Photo by Samer Farha

Last week we told you about the candidates running for two At-Large seats on the D.C. Council, and today we’re focusing in on three amendments to the Home Rule Charter.

All three of the amendments emerged from last year’s debate in the council on strengthening ethics regulations in D.C. Charter Amendment V would allow the council to expel one of its own on a 5/6ths vote, while Charter Amendments VI and VII would call for the automatic ejection from office for a mayor or councilmember that is convicted of a felony while in office. Sounds pretty good and pretty simply, right? Well, no.

Charter Amendment V
Some have complained that the first charter amendment would set an impossibly high bar for expulsion from the council. As currently written, it would take 11 of the 13 legislators to vote in favor of such an expulsion. To turn that around, consider this: the councilmember to be expelled would need only two allies to maintain their seat.

Despite criticisms that other legislative bodies stick to lower thresholds—two-thirds is cited most often—there is something to be said for the charter amendment: currently, the only way to get someone off the council is if they are physically locked up for committing a crime. A 5/6ths vote might be a high threshold, but it’s at least lower than what exists now.

Charter Amendments VI and VII
Most people agree: if you’re convicted of a felony while in office, you probably shouldn’t be in office any longer. But we’re a society that believes in redemption, right? Maybe not.

Both these charter amendments—VI applies to councilmembers, VII to the mayor—wouldn’t only boot an elected official upon a felony conviction, but they would make that official ineligible to hold the office ever again. That last element has provoked disagreements between the council and the D.C. Board of Elections—recently Council Chair Phil Mendelson wrote the board to say that the council’s intent was never to make the ban permanent, a contention that the board disagrees with. Even if Mendelson’s interpretation wins the day, it’s too late—the amendment language was finalized in May and ballots were printed months ago. Still, this leaves both charter amendments subject to legal challenge at some point down the road.

There’s another issue: both of these amendments specify that an official would have to be convicted while in office. To understand what that means, look no further than former Ward 5 councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. and former council chair Kwame Brown: both resigned before pleading guilty. And one last wrinkle: each amendment specifies that the person would be precluded from holding that office again, but it wouldn’t stop them from running for another office. Get booted from the council, run for mayor!

Of course, as with Charter Amendment V, for some people the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. As we mentioned above, the bar for kicking out crooked pols is almost prohibitively high now. These two charter amendments—legal catches and all—would make it easier.

Endorsements on the three charter amendments have varied. While the Examiner’s Jonetta Rose Barras and Greater Greater Washington have urged voters to opt for all three, the Post has sided with yes on V and no on the remaining two.