A series of scandals followed by an unprecedented midyear shake-up of committees has cast gloom over the D.C. Council and threatens to create lasting antagonism among the lawmakers, according to council members and staff. “[The committee change] is going to send the council into a deep slide,” said one council member whose committee was not touched by the shuffle. “You will see it fracture and it will be most noticeable when something controversial comes along and there’s no real leadership.” The council returns from summer recess in September to deal with fiscal difficulties and the growing perception of official corruption.
The council was already struggling to wipe clean an image tarnished by federal investigations into Chairman Kwame Brown and Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas, when Brown came out with his committee shift plan. The big surprise was that Brown stripped Councilman Tommy Wells of the powerful transportation committee and handed it to Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh. Wells had helped Brown gather votes in Wells’ Ward 6, but he has since become a thorn in the chairman’s side, challenging him on Brown’s push for a taxpayer-funded Lincoln Navigator and budget issues. Brown says the committee shuffle was meant to better serve District residents by consolidating environmental issues under Cheh.
Council members and their staffs were reluctant to speak on the record out of fear of retribution from the chairman.
But on Friday morning at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson became the first of the 12 members who voted in favor of Brown’s committee plan to come out against it while speaking on TBD’s “NewsTalk.”
“The committee structure belongs to all of us and we’re all getting criticized for this,” Mendelson said. “It will be helpful if we don’t have another reorganization. … It’s inefficient, you have to give up time and hire new staff.”
Many staff members, including those untouched by the most recent switch, already feel that the change has hampered their ability to do their jobs.
“I worry about advising my boss to go up against the chairman,” one staffer told The Examiner. “If I advise [the council member] to do so, I fear we could lose our committee.”
For the public that means controversial pieces of legislation may not get passed, and if the council is hit by new scandals it may not be able to cope, one council member said.
Brown, though, isn’t worried.
“We all have to embrace change,” he said.
