Advice to well-dressed politician: Read the label

D.C. Council member David A. Catania has been learning about fashion the hard way.

“Everyone else here has a jacket, but as you can see, I have seersucker pants on and there is in every seersucker suit a label that says, ‘Do not dry,’ and I did not read the label,” Mr. Catania told a room full of reporters and city officials at D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ press conference last week.

“So I dried my jacket, so it’s simply a prop — and if I were to try to put it on, it will look like I gained 50 pounds in the last week.”

Mr. Catania, at-large independent and chairman of the Committee on Health, wore the jacket in question when he entered the press conference, but he quickly removed it.

Most of the other men in the room were wearing suit jackets, which was odd considering the sweltering temperatures outside.

“I want to encourage those who invest in seersucker suits to, by all means, read the label,” he said.

“When they say, ‘Do not dry,’ they are serious.”

Shortly after Mr. Catania’s apology, Mr. Williams took off the jacket he was wearing.

• Bill of rights

Several Montgomery County Council candidates last week rallied behind a “bill of rights” proposal that would create a living wage for immigrant and illegal alien domestic workers in the county.

Democratic contenders Duchy Trachtenberg, Cary Lamari and Valerie Ervin were among the candidates who attended a press conference Tuesday to present a George Washington University study on the abuses of domestic workers — nannies and housekeepers who are the female equivalent of predominantly male day laborers.

The study said at least half of all domestic workers in the county work more than 40 hours per week but earn less than Maryland’s $6.15 minimum wage.

The average domestic worker is an unmarried, high-school-educated Hispanic woman who works in Bethesda, Silver Spring, Rockville or Gaithersburg and does not speak English. Most live in constant fear of being deported, according to the new study.

County Council President George L. Leventhal, a Democrat, commissioned the study.

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