DC mayor stares down campaign finance allegations in re-election bid

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Perhaps it was a sign of the trouble he finds himself in that the scandal-ridden mayor of Washington felt it necessary this week to call on a former D.C. mayor who knows a little something about scandals.

As a fragile Marion Barry, the 78-year-old city council member and former four-term mayor, was helped onto the stage at Matthews Memorial Baptist Church and led the audience in a rousing chant of “power to the people,” Mayor Vince Gray entered in through a side door.

“I think I’ll just stay down here,” Gray joked to a supporter.

Barry — still a beloved figure in much of the city despite his infamous arrest and imprisonment on cocaine possession charges while in the mayor’s office — went on to endorse Gray. Barry said that he had pulled himself out of a hospital bed after battling a blood infection because of the urgency of the cause.  

“There have been some allegations made about Vince Gray,” Barry told the crowd, with all the authority of a man who went on to describe himself as “the most popular elected official in the city.”  

“I know Vince Gray is a man of integrity. I know Vince Gray is not about taking taxpayer money. I know Vince Gray isn’t about breaking the law.”

Barry added, “You know I know how the U.S. attorney works,” an apparent reference to his own troubles with federal prosecutors in the 1990s. “I know their tactics.”

Gray’s troubles are of a different variety. Two weeks before Washington voters go to the polls in the April 1 Democratic primaries — likely anointing the next mayor in this heavily Democratic city — Gray is embroiled in a federal investigation of an illegal effort that funneled $653,000 in unreported funds to his 2010 mayoral bid.

In a plea bargain with the U.S. attorney announced last week, Jeffrey Thompson, the city contractor who was the source of the off-the-books contributions, said Gray and his campaign knew about and helped orchestrate “the shadow campaign” and subsequently granted favors beneficial to Thompson’s businesses.

Gray maintains that he knew nothing of the illegal activity and Thompson is lying to bargain with prosecutors for a lesser prison sentence. Nonetheless, two of Gray’s former campaign aides have already pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

But in a measure of the complexity of politics in a racially and socioeconomically divided city, the campaign activities in question — the first details of which came to light more than two years ago — have not managed to end Gray’s political career. Despite calls for his resignation, he has managed to hold on to office and seek re-election.

Moreover, a NBC poll released earlier this month showed Gray leading a crowded field, with the support of 28 percent of those surveyed; Councilwoman Muriel Bowser followed, with 20 percent. In the closing days of the race, however, it is possible that those opposing Gray will coalesce around a single candidate.

Gray’s supporters appeared torn this week, faced with the choice of buoying a sitting mayor who may very well be indicted before the general election or opposing one who they believe has finally given neglected parts of the city the attention and resources residents have long sought.

Jackie Ward is a 55-year-old resident of Ward 8, which has struggled with unemployment and poverty throughout the last decade. She said she is evaluating the mayor on results, pointing to new economic development, increased home values and more units of affordable housing in her neighborhood as measures of his success.

“He’s the only person that has actually done some projects in Ward 8,” she said. “People would come across here and promise us this and that, the third and the fourth, and never actually did anything.”

“Whether they are true or not, I do not know,” Ward said of the allegations against Gray. “For now, I am very comfortable supporting Vince Gray.”

He won election in 2010 with strong support among African-Americans and was boosted by disillusionment with then-mayor Adrian Fenty, whom many saw catering to D.C. yuppies rather than alleviating the plight of depressed communities.

That disaffection can still be seen in the city’s politics.

“The proof is in the pudding,” said Joanne Dove, 65, another Gray supporter and Ward 8 resident. “He is doing things for the people that other candidates talk about … He knows the city has to help the parts of the city that have been overlooked for years.”

Likewise, Gerald Simms, 40, a construction worker, said he is disregarding the accusations of criminal activity and focusing on Gray’s record.

“He’s a good man. Regardless of what he went through, he did support D.C. and Ward 8 and any other ward,” he said. “I try to block all that other stuff out.”

John Boardman, executive secretary–treasurer of Local 25 of Unite Here, a union representing hotel workers that has endorsed Gray, said the most recent headlines haven’t changed his calculus either.

“We supported the mayor because he has a vision for the city that includes hotel workers, and that has not changed. The information that was revealed last week in the prosecutor’s press conference is, by and large, not new information,” he said. “Those allegations have not affected his commitment to our union.”

Luckily for Gray loyalists, this week the mayor remained defiant, saying he would stay in the race through the general election, even if indicted.

“My priority at the highest level is to make sure that we are one city,” Gray said, referring to a campaign theme. “One city is not everybody getting along with one another. That’s mindless. One city to me is that, irrespective of where you live, geography shouldn’t define your future.”