When Mayor Anthony Williams introduced his omnibus crime bill in April 2005, he expected the D.C. Council to move quickly on the 49-page, 22-title opus.
But the legislation was directed to the judiciary committee, chaired by at-large Council Member Phil Mendelson, and wouldn’t emerge from the panel for more than a year.
Mendelson, who’s running for the Democratic nomination and a third term during Tuesday’s primary, didn’t budge when Williams publicly challenged him to move the bill hastily out of committee. He didn’t crack when his primary challenger, lawyer A. Scott Bolden, attacked him for taking too long.
“My opponent doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Mendelson said. “He would have legislation rushed through the council regardless of whether it works, without regard to whether the courts would uphold it.”
That is Mendelson’s nature and a common criticism of the former 20-year advisory neighborhood commissioner. He is technical, deliberate and not at all exciting. The same criticisms, from Bolden particularly, came after the early January killing of New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum: Where’s Mendelson?
Answer — Waiting for a comprehensive Inspector General’s report on the incident, which wouldn’t come until June.
“I’m not bombastic and there’s no question on the stump, bombast is exciting,” Mendelson said.
Bolden, on the other hand, is an experienced trial attorney and former New York prosecutor who clearly feels comfortable in the spotlight.
The former chairman of the D.C. Democratic State Committee — until he was voted out in 2004 — and president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Bolden has proved his skill winning over a jury. The voters, he expects, are next.
“I have a reputation for getting things done,” said Bolden, a partner at K Street law firm Reed Smith. “I think this electorate is very restless with the status quo. They want someone who they believe is going to change their life and change their community and do more than make promises.”
Bolden’s been eyeing a 2006 political run for two years, first as a mayoral explorer, then in the at-large contest, leading multiple critics to call him an ambitious demagogue.
But this contest isn’t about ambition, the candidate responds: “I was raised by civil rights activists to be an activist.”
“Whatever economic station of their life and of my life, we share one common belief that this government ought to be responsive to their needs,” he said of the voters.
Bolden went negative on Mendelson from the beginning, though he says the attacks strictly targeted the incumbent’s record. He has out-raised Mendelson several times over, and won the endorsements of multiple law enforcement unions, including the Fraternal Order of Police.
Mendelson stands by his record fighting for the average citizen. He was a major player on the smoking ban, on stronger rent control, on public school modernization and on labor issues.
It explains the overwhelming support he receives from unions, tenant advocacy groups, anti-tobacco organizations and the environmental lobby.
Bolden’s key endorsements come from the opposite spectrum — the D.C. Building Industry Association, Chamber of Commerce, Association of Realtors and the restaurant association among them.
“My record was not trying to gut the regulatory process,” Mendelson said. “My record was not calling for phasing out rent control. My record was one with rank-and-file workers. … We come at this with 180-degree different records.”
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» www.reelectphil2006.com
» www.bolden2006.com
