Scandal-plagued and ethics-challenged, the D.C. Council is a demoralizing example of what happens when weak accountability rules are combined with decades of one-party rule. With most incumbents running unopposed or facing token opposition, the at-large race gives fed-up voters their best opportunity to help restore the council’s tattered reputation by unseating Councilman Michael A. Brown, I-at large.

Brown’s behavior has squandered his familial advantage as the son of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. It has cast grave doubt on his integrity and ability to ably represent District residents. While working for a law firm that represented gambling interests, he inserted an Internet gaming provision into a supplemental budget bill without proper public vetting — which the council later repealed. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws. In 2008, he failed to report $200,000 in expenditures. In 2012, he claimed that $113,950 had mysteriously disappeared from his campaign coffers.