Photo by Danielle Scruggs

Tomorrow the D.C. Council will gather to select an interim chair to fill the seat vacated by disgraced former council chair Kwame Brown, and it looks like Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) has the votes needed to take over the legislature’s top spot. This morning acting chair Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) circulated legislation that would make Mendelson interim chair and elevate Councilmember Michael Brown (I-At Large) to chair pro tempore, a position currently held by Cheh.

That’s not to say that Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large) isn’t still fighting, but he may already have set his eyes on the bigger prize—the November 6 special election that will serve to fill Brown’s old seat through 2015. Orange told the AP yesterday that no matter what happens tomorrow, he’s in for the special election:

“I have a vision for the legislative body. It revolves around ethics, education, employment and economic development,” Orange said.

Orange also said he intends to run for chairman in November regardless of Wednesday’s outcome, a decision that became easier Monday when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled that candidates in the special election can also appear on the general election ballot in other races. Orange will be running for re-election to his at-large seat, which he also captured in a special election after Brown became chairman.

Unless Orange withdraws from the November general election, he’ll be on the ballot for two different races, which the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics recently ruled is OK since the general and special are separate contests being held on the same day out of convenience and cost-saving. (Orange did tell the Examiner that he hoped the elections could be held on different days, but that could add up to $1 million in city expenses.)

So how does one run for two offices simultaneously? The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance said yesterday that each race has to have its own registered campaign treasurer, meaning that Orange’s At-Large campaign can’t raise money for his chairman bid. (And vice versa.) That being said, Orange—or anyone else in the same situation—is allowed to raise the maximum amount from individuals and corporate contributors for each separate race.

Mendelson has also said that he wants to run in the special election; his current seat isn’t up until 2014. Petitions for other hopeful candidates will be available this Friday, so we’ll start getting a clearer picture of who else running then.