jonetta rose barras: A gang of spoilers in DC’s election includes the council chair

It was a breathtaking revelation: In a clear violation of local ethics laws, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson used government resources, including equipment and staff, as he engaged in prohibited political campaign activities in his office at the John A. Wilson Building. As the leader of the legislative branch for more than 12 years and an at-large councilmember before that, he helped write and oversee passage of laws and rules he knowingly broke. 

More specifically, Mendelson used Eric Rogers and other campaign workers, along with his treasurer, Ben Young — a lobbyist and managing director of Georgetown Public Affairs, which he co-founded with former at-large DC councilmember and political powerhouse David Catania — to develop and implement a plan to challenge the validity of the ballot-qualifying petitions submitted by Jack Evans, the former Ward 2 representative who resigned in 2020 under his own ethics cloud. He was perceived as Mendelson’s most viable opponent. 

The entire scenario amounts to a political version of Peyton Place or Succession, filled with all the messy intrigue inherent in the genre. Who among the cast of characters would benefit most from knocking Mendelson’s main challenger off the June 16 Democratic primary ballot? Most folks can probably hazard a guess.

The public might not have learned about Mendelson’s scheme were it not for the fact that inside the package of challenge documents submitted to the DC Board of Elections was a March 30 memorandum signed by Alana Boisvert as campaign manager, although she reportedly had already stepped down from that role by then. She advised everyone that the sitting chair and leader of the legislature was “planning to print out” more than 440 petition sheets “at his office” in the “John A. Wilson Building.” And just in case anyone was confused about the location, the address “1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW” was also included in the memo. 

In the wake of news reports and Evans’ demand for action from several entities — including the Elections Board, the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, and the U.S. attorney for DC — an investigation was opened by the DC Office of Campaign Finance, according to a letter sent by its general counsel, William Sanford.

Who knows whether the other agencies will fulfill their obligation to ensure elected officials follow DC laws?

I keep returning to a basic question: Why? Mendelson has yet to return my telephone calls.

Why would an incumbent with more cash than his opponent and a stronger campaign organization feel compelled to devise such an ethically questionable strategy? Did he perceive himself substantially vulnerable? 

Equally important, why does the city’s Elections Board continue to operate a gangland system that allows any person to challenge a candidate for office, upending the activities of the targeted campaign committees and forcing them to spend untold hours and cash fighting the process?

Truth be told, that last question has plagued me for years. Each election the problem seems to scream more loudly for attention and reform.

This year, James Harnett, a former Ward 2 advisory neighborhood commissioner, filed challenges to petitions submitted by six candidates. Two of the challenges were withdrawn, according to information that appears on the Elections Board website. A preliminary review of another had already determined that the candidate did not qualify, rendering Harnett’s opposition “moot.” 

I was unable to contact Harnett to ask him about his motivation.

Joe Bishop-Henchman was even more baffling and prodigious with his challenges, having contested the qualifying petitions of almost a dozen candidates. Why has he invested time and energy to prevent so many candidates from participating in the process that is the lifeblood of democracy and the American republic? 

I called and emailed Bishop-Henchman, who is an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 5, asking a version of that question and requesting an interview, hoping I might learn the reason for his actions. 

“As a lawyer whose practice includes representation before the Board of Elections, I also represent candidates but that is less publicly reported,” Bishop-Henchman replied in an email to me. He did not respond to my request to talk, which I took as a decline.

However, he provided a brief summary of his various challenges, one of which he filed against Evans’ campaign. He noted that Evans filed 2,843 signatures to qualify for the primary ballot; if correct, that was 843 more than required, but Bishop-Henchman wrote that more than half of the total submission was “invalid.”

That analysis seemed to replicate the one offered by Mendelson’s campaign — suggesting that Mendelson’s sin may not have been deciding to challenge Evans, but rather violating the city’s ethics laws in pursuit of his goal and thereby triggering a campaign finance investigation. 

After candidates submit their petitions, the Elections Board is technically responsible for reviewing those documents for compliance with legal requirements. However, in practice, it relies heavily on the public — people like Harnett and Bishop-Henchman, for example — to do the work of reading each sheet, line by line, during the 10-day challenge period. The Elections Board notifies candidates and subsequently schedules pre-hearing conferences between the challenger and the challenged. 

Elections Board spokesperson Sarah Graham refused to provide me copies of the challenges filed by Harnett, Bishop-Henchman and others; she also refused to provide me their email contacts and addresses. She told me I would have to file a request under the Freedom of Information Act. 

“However, phone numbers and email addresses are withheld pursuant to DC Official Code § 2–534(a)(2) as that information is of a personal nature and its public disclosure constitutes an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy,” Graham wrote in her email response to my questions.

She said the Elections Board had yet to schedule dates for challenge hearings. “The deadline to resolve them is Monday, April 20. 

“Pre-hearing conferences regarding challenges are not public hearings,” Graham added.

The DC government has become a massive covert operation, financed using taxpayers’ money.

Graham did not respond to my question about whether Elections Board Chair Gary Thompson intended to invalidate Mendelson’s challenge to Evans’ campaign as sought by Evans and others, including mayoral candidate Vincent Orange.

”This is not a paperwork dispute. It is an integrity crisis,” Orange wrote in a statement he released after news of Mendelson’s violation.

“If the Chairman of the Council is using public resources in a ballot fight against his own opponent, the issue is no longer merely who qualifies for the ballot. The issue is whether the public can trust the person holding the gavel,” Orange continued. 

He argued that any challenge arising from Mendelson’s misconduct was “fruit of the poisonous tree. It is tainted at the source. It cannot be laundered into legitimacy through excuses, spin, or after-the-fact regret. A challenge born of apparent misuse of public resources should be withdrawn immediately.”

Orange added that, in his view, “if Mendelson didn’t withdraw the petition” his only other option would be “to resign as chairman.”

Interestingly Orange also had his petitions challenged. However, the Elections Board determined that Melodie Shuler had not properly followed the law in her filings against multiple Democratic mayoral candidates, including Orange and Gary Goodweather. (Shuler is contesting the board’s decision in court.)

“When I’m mayor, I am going to ensure that good, different candidates with different skill sets, expertise [and] experience have a viable chance, opportunity to run. This system is designed to keep people out,” Goodweather told me earlier this week when I asked his opinion about the challenge process. My interview with him was primarily about his campaign and his vision for the city should he win his bid to become mayor.

Goodweather added that his affiliation with the Democratic Party brings certain privileges in the District. However, for someone who isn’t a member of the city’s dominant political party, “It’s really hard to be enfranchised.” Further, for someone undertaking a political campaign without a call list, or access to organizations that might assist with fundraising, it is “very difficult to qualify for the Fair Elections Program.”

“I am the first candidate in DC’s history to qualify for [the program] at the mayoral level having never held public office,” Goodweather continued. “There’s just a lot of things that still need to be fixed in our DC electoral system.” 

Let’s all say amen.

There is the fact that the term for Thompson, the Elections Board chair, expired in July 2024 — nearly two years ago. He has not been renominated, which may be an indication of his standing in either the executive or legislative branch. 

Evans and others are relying on Thompson to decide whether to throw out Mendelson’s challenge — and to decide on the validity of any other challenges that reach the board, for that matter. 

Help us! DC needs a new elections leader — quick, fast, in a hurry.

Actually, it needs to completely ditch the current challenge process and place the full responsibility for determining whether a candidate is eligible for the ballot on the Elections Board and its staff — not ordinary voters or citizens, and not political opponents. 

And while I am no fan of using public money for elections, the Fair Elections Program — as Goodweather has correctly assessed — requires serious changes if it is going to offer an entry for a new generation of bright, savvy and adept politicians.

Meanwhile, Mendelson has said he made a “mistake.” What exactly was the mistake he’s acknowledging? Was it that he used government resources to prepare the challenge? Or was it deploying Rogers as his surrogate to do the dirty work of challenging his chief opponent? Was his mistake surrounding himself with people who didn’t know to refrain from putting their strategy on paper for it to be read by others including news reporters?

Mark all of the above — although it may be that Mendelson would choose the latter. Boisvert’s departure as campaign manager and paid staffer gives Mendelson a convenient scapegoat as he seeks to put the entire episode behind him.

He may just be successful in that effort. During a council administrative meeting on Tuesday, there was no mention of last week’s ethics violation. Mendelson offered no apology to his colleagues. If that’s because he was drawing a bright line between official business and political activity, he decided to do so rather belatedly.

Call this yet another palpable erosion of clean and honest government, as District officials continue their quiet adoption of Donald Trump-era politics where the ends always justify the means — and personal ambitions prevail above all.

This post has been updated to clarify references to Alana Boisvert, formerly DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson’s campaign manager, and petition challenges filed by Melodie Shuler.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.