The year 1995 ranks as one of the worst in D.C.’s relatively brief history of self-government.
The nation’s capital was broke. During Sharon Pratt Kelly’s term at mayor, she had run up the deficit to $700 million. Marion Barry had just been elected mayor for his fourth term, after his six-month sojourn in jail on cocaine possession charges.
“Get over it,” Barry told voters unhappy with his victory.
To which Congress said: We’re over D.C.’s mismanagement, and we’re taking control.
The task of working out the details of what would become the D.C. Financial Control Board Act of 1995 fell to Tom Davis, a freshman congressman from Fairfax. It was the first time in more than 40 years that a freshman had been appointed chairman of the D.C. committee; in the next dozen years, Davis would become the District’s godfather, protecting D.C.’s interest and ushering through crucial legislation.
“It kind of fell on me,” Davis tells me. Why, I ask, would a Republican congressman from the Virginia suburbs, which are notoriously hostile to the center city, risk his political capital on Democrats in D.C.?
“I figured if the city did well, the entire region would do better,” he says. “D.C. was the weakest link economically.”
Now Tom Davis has given up his seat, and the District’s fortunes have reversed, in large part because of his stewardship.
“He served a unique function,” says D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who worked with Davis to pass bills and solve problems. “All the credit for helping D.C. is absolutely well deserved.” Selling himself way short, Davis says: “I was in a position where I could take the lead in getting something done.”
Something like getting Congress to pass the D.C. College Access Act in 1999. It allows high school graduates in D.C. to attend state colleges in Maryland and Virginia at in-state rates. And getting Congress to pass and fund the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant, which gives D.C. students up to $10,000 a year in tuition for state colleges.
Something like the first-time homebuyer tax deduction for D.C. residents. And closing Lorton prison.
In 1999 Davis sponsored legislation that put the Financial Control Board out of business and restored full management to the D.C. government.
Call it bookends.
The downside of Davis’ departure at this moment is that he was the author and the driving force behind the effort to get full voting rights on the House floor for D.C.’s delegate to Congress. Along with Norton, Davis conceived of the bill, proposed adding a seat in Utah to balance the political scale, and lobbied it through Congress until Republican senators killed it in September 2007.
With Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, the D.C. Voting Rights Act could pass easily.
It should be named the Tom Davis Act.
