Every Friday, local politics geeks wake at the crack of dawn in expectation of that week’s installment of the D.C. Register, the city official compendium of laws that are taking effect, proposed D.C. Council resolutions, and mayoral orders and rules. It’s not particularly exciting reading, but it’s key to knowing exactly what’s happening in your city.

Today, as with every Friday until our eyes fall out, we’ll read the current week’s D.C. Register so you don’t have to, picking out some of the most important and interesting tidbits along the way. We’ll try to make it fun — as fun as reading municipal regulations can be, anyway.

February 4, 2011

Fun Fact of the Week: You know how the District is always called a transient town? Well, legally speaking, that’s not particularly accurate. According to a law signed by Mayor Vince Gray this week related to taxes on hotel rooms, a transient is a person who is here for less than three months at a time. So if you came and went after two years, you weren’t a transient, just, well…we’re not sure what you were. We’re still waiting to see if the D.C. Council dares to codify what being a native Washingtonian means. Also — want to swim in the Potomac legally? Read on.