'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A small team of lawyers for the D.C. labor-relations office appeared in D.C. Superior Court this week to fend off allegations that the District government is conspiring to interfere in an intra-union dispute over the leadership of a 200-member bargaining unit for youth-corrections officers.
Modest numbers of voters hit the polls throughout the District on Tuesday with the potential for altering the makeup of the beleaguered D.C. Council and decide who will carry their political party's flag into the general election in November.
A Northwest resident has obtained petitions to kick off his arduous mission of recalling Mayor Vincent C. Gray and council Chairman Kwame R. Brown.
The Board of Elections and Ethics is scheduled to issue petitions on Wednesday in the uphill bid to recall Mayor Vincent C. Gray and council Chairman Kwame R. Brown.
Political activists filed paperwork on Wednesday to begin a recall effort against D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray and council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, asserting that well-publicized missteps in the early months of each official's term amount to "breaches of office through unethical behavior."
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has qualified for the April 3 primary in the District, making him the first of five GOP candidates expected to vie for 16 delegates in the overtly Democratic city while neighboring Virginia mulls campaign gaffes that left two key contenders off its swing-state ballot.
D.C. resident readies for city hall recall effort; Joint effort in Virginia to challenge Romney, Paul certifications; Perry files ballot suit in Va.; Some Va. Assembly bills appear ghostwritten; Norton calls for full audit of Union Station; Va. merchants push for Amazon to pay state sales tax; More speed cameras planned for Prince George's; Maryland lawmaker wants to ban Internet 'sweepstakes' gambling.
A D.C. Council member has circulated a widely anticipated ethics-reform bill that creates a three-member oversight body and cuts in half the amount of money lawmakers can raise for funds that are supposed to address constituents' dire needs but have been used for catering, office space and sports tickets.
D.C. Council members on Wednesday took on the awkward task of addressing their own mechanisms for policing themselves and their colleagues in government, engaging in hours of debate on a slew of proposals aiming to overhaul city ethics laws.
Halfway through the D.C. Council's heated debate last week on a tax hike for the city's highest earners, council member Jack Evans said, "You feel like you're in 'Alice in Wonderland' sometimes listening to people up here."
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray says his administration will alter its policy for reviewing nominees for city oversight bodies by sending them through the city's Office of the Attorney General before they are announced to the public.
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray has withdrawn the nomination of Robert L. Mallett to be chairman of the Board of Elections and Ethics because he does not meet a residency requirement — an embarrassing conclusion to an incident that mirrored a string of missteps by the administration.
D.C. Council passes tax hike; Gray to announce nominees for ethics board; P.G. officers indicted in student beating; Davis takes Johnson's open seat in Prince George's; Maryland GOP lawmaker wants apology from O'Malley; Suspicious 11th Street death ruled murder; Jury selection under way in Currie corruption trial.
An ethics reform bill before the D.C. Council creates a "redundant bureaucratic apparatus," does not deal with the root causes of scandal and fails to support existing agencies charged with oversight of city officials, D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan testified Monday.
The District's Office of Campaign Finance on Friday filed a complaint against D.C. Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown's 2008 re-election campaign with the city's Board of Elections and Ethics, upholding violations outlined in an audit released in April.
