D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has plenty of problems, but the city government’s calendar is cutting him a small break: For two months, he doesn’t have to tangle with a restive legislature on policy matters.
The D.C. Council began a two-month recess Friday, and its members, who are paid $125,000 a year, will spend the coming weeks doing everything from working outside jobs to traveling to campaigning for re-election.
But that doesn’t mean Gray is in for a respite. Gray’s 2010 campaign for mayor remains the subject of a sweeping criminal probe, and three lawmakers have already demanded that he resign.
Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham, who has not urged Gray to quit but has called on him to offer a more detailed explanation of his campaign, said Friday he doesn’t expect the recess will prompt a political cease-fire.
“I think things are going to continue,” Graham told The Washington Examiner.
Aides at the John A. Wilson Building also said it was unlikely legislators would ignore any of Gray’s further travails, especially since several lawmakers are thought to be considering mayoral bids.
Gray hit back at some of his critics in a Friday interview, taking the trio of dissident council members — Muriel Bowser, David Catania and Mary Cheh — to task for seeking his resignation.
He was especially critical of Bowser, thought to be a future candidate for mayor, and Catania.
“David Catania is a Republican who became an independent. … He never supported me,” Gray told NewsChannel 8. “Bowser wants to be mayor, so I’m hardly surprised at [her call for me to resign.]”
Even if Gray continues to face criticism for the existence of a $653,800 shadow campaign that helped elect him, he’ll at least avoid legislative battles that have helped define recent months in city government.
A spokesman for Gray said the mayor, even under the persistent cloud of a criminal probe that has prompted swarms of journalists to trail him in recent days, will spend much of the recess preparing additional proposals.
“Just because the council is not here doesn’t mean that we’re not working on legislation,” Pedro Ribeiro said. “Obviously, the legislation drafting process continues.”
He also said Gray would keep up a steady pace of public appearances like one he made Friday and run the city government, which he can without the council in session.
Whether Gray’s summer will be interrupted by the findings of U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen remains an open question. Prosecutors have declined to comment on the timeline for their probe.
Legal experts and members of the city’s political class, though, expect more trouble is on the horizon for the Gray campaign, even if the mayor himself is not implicated.
“They’re just starting on some of the folks,” one person with knowledge of the probe said.
