The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics is expected later this week to certify Vincent Orange as the new at-large city councilman. Many people have insisted he will change the legislature’s current direction. That’s a huge burden. The legislature has floundered under Chairman Kwame Brown who, along with other members, has been ensnared in scandals. Residents who went to the polls last week complained of the stench of corruption coming from the John A. Wilson Building. They chose someone they perceived as an outsider — except the new voice is an old voice.
Orange is a once and future councilman. He served two terms as the representative for Ward 5. He had an indisputable record of achievement during that time and was intolerant of an obstinate bureaucracy: He forced out Inspector General Charles Maddox and refused to confirm Judy Banks as permanent personnel director. (Interestingly, Banks is at the center of the hiring scandal that has engulfed Mayor Vincent Gray.)
That’s all so yesterday.
“I ran to reclaim the agenda,” Orange told me. But is the schema the politician’s or the public’s?
“It’s the people’s agenda,” he said, citing the budget, education reform and job creation as priorities important to residents. “I don’t think there’s anything new; it’s just us rolling up our sleeves and doing the work.”
But Orange, a certified public accountant and auditor, does have new ideas: Instead of raising taxes on higher wage earners, he said the city should sell real estate liens and repeal tax exemptions on its bonds. “We have to find the proper approach for dealing with the budget.” He has talked of developing a type of “Marshall Plan” for communities east of the Anacostia River.
His emphasis on ethics reform resonates with residents desperate for clean, good government. “It was a consistent theme everywhere I went,” he said. “We have to hit [that] right off the bat.”
Brown had promised to create an ethics committee; he hasn’t. Council members discussed the issue during a retreat earlier this year; they took no action.
Orange has promised to introduce emergency legislation. “That will force members to state their positions in public,” he said. “We’ve lost a tremendous amount of good will.”
That’s the kind of forceful, direct action that won Orange friends, and enemies, during his previous council terms. If he pushes ethics too hard, he could put himself on collision course with Brown, who may interpret it as an assault on his leadership. Orange ran last year for the chairman’s seat Brown now occupies. There’s every reason to believe the once and future councilman continues to imagine himself future chairman.
Orange would win the hearts of many voters if he came out punching on ethics reform, creating the impression he’s the cleanup man of their dreams. That kind of image certainly won’t hurt his political future. It took former chief financial officer Anthony A. Williams all the way to the mayoral suite.
Jonetta Rose Barras’ column appears on Monday and Wednesday. She can be reached at [email protected].
