Embattled Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans is facing a federal investigation into allegations of influence peddling, a likely reprimand from his colleagues, and calls for him to step down from the Council’s powerful finance committee.

Now he may have something else to worry about: whether he’s allowed to keep the seat he’s held for almost three decades.

A group of Evans’s constituents say they’re looking to call a vote to recall him from office, using a power written into the city’s charter that gives residents the power to essentially un-elect someone.

“The real message here is that it’s time,” said Adam Eidinger, a Ward 2 resident who has worked on a number of ballot campaigns in the city, including marijuana legalization and repealing the city’s tipped wage. “I believe that he’s committed crimes. He’s lost the public trust, and we shouldn’t have to wait for another election for him to leave.”

Eidinger was referring to allegations surfaced by the District Dig and the Washington Post that Evans may have accepted money from a digital sign company to push legislation on its behalf, and that he used his government email account to solicit clients for a private consulting firm he created. Prior to that, Evans had long worked for two law firms that lobby for clients in D.C., raising concerns about possible conflicts of interest.

A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to a number of private businesses with connections to Evans, and has asked Mayor Muriel Bowser and Evans’s colleagues on the Council to preserve a wide range of communications related to his work and connections to various businesses and lobbying firms in the city.

Evans has apologized to his colleagues and constituents. He did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

According to the city’s charter, calling a recall election requires getting the signature of 10 percent of the registered voters in the targeted official’s district within a six-month period. In Ward 2, that would be roughly 5,200 valid signatures. If those signatures are collected, the D.C. Board of Elections has to call a recall election within 114 days of verifying those signatures. Then, if the official is recalled, another special election must be held 114 days after that. The winner would serve out the remainder of the official’s term.

While recalls have regularly been threatened against elected officials ranging from the mayor to Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, they have rarely been successful.

Bowser, along with former mayors Vincent Gray, Anthony Williams, Sharon Pratt Kelly and Mayor Marion Barry all faced recall campaigns or the threat of them. But none have prevailed; some failed to collect the required number of signatures to get on the ballot and others didn’t even start collecting signatures at all. (Eidinger participated in the recall effort against Williams; he failed to collect enough signatures to call an election.)

No member of the Council has ever been recalled either. The most recent successful recalls involved two ANC commissioners in 2004, one in Ward 1, the other in Ward 4.

Evans, who was first elected to the Council in 1991 and is now its longest-serving member, is up for re-election next year. Even if he were recalled from office, he would still be allowed to stand for re-election.

Eidinger, who is working with Robin Diener, a former president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, says they expect to file the initial paperwork with the Board of Elections next week. He expects the campaign to cost $30,000, and will rely on a mix of volunteers and paid signature gatherers — all from D.C., unlike in past campaigns.

He says that while he found Evans a willing ally on a number of causes, including marijuana legalization, the most recent allegations against the councilmember are a step too far.

“He thinks he’s the only person who can do this job, and he’s not. He’s just holding on to power and his cushy income,” said Eidinger, referring to Evans. “What I love about a recall is that this isn’t about who is opponents are. This is just about his behavior. It’s a referendum on him.”

This story first appeared on WAMU.