(Photo by Ted Eytan)

(Photo by Ted Eytan)

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau has an extra nameplate sitting on her desk in the John A. Wilson Building. The small black sign has Congressman Jason Chaffetz’s name etched on it.

If the Utah congressman and head of the House Oversight Committee is going to act like a local legislator, several councilmembers say, they’ll start treating him like one.

“If he’s going to interfere, he should know how it works here,” Nadeau says. She sent Chaffetz a letter last week inviting him to upcoming performance oversight hearings given his “interest in managing the affairs of the District of Columbia.”

Chaffetz’s most recent move is an attempt to block D.C.’s Death With Dignity bill, which allows doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients. The House mark-up over the disapproval resolution—a rarely successful method of blocking D.C. laws that we’ll almost certainly see invoked more often with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the White House—is scheduled for Monday.

It is the latest in a long line of GOP attacks on D.C.’s autonomy, including policies on abortion, gun control, and discrimination. In years past, Chaffetz has personally gone after D.C.’s medical marijuana program (redundantly) and same-sex marriage.

There’s no senator representing Washingtonians on the Hill and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton does not get a floor vote, leaving our elected leaders with their hands tied.

In inviting Chaffetz to the Wilson Building—where he can use the nameplate that Nadeau personally purchashed—the Ward 1 representative offered to take his seat on the oversight committee. “If it would be helpful, I am happy to serve in the same capacity on your Congressional oversight committee so that residents of the District can have additional, though still unequal, representation,” she wrote in her letter. “It seems only fair, as the District sends the federal government more tax revenue than Utah (more than 21 states, actually) but has no say in how it’s spent.”

Ward 3’s Mary Cheh followed suit a few days later, inviting Chaffetz to sit in on Committee on Transportation and the Environment hearings.

Meanwhile Charles Allen recently called Chaffetz’s office to say his trash hadn’t been picked up, and encouraged others to take their complaints directly to the city’s Congressional overseers. After dozens of Washingtonians dialed in, the Utah representatives changed his office’s phone options to a recording.

The invitations, gentle trolling, and flood of phone calls from angry Washingtonians have not escaped Chaffetz’s notice.

When shown the nameplate by a Washington Post reporter, he took it in stride. “That’s pretty funny. I’m glad they spelled my name right,” Chaffetz told Mike Debonis. “I’m going to show up for a meeting. … I’d like a vote. I’d get one anyway, so you might as well take it now.”

Nadeau says that Chaffetz’s chief of staff responded to the letter and is looking at his schedule to possibly participate in a Council hearing.

Still, there isn’t uniformity among the 13-member D.C. Council as to how to go about fighting Chaffetz and the rest of the GOP’s incursion into local governance. At a breakfast meeting earlier this week, Chairman Phil Mendelson resisted calls for a coordinated strategy.

In a follow up, a spokesperson said “he was not against unity—that was probably the wrong choice of words.” Rather, the chairman is against “uniformity.”

“I don’t want this to work in the sense that Councilmembers MUST go through me,” Mendelson said in an emailed statement. “I disagree with the suggestion that everything should filter through a gatekeeper or be dictated through one person, as opposed to individuals feeling empowered to be creative on their own and to share their ideas.”

Several councilmembers have already been collaborating, including on a coordinated “adopt a rep” social media campaign.

Individually, Ward 3’s Mary Cheh is asking residents to call Republican congressmen in states that have Death With Dignity laws. Allen has organized a #HandsOffDC meeting on Monday in Ward 6 that more than 1,000 people plan to attend. For her part, Nadeau is organizing a “Telephone Town Hall” on Wednesday night that Ward 1 residents can call into to learn “how District residents can resist federal interference with our laws and values.”

The persistent attacks have not escaped notice in Utah.

Republican Damian Kidd announced a bid last week to unseat Chaffetz in the 2018 primary for Utah’s Third Congressional District. He’s already begun attacking the congressman for meddling in D.C.’s affairs and asking residents for feedback.

Nadeau also says that she has been in contact with Republican state senators, whom she declined to name so they could do their work in peace, “to get the message that they prefer [Chaffetz] pay attention to the work his constituents have elected him to do.”

Filed Under: brianne nadeau, dc council, mary cheh,