election-night party as the at-large D.C. Council returns trickle in. Silverman's currently in a solid second place, but 10 percentage points behind incumbent Anita Bonds with more than half of precincts reporting.

So how does Silverman (a former Washington City Paper staffer, and the paper's endorsed candidate in today's election, pictured above with supporter Rob Waldeck at the party) feel about her chances? She's noncommittal. "I ran a very strong campaign, and that was my goal, to change the discussion in the special election," she says. "We didn't have any of the party institutional resources that Anita and Pat [Mara] did."

Asked if she thought she had a realistic chance of winning going into the evening, she says, "I thought it depended where the votes came from and what the turnout was like."

But for her uncertainty about the outcome, she's clear on one thing: The media got it all wrong. "I don't want to rant about how you got this wrong," she says, then proceeds to do exactly that. "'This is a race between Anita and Pat,'" she says, mocking the conventional wisdom. Instead, Mara's struggled to meet expectations, while Silverman's comfortably in second place. "There was such a focus on Ward 3," she says, "and my base is Ward 6."

Two councilmembers have turned out to support Silverman: David Grosso, who was the only one to endorse her, and Tommy Wells, who did not endorse, saying tonight that he didn't want to turn this race into a proxy for a future mayoral race between himself and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, who had backed Bonds. I ask Grosso why he chose to endorse Silverman when most of his colleagues went with frontrunner Bonds.

"I went with the one I thought would do the best job and would work well with me," he says.

That's if she succeeds in working with him at all. As of now, the odds are against it.

Photo by Aaron Wiener

Cautious optimism at the Patrick Mara party at Columbia Heights' the Coupe has soured into maybe-next-year, as the election returns turned against the GOP candidate even before his 20-something campaign volunteers could get Board of Election results on the TV.

On hand for the switch: former Phil Mendelson campaign volunteer Nicole Whiteman, who ditched Democratic candidates in today's election for Mara. "You can't vote party line all the time," says Whiteman.

Also around: Slate politics blogger (and past Washington City Paper contributor) Dave Weigel, a frequent Mara voter who knows a few things about returns. Weigel wasn't optimistic about Mara's chances, either, as the vote totals added up.

If Mara, whose primary challenge against Councilmember Carol Schwartz arguably lost the party its last seat on the Council in 2008, can't win it back, it's not clear at this party who can. Former Ward 7 Republican candidate and self-proclaimed Civil Rights Republican Ron Moten is here, but when I asked partygoers who other Republican rising stars in District politics were, they came up blank. Longtime D.C. Republican Joe King didn't know either, but in fairness to the GOP's young guns, he was glued to the Nats game. (They lost, too.)

King caught up with me minutes later with his answer. The politician who will solve the Republicans' Council problem? Bryce Harper.

Photo by Will Sommer

A moment after arriving at Hank's Oyster Bar in Dupont tonight, Paul Zukerberg ordered himself a Maker's Mark. "It's been a long four months," he said.

The polls had just closed, and the longshot candidate—whose campaign for an at-large D.C. Council seat largely centered on the issue of marijuana decriminalization—was hoping for a decent showing in the returns. "It takes time to earn people's trust and confidence," he said, asked if this would be his last run for D.C. Council.

Zukerberg said that over the course of his campaign, he'd succeeded in raising awareness of the deleterious effects of marijuana enforcement on the young and poor. Of marijuana decriminalization's chances in D.C., he said, "I think they're better off than they were four months ago. I showed people that it is an issue."

A small crowd of supporters—including Hank's co-owner Leslie Detenber—had gathered here, congratulating Zukerberg on his push. The campaign had culminated with a 4/20 concert on the National Mall on Saturday that Zukerberg's event coordinator, John Pylka, said drew 500 people. Although Pylka said he discouraged people from lighting up at the rally, the National Park Police kept a loose and permissive watch. "They gave us a break," Pylka said, perhaps because of the tragedy-filled week.

Zukerberg said he didn't regret his campaign's focus on marijuana, even if it may have led people to discount it as a single-issue effort. "I had to get this message out," he said.

Zukerberg's supporters circled around the bar as Detenber emerged with a hefty tray of oysters. "I'm afraid it's an aphrodisiac," Zukerberg quipped.

At 9:40 p.m., as the first precinct returns showed Zukerberg had so far pulled in less than 3 percent of the vote, the bartender announced it was last call. "It must be bad news for me," Zukerberg said, "because the bar is closing."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery