Bryan Weaver - Greater Greater Washington

DC Council ethics: C'mon son, we can do better

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:11:00 EDT

Tuesday marked just how serious the DC Council is about ethics reform. I am sad to report that they are not very serious at all.

Photo by (Alex) on Flickr.

Like all besieged governments across the globe that have held power with an insular, corruptible and outdated system, the Council of the District of Columbia is now offering concessions in the hope of easing the unprecedented anger at this crisis.

They have established a process to remove a member, set up an ethics panel, slashed how much money councilmembers can raise to help "constituents," and required stricter reporting of outside income and potential conflicts.

But ultimately the Council has only responded narrowly to several questions raised this year concerning the alleged actions of some city leaders and government staffers.

Some highlights include requiring councilmembers to file an annual affidavit in which they certify they paid all of their taxes and have not "been offered or accepted any bribes" or engaged in any "pay to play schemes." Really?

In the words of the teenagers I work with: "C'mon Son!!!"

The law fails to address or enact any real protections against "pay-to-play."

On November 30, Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6) introduced two amendments to the bill. The first amendment would close a loophole that allows corporations to give numerous campaign contributions through subsidiary Limited Liability Corporations (LLC). Wells' amendment would limit corporations to just one contribution.

The second amendment banned companies with city contracts from giving directly to political campaigns, because councilmembers often vote on contracts for those same companies.

The Council rejected each of Wells' amendments by 12 to 1 votes. Wells seemed to have support from Cecily Collier-Montgomery, director of the Office of Campaign Finance, who said, "It certainly would make it a lot easier to enforce in terms of corporations and subsidiaries sharing a single contribution limit.

William Sanford, General Counsel of OCF went further, saying, "We agree that bundling should be prohibited and perhaps it could be more specifically addressed in this or other legislation."

Even Councilmember Jim Graham (Ward 1) openly stated during debate that every time a councilmember takes a check from a corporation, there is a string attached. Astutely, Mr. Graham has touched the heart of "Pay to Play."

When it became obvious that no other member of the council was was willing to ban subsidiary corporations from giving multiple contributions, Wells regrouped and offered a compromise for the final vote on December 20. He proposed sunlight provisions that would require LLCs to disclose their controlling interest, and require corporations with contracts with the city to disclose those contracts when contributing to local political campaigns.

Every councilmember talks about the importance of disclosure, transparency and sunlight, making this an obvious compromise. Don't ban a corporation's ability to bundle, just make the disclosure more transparent. As a friend of mine likes to say about the DC Council, "It's all about getting to 7 votes."

One would think this a no-brainer. Wells' office went back to Sanford, the OCF General Counsel, to ask for advice. He responded by saying, "The language you have suggested appears to require clarification of the relationship between subsidiaries and parent corporations which may have controlling interest. Therefore, from an enforcement standpoint it would result in a greater degree of transparency."

Armed with support of OCF and a willingness of the Council to create stronger "open government" laws, Wells brought his two sunshine amendments to the floor. Each amendment still fell 12 to 1.

And with that, the council punted on a golden opportunity to show the residents of DC that they are serious about ethics, committed to ridding our government of the corrupting influence of money, and that DC will no longer be the butt of jokes on late-night talk shows.

It is heartbreaking that in the capital city of the world's greatest democracy, the effort for transparency and accountability—values that people are giving life and limb for around the world—would fail so miserably and so anticlimactically.

Big money diminishes accountability, transparency and inclusiveness in our government. It determines who runs for office and where those candidates stand on the issues.

Money should not determine how our elected officials spend their time in the Wilson Building. Issues facing the city should do that. Problems facing the residents should come first.

The DC Council would do well in recognizing they still have some serious work to do if they are going to be taken seriously by voters.

32 comments

Real ethics reform goes beyond rearranging the deck chairs (Jun 15, 2011)
Most sitting councilmembers absent on campaign finance (Mar 7, 2012)
Tommy Wells will introduce ethics reform bills (Jun 20, 2011)
Create an independent ethics commission for DC Council (Apr 26, 2011)
The DC Council should abolish Constituent Service Funds (Nov 29, 2011)

Real ethics reform goes beyond rearranging the deck chairs

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:53:00 EDT

by Bryan Weaver

The District of Columbia is in an ethical crisis of unparalleled proportions thanks to the DC Council's pitiful standards. Real reform needs to address some of the serious problems, including members holding seats on nonprofit boards, having jobs which create conflicts of interest, and accepting nearly limitless corporate contributions.

Photo by elycefeliz on Flickr.

Councilmember Mary Cheh and Council Chairman Kwame Brown convened a hearing Monday on the "Comprehensive Ethics Reform Act of 2011" (B19-0297)—or as I like to call it, "The Rearranging the Deck Chairs of the Titanic Act of 2011."

The legislation ostensibly would create a new Office of Government Accountability with broad powers to investigate Council members' lobbying, conflicts of interest, financial disclosures and other ethical matters.

Yet the swift and harsh penalties on violators I hoped to see are not in the bill. Instead we have an extremely weak bill that only seems to add layers of bureaucracy instead of getting to the heart of the problem our city is facing.

What we really need is a radical overhaul of the city's culture and conduct to swing the long arc of good government for DC toward the sunlight. We need clear lines of what is permissible and not another layer of bureaucracy. It is time to turn over the Wilson Building and start shaking.

There are three critical areas of reform that if properly legislated, would bring sweeping reform to the city:

Seats on nonprofit boards

Most people see the conflicts raised in the Attorney General's lawsuit accusing Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) of misusing more than $300,000 in city money intended for youth baseball on an SUV and trips.

But what got little press recently was a deal struck by Vincent Orange (D-At Large)—from the dais no less—to vote in favor of a budget amendment if amendment supporters sided with his effort to secure $500,000 for the Lincoln Theater. This maneuver gave the amendment enough votes to clear the Council by a 7-6 vote.

What was not discussed during the deal-making is that Orange serves as the volunteer Treasurer for the nonprofit board that runs the Lincoln Theatre. Orange apologists pointed out that he receives no financial compensation from the theatre or its board and that the deal was done transparently so therefore this was not a conflict of interest. I strongly disagree.

On the same day the Council discussed the proposed ethics legislation, the US Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Nevada ethics law that governs when lawmakers should refrain from voting on official business because they might have a conflict of interest—even when that conflict doesn't create a financial gain for the elected official.

The council needs to adopt rules stipulating that any nonprofit that receives D.C. funds cannot have a member of the Council on its board of directors.

Secondary jobs

DC law allows members of the Council to have outside jobs. Further, District rules require lawmakers to make public their outside income sources only if an employer or client did business with the city or stood to gain from pending legislation during the past calendar year.

By contrast, political appointees in the federal government sign ethics forms that must include all clients or employers who have paid the appointee more than $5,000 during a one-year reporting period—regardless of whether the employer or client did business with the government.

Members of Congress (not the most ethical lot), under their Ethics Reform Act, are prohibited from engaging in professions that provide services involving a fiduciary relationship, including the practice of law and the sale of insurance or real estate.

Ethics analysts like Public Citizen have long said that although D.C. lawmakers appear to comply with the letter of the law, the city's rules don't go far enough. The time has come to restrict outside income in the same scope as members of Congress, or at least create detailed disclosure of all outside income.

Corporate campaign contributions

District campaign finance laws are modeled after federal laws, with one big difference: corporations are allowed to directly contribute to local campaigns. And many companies have found a way to give more than others.

A quick review of campaign records for the mayoral and city council candidates will show you which corporations tilt the scales to gain access to the Wilson Building by electing candidates with their business interests at the forefront.

For example, real estate companies own many properties that are separately incorporated. Each incorporated property may make the maximum contribution to a candidate or constituent services fund. It is illegal for a corporation to use subsidiaries or companies under its control to skirt contribution limits, but at the same time, it's perfectly legal for corporations and their owners to make multiple contributions.

Any ethics legislation approved by the Council must institute limits that bar this sort of corporate contribution bundling. It must also include clear disclosure requirements to inform citizens about potential conflicts of interest and influences.

These are just three areas of concern among many. If, instead of learning ethics from watching movies, the city council is serious about ethics reform, this is where they should begin.

As Albert Einstein said, "Relativity applies to physics, not ethics."

24 comments

Create an independent ethics commission for DC Council (Apr 26, 2011)
Combined reporting levels the tax playing field for local businesses (Oct 28, 2009)
Term limits are a dangerous policy (Apr 6, 2011)
Will the real education candidate please stand up? (Apr 20, 2011)
No 2:00 am budget surprises please, Kwame Brown (May 23, 2011)

What's next for progressive reform in DC?

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:58:00 EDT

by Bryan Weaver

Since the April 26 special election, I've been working on my jump-shot, growing a wicked Al Gore beard, and getting my money's worth out of Capital Bikeshare. I've also been meeting with other at-large candidates, progressives, civic association activists, and concerned citizens who want to know where the reform movement goes from here.

Photo by Knoxville Museum of Art on Flickr.

I predict that in the next year, we'll see an unprecedented amount of cooperation across the river, across ethnic lines, and across many issues from a new generation of activists, ANC officials, and candidates for office that will change the face of DC politics from what we saw this April.

During what I've affectionately called the "loser tour" of DC, I've met with a half dozen people who are looking at a run for the DC Council in 2012, and they have asked for my advice.

I, of all people, am not going to try to dissuade anyone from their dream of sitting in the John A. Wilson Building for 16 hours a day. But it's worth reminding everyone that for every candidate who wins an election, there is another one, or 8, who experience the agony of defeat.

For those who believe in ethics and good government and can't be talked out of running for office, you will get an eye-opening look at the inside of a DC political machine, from door knocking to raising money.

At its core, running for office is doing everything your mother told you not to. You have to wear your good clothes when you know you're going to get dirty, you have to ask strangers for money, and you have to tell people how great you are—and in some cases do that in the third person.

On the upside, you will develop a thick-skin when you're called "unbendingly liberal," when you are told your campaign is "white-centric," and when local papers endorse other candidates even though they admit you're the best candidate.

Despite the outcome of the special election, I've come to fall in love all over again with DC, and I am optimistic for our future together.

Sure, when you look at the election results map of blue vs. orange (with a blob of Weaver green in the middle), your first thoughts may be of the racial and economic divide of our city. You may think of the Courtland Milloy column and the recent comments from Marshall Brown. You may think of the two phrases I can't stand to hear anymore: "I am a native Washingtonian" and "I am a DC taxpayer." So what is there to be optimistic about?

A lot, actually.

First, the characterization that new white residents—or in the preferred nomenclature, "Myopic Dog-Loving Cafe-Dwelling Bicycle-Riding Snowball-Throwing Twits"—don't care about people of color and don't have any connection to the black community is just false.

Look at the faces of people fighting to save DC's social safety net; the people who are at the grassroots fighting for statehood; the people who are in the trenches promoting conflict mediation for youth, fighting against street violence. Serious numbers of white Washingtonians are daily activists for these causes.

Also, it is not insignificant that residents of Wards 2 and 3 are in favor of paying higher taxes to save programs like TANF, domestic violence shelters, and after-school programming for our poorest children.

Moreover, many white Washingtonians view the fight for education reform not in their backyard, but across the river. They are willing to pay up with their pocketbooks to build quality schools for our neediest children.

Secondly, and just as important, is the new generation of African-American and Latino reform activists who have a universal vision for the District. This generation doesn't just see DC as just "east of the river" vs. "west of the park." All across this city, people are engaged in old school models like civic associations and ANCs, and they are bringing them new life.

Young African American activists like Veronica Davis and Maceo Thomas are combing social media and community get-togethers into a powerful community networking coalition that is not bound to the old traditions of the political culture. They have reached deep to bring positive development, transit, and environmental issues to the forefront of the African-American community in Wards 7 and 8.

ANC commissioners like Tim Clark, Mark Stevens, and Sylvia Brown (to name only a few) have small political machines built on good government, economic justice, and smart growth at a time that the city needs them, now more than ever.

Martin Moulton, President of the Convention Center Community Association (or as I think of him, #39 of the DC 41), breaks all the stereotypes of what a community association president should be by caring about both people and bike lanes.

Place all those trends into a political food-processor and press blend. You'll see that the next generation of activists will bend the racial and economic divides of this city. White politicos winning on social justice platforms, African Americans running on the environmental platforms, Latinos... well, just getting a seat at the table.

Last week I had lunch with a long time Ward 8 democratic muckety-muck who proclaimed the era of the DC old guard dead. He said that the machine that backed Vincent Orange in the special election cannot win a high turnout, city-wide race... if we are smart. He said that a powerful coalition of "myopic twits," progressives, disenfranchised Fenty loyalists, renegade unions, small businesses, and smart growth advocates can run the table in the next citywide elections.

If we know each other's stories, if we respect our diversity as our strength, and if are willing to fight the fights that need winning, we can have the city of all our dreams.

89 comments

Vote Bryan Weaver for DC Council at-large (Apr 21, 2011)
Mark Long: changing the culture how? (Oct 31, 2008)
For District of Columbia Council (Aug 31, 2010)
Hold DC's primary in November, not July (Feb 1, 2011)
Term limits are a dangerous policy (Apr 6, 2011)

Keep it 100 on youth violence

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:41:00 EDT

by Bryan Weaver

Tomorrow we will bury another young man. Another young life cut short by a type of violence we all, no matter who we are or where we are from, struggle to understand.

A little over a year ago I was sitting on a mountain path, high above lake Atitlan in the Mayan village of San Antonio Palopo in Guatemala. Leaning on a wall looking out over one of the most beautiful vistas in the world, I had a short conversation with my travel companion, and victim of last week's shooting: Jamal Coates. "B, I never thought I would see things like this in my life. Thank you my man."

Jamal's six weeks of work in Guatemala with my organization Hoops Sagrado was part of his campaign to recover his life from the streets. When we got home he partnered with another mentoring program, he took a paid internship working with the Department of Parks and Recreation and was going full-time to a GED program. (He also starred in a Weaver Ward One video and volunteered for my campaign.)

Over the 12 years I had Jamal Coates in my life, to be completely honest, he was often irritating, stubborn and self-destructive—but he was also big in spirit, great with children, and so, so funny.

Jamal had a catch phrase, "I gotta keep it 100 with you." If you heard that phrase it meant he was going to give you his unfiltered, honest opinion.

So in the spirit of my fallen friend, I gotta keep it 100 with you all.

Those who forget their past are condemned to repeat it and unfortunately in the District of Columbia our past seems to be on a constant loop. Promises are made after each tragic incident to get tough on the crews and that the city will remain vigilant.

However, once the glare of the TV cameras and the attention of the blogosphere is gone, when the image of an overturned car in the middle of U Street fades from our memory, young men are still dead and young men are still in jail for life. It's what we, as a city, do after the heat of the moment passes that really matters.

Since, 2005 when 9-year old Donte Manning was shot in the head by a stray bullet at 13th and Euclid, what have we actually done other than be witness to countless other senseless murders?

In 2007, it was Tayon Glover, brother of The Wire actor Anwan Glover. Anwan came to Columbia Heights and begged for the local crews to put down their guns... to no avail. Earlier that summer Terry Cutchin, a 13-year-old honor student, was caught in the crossfire. Both were killed in the 1400 block of Girard Street NW.

In 2008, it was another friend of mine, an art student and all around great guy Derrel Goins, aka "Willow," who was murdered in Adams Morgan.

In 2009, it was Deborah Ann Brown who had been making iced lattes at Dunkin' Donuts in Columbia Heights. It was just a few steps away from the store, on the 2900 block of 14th Street NW, where police said a teenager with a gun riding a bicycle spotted a perceived enemy across the street. He fired, and Brown was caught in the crossfire between two rival gang members.

This year it's Jamal Coates, in a dramatic shootout and tragic car crash, while Jamal was attending a funeral of yet another young DC murder victim. Jamal marks the fourth murder associated to crew violence this summer in the small square mile of asphalt that separates Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and U Street.

Public officials will tell you that the crews have moved on to other parts of the city... so don't believe your lying eyes. We have been here before, a high profile killing that grabs the up and coming part of the city. But then like collective amnesia we move on and forget.

The point being made in article after article is that last week's murder happened in the rapidly gentrifying part of the city. But we can't coffee-shop and bike-lane our way out of this tragedy. There are still numerous people in DC who have degenerated to the point of expressing dissent through murder and haven't learned to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable, no matter where they live. But my hope is that the people who use those coffee shops and bike lanes can and will be the change—if they care enough to do so.

I don't profess to have the answers. If I did, Jamal would not be dead. But I do have some ideas about how we as a community—the entire community—can begin to frame the conversation that will hopefully bring about real change and possibly save some lives.

We must demand accountability from our elected leaders, not just sound bites for the 6pm news. The last thing we need is another blue-ribbon panel/commission/taskforce/coffee klatch on how to the fix the problems plaguing our young people and ultimately our city. We need real action.

We need people who are really willing to look at our system and fix it, from how we educate our children to how we adjudicate them. The solutions to our public safety problems need to be enforceable and long-term. Blanket ideas like civil injunctions and curfews, that are not well thought-out, can't be the only solution.

The best way to stop a bullet is an education and a job.

And we must make sure their stories are told. Every young person murdered in this city has someone who loved them. A parent, a grandparent, a friend, a cousin, a mentor. None of these young lives should end up being relegated to just two column-inches buried deep in the Metro section. Their stories need to be told. They must be humanized instead of being turned into a passing sentence or two on a blog, in the paper or on TV.

We must take the time to get to know our neighbors and reach out to the young people in our community. We need to celebrate our differences instead of condemning them.

We must give of our time positively. Every household in this city, no matter how busy the occupants may be, has at least one hour they can give to the community in which they live. We can't simply write a check and think it will all be better. The greatest gift we all have to give is our time and ourselves.

Jamal Coates' family has created a scholarship fund in his memory. Each year, the money will send one boy and one girl from the village where Jamal worked in Guatemala to high school.

Jamal Coates Scholarship Fund
c/o Hoops Sagrado
PO Box 21332
Washington, DC 20009

Bryan Weaver is founder and Executive Director of Hoops Sagrado and was a candidate in the 2010 Democratic primary for Ward 1 representative on the DC Council.

30 comments

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