In the revolving door of what has become D.C. politics, the D.C. City Council chose Councilman Phil Mendelson as interim Council Chair, replacing Kwame Brown who resigned and plead guilty for felony bank charges. Then with a little flames and a lot of fire of the tongues, Councilman Vincent Orange fought for pro tem councilman. Finally, Council woman Yvette Alexander stepped in to remind the members that there must be unity among the City Council in moving the City forward. In the final outcome, as it was in the bag ahead of time, Councilman Michael Brown was voted in as councilman pro tem. But Councilman Orange made known, as if it wasn’t clear before, that he intends to run for City Council Chair in the special election to be held on November 6. With all the recent developments in DC politics, it’s anyone’s guess if there won’t be more resignations. There’s still the pending investigation of Mayor Gray with two of his aides having plead guilty for illegal actions during the Mayor’s campaign. Should anything cause Mayor Gray to resign, Councilman Mendelson would become Mayor. If that were to occur, Mendelson would become the first white mayor since the District of Columbia obtained home rule.
Within blocks of where the fireworks of the DC City Council were taking place, a federal jury was quietly deliberating the fate of baseball’s Roger Clemens, who is charged with lying to Congress about his use of steroids. Clemens trial has been overshadowed by other high profile trials of John Edwards and Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky. And it’s hard to believe anyone is really concerned about the time, effort and money invested in the Roger Clemens trial. Two jurors were released earlier for sleeping during the trial. And one juror appeared to be asleep during closing arguments by the defense attorney. That juror was allowed to stay. They’re running out of jurors. There is only one alternate juror remaining. The jury will not convene on Friday but start deliberations again on Monday. While it’s too early to tell when a verdict will be coming, it seems that the jury will be deliberating for a while–if they can stay awake.
Washington, DC based Debbie Hines is a former prosecutor and founder of LegalSpeaks, a progressive blog on women and race in law and politics. As a legal and political commentator she has appeared in national and local media including the Michael Eric Dyson Show, NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates, RT TV, CBC- Canadian TV, NPR, XM Sirius radio, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Black Enterprise among others. She also writes for the Huffington Post.
Leave a Reply