What's this? Local government issues?

So the Washington Post let Carol Schwartz publish an op-ed column in their paper today, which I suppose was payback for revealing what a loser she and some of her cohorts -- including my councilman Jim Graham -- are. Schwartz drew the Post's ire for her opposition to open government and her preference to keep the voting public unaware of what their elected representatives are actually doing.

You have to remember that Schwartz basically owes her position on the DC council to one of the more egregious violations of Home Rule that Congress foisted upon our little colony when they decided it would look better if we had a mayor and city council rather than a Colonial Governor. You see, in DC, when you have an at-large election (the council contains four at-large members and each election two of those positions are up for grabs), the two top vote getters do not win the posts -- because the winners cannot be from the same party. So she's virtually assured of winning re-election every time she stands because all she has to do is be the largest non-Democratic Party vote-getter.

So she of course owes her political career to circumventing the will of DC voters, and therefore her opposition to open government is understandable. However, her compadres in crime, Jim Graham and Phil Mendelson, have less of an excuse.

Graham tried to pretend he had no idea he was blocking a quorum:

Mr. Graham informed us yesterday that he does not oppose the bill. He explained that he had arrived late at his office on Thursday. "I found Phil [Mendelson] waiting in my office for me, and Carol [Schwartz] arrived minutes later. Both requested to meet with me."

Sniff. What's that I smell? Oh, yeah, it's bullshit. The councilman had been personally informed of the meeting by Vincent Orange. It's pathetic.

I won't even begin to speculate on Phil Mendelson's position. At any rate, when the committee finally had a quorum after several weeks' delay, both Graham and Mendelson voted for the open government bill. I guess it took them a while to see which way the wind blew.