The D.C. Council is pushing for a legislative fix to the city government’s public relations woes as allegations of corruption pile up and law enforcement investigations expand to include a grand jury probe into accusations against Mayor Vincent Gray’s campaign. Council members introduced five bills meant to tighten ethics rules for the District’s elected officials.
“Residents need to know this is at the top of our agenda and we’re looking at it seriously,” Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh told The Washington Examiner after Tuesday’s council meeting. She said ongoing investigations and the news they generate — such as The Examiner’s report Tuesday that a grand jury is looking into allegations of misdeeds by the Gray for Mayor campaign — create a steady drip of bad news for city officials.
| Tuesday’s 5 |
| From Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells: |
| — Would require candidates to report cash raised for inaugurations and transition committees. Would also make it illegal for business owners to bundle donations from more than one company to get around a $500 individual contribution limit. |
| — Creates a campaign finance reporting schedule to meet the new campaign calendar created by moving the primary from September to April. |
| — Prohibits the city from procuring luxury vehicles. |
| From at-large Councilman Vincent Orange: |
| — Creates an ethics committee that can issue subpoenas and refer violations directly to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution. |
| — Creates a panel to review city ethics laws and propose changes. |
“That will keep happening and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Cheh said. “But we can give greater confidence that people are behaving ethically and responsibly.”
In addition to the mayor’s campaign, federal investigators are looking into allegations that Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas funneled to his own wallet cash meant for kids. The Campaign Finance Office is also investigating Council Chairman Kwame Brown and Ward 7 Councilwoman Yvette Alexander.
Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells introduced three of the bills Tuesday. Collectively, they would require candidates to make public the donations they receive for inauguration events, and prevent business owners from bundling donations through several companies so they can get around a $500 cap on individual campaign contributions.
“We’ve got to restore confidence in city government,” Wells said. “One way to do that is through being transparent with who gives us money.”
At-large Councilman Vincent Orange introduced the remaining two bills, which take steps beyond a reform package Cheh and Brown introduced last month to create an ethics committee that could serve subpoenas and refer violators of city rules directly to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution. The attorney general, the director of the board of elections and the director of the Campaign Finance Office would sit on the committee. The Cheh-Brown bill calls for creating an ethics office under the board of elections.
“This ethics bill takes into consideration all of the allegations,” Orange said.
But the bills might be little more than window dressing for a problem that runs deeper, said Dorothy Brizill, executive director of DCWatch.
“My concern is all of these efforts are not in response to the needs we have,” Brizill said. “The citizens want ethics reform that deals with the culture of corruption we seem to have here in the District.”
