Former councilmember Sekou Biddle has now made official what was long rumored: he's running for a seat on the D.C. Council. But not just any seat. more ›

In recent weeks, a number of new candidates have jumped into local D.C. races, challenging just about every incumbent up for re-election. more ›

It's all said and done -- Vincent Orange won the April 26 At-Large Special Election and will be heading back to the D.C. Council. As usual, we've got some closing thoughts on the last D.C. election until, well, eleven months from now. more ›

Vincent Orange will return to the D.C. Council after a five-year absence after narrowly defeating Republican Patrick Mara for the At-Large seat once occupied by Council Chair Kwame Brown. more ›

Okay, so we're about a third of the way through the voting day, and there appears to be a good chance that you haven't cast your ballot yet. Reports coming in from around the city indicate the turnout has been light -- so unless everyone is waiting to vote after work (polls are open until 8 p.m.), we're looking at another Special Election with sparse participation. We did our best to summarize the context and candidates of the At-Large election in our Voter Guide yesterday, but it might be worth it to lay out the very good reasons that you should head to a polling place today. more ›

Everything -- and we mean everything -- you need to know about tomorrow's special election to select a permanent at-large D.C. Councilmember. more ›

We've said it before, we'll say it again -- at this point, next Tuesday's At-Large Special Election is totally up for grabs. No one candidate has risen up above the rest, and institutional support and endorsements have splintered in a number of ways. more ›

While Bryan Weaver remains the undisputed champion of the longform YouTube local campaign advertisement -- what with the Cool Disco Dan references, "Dirty Old Town" and all -- the above effort from the Joshua Lopez campaign, if somewhat forced, at least proves that Weaver's not the only candidate unafraid to crack a couple "Fully Loaded" jokes at Council Chair Kwame Brown's expense. more ›

In just one week, we'll have a new At-Large councilmember -- and we'll finally be done with elections in the District for at least a few months. more ›

We're only one week out from the day the District will select its new at-large Councilmember in a special election -- but that doesn't mean you've run out of time to educate yourself about the candidates in the race. Hardly! And tonight is just as good a time as any; after all, who better to guide you through where the candidates stand on the issues than our own Martin Austermuhle? more ›

With early voting having begun this week and the election day less than two weeks away, the contest for the April 26 At-Large Special Election remains fluid and unsettled, with no one candidate yet rising above the rest. The uncertainties in the campaign to fill the seat once occupied by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown is a product not only of the candidates, though, but of the ever-shifting political environment in the District. more ›

UPDATE (5:20 p.m.): According to the Washington Post's Mike DeBonis, Biddle has fired Brown due to the comments he made in Fisher's piece. Biddle's statement regarding the decision: “While change can be difficult and at times uncomfortable, these kinds of comments are hurtful. My wife and I choose to raise our children here because of the diversity the city has to offer. Marshall Brown does not speak for me or my campaign and his comments in Marc Fisher’s story do not help move our city forward. While he is a longtime family friend, I found his comments to be counterproductive at a time when I am working so hard to bring people in this city together, and I have asked him to step down from any future involvement in my campaign.” more ›

During last fall's Council campaign, we called Bryan Weaver's Paul Wellstone homage "the best campaign video you'll see all year." With the above video, released by Weaver's campaign this morning, Weaver's pretty much laid claim to 2011's honors, too. more ›

The District's Board of Elections and Ethics conducted its lottery for the District's citywide special election on April 26 this afternoon. Will being listed last on the ballot hurt Vincent Orange? more ›

This much is finally clear -- nine candidates will appear on the ballot for the April 26 At-Large Special Election. Yesterday, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics announced that Jacque Patterson would be denied a spot on the ballot, while ruling that Republican Patrick Mara had gotten just enough signatures to remain on. Bryan Weaver, who had originally fallen 52 signatures below the 3,000-signature threshold to get on the ballot, was able to collect enough forms attesting to the validity of the people who signed his nominating petitions to stay on. more ›

Yesterday, we wrote a post about the deadline for candidates in the upcoming special election to turn in their nominating petitions, and why the number of signatures said candidates were able to get mattered or not. After all was said and done, the process didn't do very much to thin the herd: of the 21 candidates who picked up petitions from the Board of Elections and Ethics, more than half remain in the running. more ›

Last night, interim At-Large Councilmember and special election candidate Sekou Biddle won the endorsement of D.C. for Democracy, a progressive activism group. That's the short version of the story: the long version involves a complex system of instant runoff voting, which some think is a better method of determining an election winner. more ›

You can attend, but you can't vote. That's pretty much the marching orders from the D.C. Democratic State Committee, whose members will vote tonight for an interim At-Large councilmember to fill the seat vacated by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown. more ›

Special elections tend to be sleepy affairs, and the one to fill D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown's now vacant At-Large seat was shaping up to be something of a snoozer. No longer. Just this week, a number a shake-ups have hit both the process to temporarily fill the seat and the campaigning for the actual special election, scheduled for April 26. more ›

Kwame Brown officially claimed the title of D.C. Council Chairman-elect last week, which means he has to give up his At-Large Councilmember position come January. So who will replace him? A special election for a permanent replacement, expected to be an hotly-contested affair with no fewer than fourteen legitimate candidates having their names dropped for the job, will be held sometime in the spring. For precedent: the last time such special elections for Council seats were held was in May 2007, when seats in Ward 4 and Ward 7 -- Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chair/Mayor-elect Vince Gray's former seats, respectively -- were up for grabs. more ›

The guy to the right is Michael A. Brown. He's an at-large member of the D.C. Council and chairs the Housing and Workforce Development committee. Now here is a photograph of Michael D. Brown, D.C.'s current Shadow Senator. He is running for an different at-large seat on the Council, the one currently held by Phil Mendelson. more ›

It's a strange compliment, but we'll take it. more ›

Like D.C. Wire, we've heard reports of "Write-in Carol Schwartz" pencils being handed out to voters, some of which have then been left behind in voting booths, in violation of electioneering laws. Could this last-ditch pencil strategy be just the ticket for a Schwartz write-in victory? Maybe, but City Desk is reporting that Schwartz has failed to get her supporters out to a number of important precincts. more ›

Maybe every political debate from now on should be held on a night where pretty much everyone has somewhere more important to be. more ›

Every election season sees its share of campaign materials, from the expected (yard signs) to the somewhat exotic (Kwame Brown's campaign-mobile). But repeat candidate Michael A. Brown may have stumbled across the most frustrating in his current quest for an At-Large seat on the D.C. Council. more ›

This year's At-large D.C. Council race just won't go quietly into this goodnight, and neither, she announced today, will longtime Republican Council member Carol Schwartz. Even though she initially said last week that she would not launch a write-in campaign after losing the GOP primary to upstart challenger Patrick Mara, Schwartz today announced that she will now do just that. more ›

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Remember those billboards that popped up in the 1980s that counted up the national debt, dollar by dollar? Pretty scary, huh? Well, District voting rights activists want something similar for their cause. Today the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would allow the city to place two large LED billboards -- one outside the John A. Wilson Building and the other outside the new Washington Nationals stadium -- that would display the amount... more ›

Yesterday's legislative action in the D.C. Council, typical of end-of-session days, was jam-packed with votes. Here's a few more you may have missed: >> The Council moved ahead on a bill that restricts interest rates levied by the so-called payday loan industry, an issue we've looked at before. The bill passed on an initial reading, and if implemented would place a 24 percent annual percentage rate cap on interest charged by lenders. The Examiner notes... more ›

Good morning, Washington. We wake today to some stunning revelations: It appears the Centers for Disease Control have issued a new report that "confirms" that men are far more likely to have many sexual partners than women are. In related findings, the report, which was compiled from self-reported surveys of American adults, also indicates that American men have the largest penises of any country in the world and that American women are far more slender... more ›