Last Thursday, the D.C. Democratic State Committee’s membership gathered to select an interim candidate to fill the At-Large seat on the D.C. Council left vacant when Kwame Brown rose to the chairmanship of the city’s legislative body. As we reported on Friday, Sekou Biddle defeated Vincent Orange for the spot after three rounds of voting and furious caucusing in a kitchenette connected to the conference room where the voting took place. (The Post was none-too-impressed with the process, according to an editorial published today.)

Beyond the confusions surrounding whether or not the balloting was open or not (party officials claimed they used an “open ballot,” but who the ballot would be open to after the fact to remains a mystery), one of the most comical elements of evening’s proceedings was how party officials collected donations — with a glass bowl and paper bag.

This seemed a little off to us, but the Post’s Tim Craig reports today that it’s apparently legal — kind of. According to an official at the Office of Campaign Finance Craig spoke to, local political parties can collect up to $24.99 in cash without having to itemize it. But how can you control what someone throws into a bowl or a bag passed around a crowd of almost 100 party members and supporters? Well, you can’t. “What you are supposed to do is announce to the crowd, ‘We can accept $24.99 in cash and anything above that has to come in by check or money order.’ There can be instances where someone can throw a $50 or $100 in there, but you’ve made your effort,” said OCF spokesman Wesley Williams to Craig.

Party Chairwoman Anita Bonds dismissed any concerns over the low-fi fundraising, saying that only $200 or so was collected. But for a party that has, in the past, had its share of accounting problems, we’d imagine local Democrats would want to be a tad more careful.

There was certainly a lot that could be drawn from the city’s preeminent political party soliciting donations in a glass bowl and paper bag, but maybe nothing was more symbolic than a fact pointed out by one attendee — the paper bag featured the logo of Cingular Wireless, a brand that folded after being acquired by AT&T in 2007.