Photo by AlephNull

Earlier this week, we reported that D.C. police have been arresting drivers with expired registrations, which prompted Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) to write a letter to Mayor Vince Gray requesting that he look into the practice. Gray then introduced legislation to end it, days after D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown announced his intent to modify the law. Now, Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police’s Metropolitan Police Department Labor Committee, argues that the only reason the law may be changed is because Gray and Brown have “made themselves vulnerable to political pressure from both inside and outside the District.” Last year, Baumann points out, the law received media coverage after a Maryland mother was taken to a D.C. jail for driving with expired license plates. Neither Gray nor Brown suggested that the law be reviewed. From Baumann’s Washington Post op-ed:

This week, D.C. residents learned firsthand the consequences of having their elected political leaders mired in scandal and facing possible criminal indictments. The lesson arrived in an unlikely manner: out of the debate over arresting the operators of vehicles with expired registrations.

This issue was raised last year. Despite heavy media coverage, however, neither D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown nor Mayor Vincent C. Gray, both of them serving on the D.C. Council at the time, suggested that the District’s long-established law should be reviewed, let alone changed. What a difference a year makes.

Then on Aug. 6, Fox5 ran another story on the subject, along with a considerable bit of rhetoric from AAA Mid-Atlantic. Other news outlets, including the Post, covered the story. Within a week, both Gray and Brown were pushing changes to the law. What changed? Both the mayor and the chairman are now under federal investigation and potentially face indictment. That makes them both politically weak, vulnerable and susceptible to pressure.