Elissa Silverman - Greater Greater Washington

Kwame did some good, and voters enabled his wrongdoing

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:39:00 EDT

Now that Kwame Brown has resigned as DC Council Chairman in disgrace, he is being called "dim," a "tyrant," and all kinds of other unflattering things. Brown is a flawed man, but we cannot pin this all on him alone. DC voters bear responsibility for ignoring the red flags about Brown early on. At the same time, Brown did some things right that we should give him credit for and preserve for the future.

Photo (from Detroit) by Cave Canem on Flickr.

Perhaps Brown's most significant achievement was his role in elevating the DC Council's budget office from a bean-counting operation to a muscular, policy driven office that identifies priorities and takes a serious and comprehensive approach to budget oversight.

Brown made a good move in hiring Jennifer Budoff as the DC Council's budget director. Budoff's knowledge of DC's budget is actually breathtaking. She not only knows the numbers, but she has a deeper understanding of the programs reflected in the numbers. As a result, she has a clear sense of where the programs work well and where they fall short, and she budgets accordingly.

Budoff and Chairman Brown assembled a very good budget office team. Whoever replaces Brown to run the council—the temporary, interim and/or permanent new chairman—would be wise to keep Brown's budget office in place.

Brown also improved transparency and transported the council into the 21st century through smart use of technology. Under his watch, the council's website became easier to navigate. He put resources into digitizing legislation, so even archival bills are online.

All hearings are now available to view online and you can also sign up online to testify. Brown accomplished all this by collaborating with members of the public, and these significant advances make active participation in our government much easier. Brown and his staff deserve much credit for this too.

As residents, as voters, and as taxpayers, we should make good use of these tools Brown put into place to make our government better and more accountable.

Brown is our responsibility

We should also hold ourselves accountable to do a better job of picking our leaders. There were red flags about Kwame Brown from the very beginning of his political career. He wasn't truthful about his voting record, he embellished his resume, and he used politics as a way to employ close family and friends. This was years before his efforts to acquire a "fully loaded" SUV on the public's dime and even before we knew about his "Bulletproof" boat and the debts that ensued.

We should have seen these red flags waving, but Brown got a pass from voters in all parts of the city. We must learn to take a much more active role in the selection of our political leaders and to hold them accountable once they get in office. We shouldn't rely on the US Attorney to clean up the messes we helped make.

I first met Kwame Brown about this time of year in 2003, at a Jamaican restaurant on upper Georgia Avenue. I was then the Loose Lips columnist for Washington City Paper, and I came at the request of then Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian Fenty. Brown had largely adopted the Fenty technique, wearing out his shoe leather knocking on doors throughout the city in pursuit of an at-large seat on the Council. He was energetic and personable.

He was also lucky. The incumbent he was running against, Harold Brazil, had very severe ethics problems of his own that were made the front page of the Washington Post several times. Brown positioned himself as the reform candidate, even though it was a little unclear what he really stood for. Often, when questioned, Brown had a hard time figuring that out himself.

I had concerns he lacked a vision or an agenda. But there were other question marks as well. When questioned by reporters about his voting record—he had only voted once in DC before running for office—he tried to obfuscate. He had to clarify his academic credentials, after stating he graduated from Dartmouth's business school when he really attended a weeks-long executive program. Yet, even to me at the time, those missteps seemed more like misdemeanors, not signs of future felonies.

Yet, the red flags kept popping up around Brown. Yet again, DC voters kept voting him into office. After the 2004 campaign, reporters revealed unconventional campaign finance reporting from Brown's campaign. Then, in the midst of the 2008 campaign, the Post did a story about how his campaign funneled money to a political consultant, whose address was a shuttered pizza joint in Columbia Heights. Still, Brown ran unopposed.

During Brown's campaign for the council chair, NBC4 reporter Tom Sherwood broke the story about his significant financial debt, but voters largely chose to ignore it.

We're not being honest with ourselves when we say that we are "shocked" or "betrayed" or "disappointed" in Brown. His colleagues and interested voters knew his shortcomings.

We must get involved

Do we need better options on the ballot? Yes, of course. That only happens through the active participation of ourselves in our government.

There are many ways to accomplish this. Several months ago, a group of residents including myself formed DC Public Trust to put a campaign finance reform initiative on the November ballot. Money is a major barrier to getting good people to run for office in our city, and I believe Initiative 70 will help tear down that barrier and level the playing field. I urge my fellow residents to support this effort.

Even if you don't, please take an more active role in local government. DC needs you.

32 comments

No 2:00 am budget surprises please, Kwame Brown (May 23, 2011)
Ask Kwame to keep the West End housing deal affordable (Jun 1, 2012)
Breaking: Kwame Brown stripping transportation committee from Tommy Wells as retribution for SUV scandal (Jul 12, 2011)
Brown criticizes GGW but still has no believable explanation (Jul 13, 2011)
DC Dems should appoint a caretaker to Kwame Brown's seat (Nov 14, 2010)

Help clean up DC politics this weekend and this month

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:35:00 EDT

by Elissa Silverman

DC residents can continue to shake our heads in embarrassment and wait for the US Attorney to expose the corrosive influence of money in local DC politics, reinforcing the image of a federal territory unable to govern itself. Or, we can send a message to DC leaders that if they are not willing to lead on these important matters of ethics and integrity, the people will.

Photo by afagen on Flickr.

Join me and other many other DC residents by helping to put Initiative 70 on the ballot this November. We are collecting signatures at the Petworth and Dupont farmers' markets and Glover Park Day this weekend, and are looking for folks during Capital Pride next weekend. Please sign up to help at one of these or find out about other times and locations near you.

Initiative 70 bans corporate cash from local campaigns, as well as other ways to buy influence and access such as inaugural committees, constituent service funds and legal defense funds. It would become law if District voters approve it in November.

But it can't make the ballot simply because seems like a good thing to do. We need the valid signatures and addresses of 5% of DC registered voters on petition sheets we give to the DC Board of Elections and Ethics by early July, including 5% percent of the voters in 5 of the 8 wards.

And we can't just put some on-line petition on Facebook or Twitter to do it. We need to do it the old-fashioned way by collecting signatures in person, with the circulator of the petition witnessing the signature of each voter that signs our sheets.

We need Initiative 70 for the good of our city, but Initiative 70 also needs you. We need DC residents who believe in fairness and an ethical government to commit a little time to helping us gather the necessary signatures. In every ward, DC Public Trust, the organization we formed to pass Initiative 70, has weekly events at supermarkets and farmers' markets.

This weekend, for example, we'll be at the Petworth farmers' market in Ward 4 tomorrow, Glover Park Day in Ward 3 on Saturday, and the Dupont farmers' Market in Ward 2 on Sunday. Just 70 minutes of your week for Initiative 70 will help us collect the signatures we need to make the ballot.

Please sign up to volunteer online. Want to do something in your neighborhood? I will put you in touch with your ward coordinator.

Will Initiative 70 clean up DC politics entirely? Sadly, it won't. But as a longtime observer of local politics, I believe it is important to put into law because it addresses two glaring problems: a lack of transparency in who's giving and the overt evasion of our individual contribution limits.

LLCs, limited liability companies that fill our city's campaign coffers, play a game of peek-a-boo with our campaign finance laws. They are able to hide behind legal paperwork so we can't see the money flowing from one parent donor, but when the checks are handed over at a fundraiser it's pretty clear who is giving.

This has become an easy way to evade our individual contribution limits, which means that District contractor Jeffrey Thompson—whose companies profit from tens of millions in District contracts—can return the favor during campaign season.

About a month ago, I was collecting signatures at an event attended by Mayor Gray. I asked the Mayor to add his name to the thousands of DC residents who wanted a fairer local campaign finance system. He did not, explaining he had his own legislation he was going to put forward May 15. That day has come and gone without any proposal.

But as I told the Mayor, I don't think his efforts and ours are mutually exclusive. They are complimentary. Let's put Initiative 70 on the ballot, let's debate Mayor Gray's proposal—but let's do something to address what is a clear problem.

If we don't take action, we'll just keep the US Attorney busy. And that's not good for DC.

Please sign up now to help DC Public Trust and clean up DC politics. And Mayor Gray, I'm happy to meet you anytime to collect your signature.

21 comments

Ban corporate campaign contributions: Support Initiative 70 (Mar 28, 2012)
Most sitting councilmembers absent on campaign finance (Mar 7, 2012)
Election day is here! Vote! (Apr 2, 2012)
The DC Council should abolish Constituent Service Funds (Nov 29, 2011)
Real ethics reform goes beyond rearranging the deck chairs (Jun 15, 2011)

Combined reporting levels the tax playing field for local businesses

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:16:00 EDT

by Elissa Silverman

Should a local, DC-based business pay higher tax rates than a branch of a national retailer?

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Of course, the answer is no. But that is precisely what has been happening. National corporations can employ complicated tax-avoidance strategies to artificially shift profits they earn in DC to places with lower taxes or no taxes at all. That gives them a distinct and unfair advantage over local DC businesses.

Last summer, the District approved an important reform to its corporate income tax, known as "combined reporting." Economists and tax experts agree that this is the most comprehensive way to stop corporations from abusing tax shelters. DC's Chief Financial Officer has concluded the law, which goes into effect in 2011, will raise $20 million in revenue annually.

Combined reporting addresses this practice by combining the profits from the parent company and its fully-owned subsidiaries for state income tax purposes. To determine the amount of corporate tax, there is a formula based on the percentage of business operations in that state compared to activity in other states.

Not surprisingly, combined reporting often faces business opposition. The DC Chamber of Commerce and the Council on State Taxation, a trade association of multistate corporations, have attacked the law, as well as individual corporations such as Verizon, Pfizer, and Home Depot.

A new DCFPI policy brief explains why combined reporting is good tax policy. First, it levels the tax-paying field between national and local companies. Without combined reporting, large national and multinationals have a tax advantage by shifting profits earned in DC to states with lower taxes��, or no taxes at all. While small businesses and local companies that operate only in DC have to pay their fair share of taxes, larger corporations often don't.

Of the 45 states with a corporate income tax, 23 already have combined reporting. Sixteen have operated with combined reporting for more than 20 years, including California and Illinois. Studies suggest that combined reporting has not affected their economic competitiveness.

Current status of combined reporting.

Eliminating combined reporting, as groups such as the Chamber of Commerce are lobbying to do, would create a $20 million budget gap in FY 2012 and beyond. Recent budget deliberations in the District have focused on the need to promote long-term fiscal stability in the face of the recession. Getting rid of combined reporting would require cutting local services or raising other local taxes, while keeping taxes low for large national corporations.

Mayor Fenty and the DC Council made the right move to join 23 other states which use combined reporting. They need to remain steadfast in their decision.

25 comments

Should DC dump the sales tax? (Nov 29, 2010)
Mayor Fenty's proposed cuts fall too heavily on the poor (Jul 27, 2009)
Then and then and now: H and Connecticut, NW (Jun 3, 2009)
Give me a break: Tax incentives should be regional, not local (Jan 6, 2010)
Deputy Mayor wants to give $7 million to one tech company (Nov 24, 2009)

Mutual benefit: DC needs to reform unemployment insurance now

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:41:00 EDT

by Elissa Silverman

The District's unemployment rate topped 10 percent in May, the highest it has been in 25 years. Sadly, only about a third of jobless workers in DC end up receiving unemployment benefits.

"No Jobs" sign. Photo by louisiana.

There's good news, though: The federal government is offering DC $18 million to help these folks get help. So should we try to get the money for them now or wait until later?

Almost all of us, especially given these difficult economic times, would want the help immediately.

Except, apparently, the District of Columbia. The District has yet to make the needed reforms to its unemployment insurance program to get the extra federal funds.

The money is tied to the Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act, part of the economic recovery bill signed into law by President Obama last February. It gives DC and the states a financial incentive to expand unemployment benefits to three key groups of people who are currently excluded: those who leave their job due to domestic violence or other family reasons, those who lose a part-time job and are looking for part-time work, and those who are permanently laid-off and in need of extended training. The recovery act also encourages states to expand benefits for unemployed workers with dependents.

To sum up, the feds want to give money to hard-working Americans who lost a job and need a little extra help to get through this recession.

Sound good?

Twenty-five states think so. They have expanded their unemployment assistance to include at least two of the four categories of workers above, which qualified them to receive two-thirds of their incentive money. The District hasn't yet done so. The deadline to qualify is August 2011.

Why is the District waiting?

DC did get one-third of the approximately $27 million available because it already had in place a provision allowing workers to count their most recent earnings in their unemployment application, known in technical jargon as the "alternative base period."

But there's no reason for DC to be sluggish about getting the other $18 million. (The money can only be used for the unemployment system and can't be used to cover DC's budget shortfall.) Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council, particularly Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry, who oversees the Department of Employment Services, need to push DOES to make decisions and bring forth the necessary legislation to put these reforms into place.

It's a win-win: More District workers receive more money, which they will spend and help stimulate the economy.

Who wouldn't want that?

2 comments

DC's employment stable yet unemployment rising (Nov 2, 2009)
Mayor Fenty's proposed cuts fall too heavily on the poor (Jul 27, 2009)
Leftover capital money could save Metro service (Apr 14, 2010)
Should DC dump the sales tax? (Nov 29, 2010)
DC slow to distribute cash-for-appliances (Nov 17, 2010)