Voters in the District will decide Tuesday whether to reshape the D.C. Council in election contests that serve as a referendum on the makeup of a body that has faced a steady trickle of ethical problems in the past two years.
City lawmakers on Tuesday answered a mounting chorus of motorists who say the District is burdening them with pricey traffic-camera fines in an attempt to balance the local budget under the banner of public safety.
Maybe it was the setting — a house of worship — but a quartet of candidates vying for two at-large seats on the D.C. Council eschewed the bitter rhetoric and personal attacks that have dominated the past few weeks for veiled swipes and even cordiality during a debate in Georgetown on Thursday.
D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange is set to host a small-business summit downtown on Friday -- a who's who event at which Mayor Vincent C. Gray and top officials discuss business opportunities in the city -- but a mailing that advertises the event tests the delicate boundary between an incumbent's duties and the fight for name recognition on the path to Election Day.
D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown's campaign for re-election announced endorsements from nine unions Tuesday despite troubling headlines that have ranged from missing campaign funds to a close call on petitions he submitted to get on the ballot.
The D.C. Board of Elections ruled Monday that D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown collected enough petition signatures from city voters to appear on the ballot in November, despite dual challenges from one of his opponents in the at-large race and a city government watchdog.
The D.C. Board of Elections is expected to decide later today whether D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown collected enough petition signatures from city voters to be on the ballot this November, a hotly contested issue that has put the race for two at-large council seats front-and-center among the city's fall campaigns.
Despite the return by President Obama and the Democratic Party of a tainted $10,000 donation from D.C. fundraiser Jeffrey E. Thompson, dozens of other federal and local campaign committees, Democrat and Republican alike, continue to hold on to tens of thousands of dollars they have received from the contractor now at the center of Mayor Vincent C. Gray's deepening fundraising scandal, records show.
![]Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray carries throws for people in the crowd as he begins his walk in the 46th Annual Palisades Parade and Picnic in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, July 4, 2012. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)](http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/07/05/20120704-212103-pic-337900425_mugshot_four_by_three_s101x76.jpg?38f271e3d49cdfd5d0ef8cac5cad23b117d14f23)
"It's got a patriotic quality about it," Even if they don't know how or why it became a tradition, politicians in the District know they'd better head to the Palisades for its annual Fourth of July parade.
