What is it with being a politician named Michael Brown and needing to confuse the hell out of everyone?

Mike DeBonis has it on good authority that Michael A. Brown, who currently has a seat on the D.C. Council as an independent at-large member, is weighing whether or not to run for at-large Councilmember. No, not for reelection to his seat, but the one that Kwame Brown is vacating to become the Chair of the Council on January 2. See, Brown really would like to get rid of the Independent moniker which some believe he only took on so that he could actually win election to the Council in the first place. There is a regulation that the Council must have two members who are members of a minority party — the other non-Democratic seat is currently held by independent David Catania (who also converted to an Independent — but only after he had won election to two terms on the Council). Brown’s father Ron was the first black chair of the Democratic National Committee, and it’s been no secret that Brown’s eager to ditch the independent status, so this isn’t totally unexpected — not that it will make it any less bewildering to those who aren’t privy to the minutiae of D.C. governmental affairs.

Oh, and as if the basic premise wasn’t ridiculous enough: if Michael A. Brown does run for the at-large seat that Kwame Brown vacates in the spring, the city will have to have yet another special election to fill his seat, which will cost the city about half a million dollars.