By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
The D.C. Council chairman will hold a hearing to look into concerns about the legitimacy of a contract award to overhaul a troubled city-owned hospital before a Feb. 19 vote on the deal.
Jack Evans wants to be mayor of the nation's capital, and to do so he has to break a racial barrier, persuade stakeholders that he can govern as well as he legislated and, perhaps, take on an incumbent.
With casino approvals expanding down the East Coast into the mid-Atlantic, two jurisdictions remain resistant to their financial allure — the District and Virginia — and that's not likely to change anytime soon.
Despite months of rhetoric and proposals, D.C. lawmakers failed to pass sweeping campaign finance reforms by the end of a legislative period that was historic for all the wrong reasons.
The majority subcontractor on the $38 million D.C. Lottery contract is competing for a new game with a different foreign partner in a process that could involve one of his well-connected friends at D.C. Lottery.
The District's top budget minder says the city does not need to raise the "ballpark fee" it imposes on businesses to pay down the massive debt it took to build a home for the Washington Nationals, a long-term endeavor in the nation's capital as other sports-crazed cities grapple with the role of public funds in high-stakes stadium deals.
Months after D.C. lawmakers repealed a measure that would have allowed first-in-the-nation online gambling on home computers and at select sites in the shadow of Capitol Hill, several states are forging ahead with online games of chance while a harried Congress remains unlikely to pass a federal bill that would regulate the practice.
The possibility of manipulation of the 2009 D.C. Lottery contract is not the only corruption angle that has drawn the attention of government investigators.
Upstart challenger David Grosso, a relatively unknown former D.C. Council staffer who started campaigning a year ago, unseated incumbent Michael A. Brown on Tuesday for an at-large seat in the only significant upset in the city's elections.
For the first time in 8 1/2 months, it was business as usual at Metro's Dupont Circle south entrance, with no construction equipment or maintenance crews to be seen as officials opened three new escalators at the busy subway station.
The D.C. Council unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that requires the D.C. office of the chief financial officer to actively disclose its internal audits in the wake of scrutiny of the office's procedures and its ability to police itself.
Since winning the race to represent Ward 5 on the D.C. Council five months ago today, Kenyan McDuffie hasn't made headlines as an emerging political personality. That's probably a good thing, considering that some of his most likeable colleagues are in the prosecutorial sightlines of the U.S. attorney and other investigators.
The D.C. Council on Wednesday delivered a blow to Mayor Vincent C. Gray's vision of a thriving tech sector in the District, hours after he strenuously defended investor-friendly tax cuts as a compelling way to diversify the District's economy in the face of potentially steep federal spending cuts.
D.C. Council member Jack Evans plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would remove city lawmakers' from the contract approval process, a controversial power that allows the council to have a say in deals worth more than $1 million and has fueled suspicions of pay-to-play politics in the city.
First things first: "I'm still a fiscal hawk," Mr. Evans, chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee, said over breakfast Wednesday, 24 hours after incumbent Mayor Vincent C. Gray, a fellow Democrat, announced that most of the city's $417 million surplus would be saved for a rainy day.
Mr. Evans, who in February will become the city's longest-serving lawmaker, said the actions of legislators and mayors speak far louder than words.
