No doubt D.C. Council members, corralled and cowed by Mayor Adrian Fenty, would like to break out by holding up the confirmation of Peter Nickles as attorney general.
Bad idea. It would be tantamount to puffing their chests at the expense of the city’s well-being. It would be at once petulant and destructive, juvenile and shortsighted.
Nickles, 70, is scheduled to go before the Judiciary Committee today. Its chairman, Phil Mendelson, has criticized Nickles for being too close to Fenty and for acting as the mayor’s lawyer, as opposed to being head of an independent agency.
Before Mendelson questions Nickles, I have a question for him: Has he read the law creating Nickles’ office — DC 1-301.111? It begins:
“The Office of the Attorney General shall be under the direction of the Mayor.” And continues: “He or She shall furnish opinions to the Mayor, whenever requested to do so.”
Whew! That settles that problem. Nickles is, essentially, the mayor’s attorney on matters of government. For personal matters, Fenty has a general counsel. That’s not Nickles’ job, though he started in that role.
Nickles started way, way back with the Fenty family. He and Phil Fenty, the mayor’s dad, have been close for decades. Nickles did legal work for Fenty before he became mayor. They trust one another.
Nickles is a tough litigator. A lawyer since 1963, he built a solid reputation arguing cases for Covington & Burling, one of the capital city’s white shoe firms. He looks and acts like a mean man. But he made a name for himself volunteering his time and expertise for society’s outcasts: homeless, mentally retarded, prisoners.
Why, I ask, is he working for D.C.?
“I have no idea,” he says in his flip, tough guy, locker room lingo. “I made a lot of money in private practice. Having started, I realized I enjoy it.”
Nickles grew up working the tables in his family-owned Coney Island Restaurant, in Middletown, N.Y. He went to Princeton University and Harvard Law on scholarship.
“I always had a sense of anger about injustice,” he tells me.
As acting AG, he’s sued slumlords and forced them to clean up their squalor. He’s sued managed care company CareFirst for hoarding cash and paying huge salaries that mirror “the corruption and greed on Wall Street.” He’s gotten the Justice Department to lift oversight of the D.C. cops. Switching sides, he’s defended the city in federal court against critics that he once represented. He’s trying to settle the ballpark rent dispute between the city and the Lerner family.
“We’ve shown businessmen we mean what we say,” Nickles says. “If you’re trying to screw the city or its citizens, watch out.”
Fenty has angered the council by moving quickly and aggressively on matters from schools to development.
“If anything,” says Nickles, “I am more aggressive than the mayor.”
Perhaps that’s what gives the council heartburn, but it’s no reason to delay confirmation. Lawyers are supposed to be aggressive — the more, the better.
