Those Other Scandals
Dear Scandalistas:
The Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, which resulted in his resignation
from Congress in disgrace, is instructive — or should be instructive
— for local politics in DC. The local scandals that we discuss in this
town are solely about money and power, and not about sex, drugs, and
rock and roll, or what is euphemistically called “personal behavior.”
On the national stage, some attempted to defend Weiner by claiming that
the personal behavior of elected officials is irrelevant to their jobs,
and that no matter how badly and disgracefully a public official behaves
in his “private life,” private lives are private matters and should
not be discussed in public. In the Weiner case, that assertion was
thoroughly discredited and was eventually dismissed by both political
parties. In the end, although Weiner’s sexting was originally brought
to light by conservatives and Republicans, he was eventually forced from
office by the disapproval of liberals and Democrats, who let him know
that his behavior shamed him and that, if they were to be seen as
condoning or overlooking it, it would shame them.
That’s not how things work in local politics. Shame doesn’t
operate here, because no elected official shames another. In the 1970’s,
even after Mayor Marion Barry’s drug addiction was obvious to anyone
who met with him, after his public behavior became erratic, his speeches
and thought processes disjointed, his addiction was never reported until
after he was arrested for it. It was gossiped about privately, but not
spoken of publicly. It was considered bad manners to bring it up. More
than thirty years later, we still treat our elected officials with the
same deference, with the same refusal to discuss what everyone knows
about them. After all, we’re so sophisticated that we know that
morality is nothing but bigotry, and that moral disapproval is hate
speech that ought to be criminalized. So even when a “legitimate”
news source has thoroughly investigated and confirmed a nonmonetary
scandal about a local politician, it won’t report on it. The only
whisper of it that will surface publicly is from anonymous commentators
on Internet news sites, and that may or may not be accurate.
But the scandals we pretend not to know about are just as bad as,
sometimes worse than, and just as damaging to our governance as the
scandals we agree to acknowledge publicly.
#####
Yesterday, Valerie Strauss provided a good reminder of one of the
many unspoken scandals — at least unspoken of by councilmembers — in
DC public schools, http://tinyurl.com/3e9nbar:
“The testing scandal looms large over the DC system, even if the
chancellor and the council don’t want to talk about it. The DC
Inspector General is looking into allegations of widespread cheating on
standardized tests, which were raised in a USA Today
investigation. According to the newspaper’s investigation, test
erasures were flagged as outside the norm by an outside contractor at
103 schools at least once since 2008; it focused on Crosby S. Noyes
Education Campus, where big gains on tests were reported during the Rhee
era.
“My colleague Bill Turque just reported that Wayne Ryan, the man
who was principal of Noyes at the time but who then become an
instructional superintendent, has resigned. Ryan did not publicly say
why he was resigning, nor did Henderson. But given that the erasure
investigation is underway, it seems fair for the public to know whether
the resignation was related to the scandal or not. Henderson should tell
us.
“She should also be more transparent about the system’s budget,
both systemwide and individual budgets for local schools. Education
activist Mary Levy, who has monitored the school system’s budgets for
decades, says that it is harder for the public to get information today
than it ever has been. Why doesn’t the council insist that the
chancellor’s office make public financial reports and, as Levy has
suggested, order an audit to make sense out of conflicting data on
budget, expenditures and staffing? It’s time.”
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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The June 19 edition of themail set forth a number of reasons why the
District of Columbia should become a state. First of all, as Vic Miller
discussed, our political system and democracy is very thin. If we were a
state, there would be many more elective offices, including two
senators, a congress person, a governor, twenty-five delegates in the
new state legislature, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, and whatever
officials for other local governmental units that the House of Delegates
shall create. As Michael Bindner discusses, we now have imposed upon us
a number of costs that really should be federally funded, such as
Metropolitan Police Department presidential protection services. If we
were a state, all costs related to the District of Columbia (the area
now called the National Capital Service Area) would be the
responsibility of Congress. If the federal government wanted agencies of
the government of the State of New Columbia to help in certain federal
functions, they would have to negotiate and contract with us, including
paying for such services.
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On Taxes and Budgets
Kesh Ladduwahetty, Forest Hills, keshinil@yahoo.com
I am writing in response to Dan Simond’s post on business taxes [themail,
June 19]. Simond cites the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council’s
(SBE) Business Tax Index for the purpose of shaming DC for our
supposedly highest tax burden on small businesses. SBE judges the best
states for business, as rated by the tax burden, to be South Dakota,
Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, and Washington. The worst supposedly are
California, Maine, Iowa, New York, New Jersey, Maine, and DC.
The errors in this analysis are many. First, the study is based on
nominal tax rates, not effective, rates (typical in right-wing
analyses). CFO Natwar Gandhi has compared DC’s effective tax rates to
our neighbors in the metro area and found that for a typical family
earning more than one hundred thousand dollars, DC rates are effectively
the lowest in the region. Second, taxes should not figure in decisions
to expand a business or hire employees, because these expenses are
largely tax-free. They are business expenses that are subtracted from
revenues and taxes are paid only on the net profits. The only taxes that
have implications in hiring decisions are payroll and unemployment
taxes, and the former is the same for all states. If a small business
owner pays taxes on an income of two hundred thousand dollars, that is
the money left over after she has paid her employees and all other
business expenses. Her two hundred thousand dollars will do no more good
for DC’s economy than the two hundred thousand dollar salary of a
government worker. Finally, the fact that tax rates are not connected to
employment is borne out by the numbers. Four of the seven states on the
bottom of SBE’s list have unemployment rates below the national
average of 9.1 percent: Maine (7.7 percent), Iowa (6.0 percent), New
York (7.9 percent), and Minnesota (6.6 percent). Meanwhile, one of their
five tax darlings, Nevada, has the highest unemployment rate in the
union (12.1 percent), while Washington state is the same as the national
average. Meanwhile, our own District is only slightly above the national
average at 9.8 percent.
If we are to grow a fair economy in DC with good, steady jobs for
everyone who can work, we need to get our facts straight.
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
A Night of Film on Health and Genetics, June
23
Amber Mills, amills@geneticalliance.org
Genetic Alliance is hosting a free mini-film festival called Gene
Screen: A Night of Film on Health and Genetics, this Thursday, June 23,
at 7:30 p.m. at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.
We will be screening seven short films that explore issues that affect
individuals and families with genetic conditions. If you don’t know
someone dealing with these health and genetics issues, you will leave
the event feeling like you do. A Q&A with several of the filmmakers
will take place after the screening. The hotel is located off Metro’s
White Flint stop on the red line. For more information on the event and
the films, visit: http://www.geneticalliance.org/genescreen2011.
If you have any questions, please E-mail genescreen@geneticalliance.org
or call 966-5557, ext. 213.
Genetic Alliance improves health through the authentic engagement of
communities and individuals. In this, our twenty-fifth year, we
celebrate innovation on our journey toward novel partnerships, connected
consumers and smart services.
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Human Rights on the Hill, June 27-July 2
Max Rodriguez, mrodriguez@udc.edu
The tenth Annual Human Rights on the Hill program (http://www.law.udc.edu/event/human_rights)
will take place from Monday, June 27 to Saturday, July 2. The program
will focus primarily on the current state of human rights development in
the US and abroad. The location will be the UDC David A. Clarke School
of Law, Building 39, second floor, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW. The
summer seminar will feature panel presentations from human rights
professionals, law professors, peace activists, NGOs and indigenous
people on topics including the state of four freedoms in the world,
realizing the recommendations in the universal periodic review, US
responsibilities to UN treaty bodies, and climate legislation.
The presentations will take place every ninety minutes, starting at 9
a.m., throughout the day, concluding at 4:30 p.m. daily. And the seventh
annual Human Rights Film Festival will screen documentary films about
our fundamental freedoms each day at noon. The program will culminate in
a celebration on Friday evening as course participants and presenters
join the UDC community at the monthly “Eco/Justice Cafe” featuring
live entertainment, tabling organizations, a presentation by Human
Rights on the Hill course coordinator Joshua Cooper, PhD, and vegetarian
food. The Eco/Justice Cafe will be held in the Firebird Inn on the
B-Level of UDC’s Building 38.
A significant aspect of this advocacy course is participating
actively with the decision-makers in our democracy. For the latest
information on these educational excursions, please E-mail joshuacooperhawaii@gmail.com
or jfl@udc.edu. We look forward to your
participation in this program to create a culture of peace and human
rights. Additional information is available on our web site at http://www.law.udc.edu/event/human_rights.
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Book Talk and Film Screening on Parents’
Power, June 28
Arielle Etienne-Edmonson, atienne@dcvoice.org
Please join us for a double-feature book talk and film screening
about organized communities transforming their public schools to truly
serve neighborhood children and families. The Power of Parent Organizing
for School Reform will be held at Busboys and Poets, 14th and V Streets,
NW, Tuesday, June 28, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Soo Hong, author of a new book that captures the dramatic shifts in
school culture called A Cord of Three Strands: A New Approach to
Parent Engagement in Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2011), will
be joined by two parent organizers from Chicago’s Logan Square
neighborhood Association (LSNA) to discuss how this community organizing
group has redefined parent engagement among African American and Latino
families. Norm Fruchter will introduce and screen Parent Power, a
thirty-five-minute film that chronicles how a local parent action group,
formed to improve a poor-performing elementary school, develops a
regional coalition of similar groups, then designs and helps implement a
teacher mentor program that significantly reduces new teacher attrition
and improves student achievement.
Hosts of the event include DC VOICE, Teaching for Change, Maryland
PIRC, DC PIRC (Multicultural Community Service), Movement Matters, the
National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, and the
Community Foundation for the National Capital Region. The event is free
and open to the public. Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
Food and drinks can be ordered from the Busboys and Poets menu
throughout the event.
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Pre-Court Rally for DC Freedom Fighters June
28
Karen A. Szulgit, FreeDCnow@gmail.com
Attend the pre-court rally for Senator Brown and seven of the “DC41,”
on Tuesday, June 28. Stand up for democracy! Free DC now! The rally will
be held in front of DC Superior Court, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW, 7:45-8:45
a.m., on Tuesday, June 28. Defendants will be available to speak with
the media before they attend the court check-in at 8:00 a.m.
On April 11, the US Capitol Police arrested forty-one citizens,
including the mayor, council chair, five councilmembers, and our US
statehood representative, and charged them with “unlawful assembly —
blocking passage” while protesting the federal budget deal. Three
people, including US Statehood Senator Michael D. Brown (D-DC), were
arrested on April 15 by the US Capitol Police during a DC Emancipation
Day protest and charged with “disorderly conduct — blocking passage.”
Seven members of the “DC 41” and Senator Brown are due back in court
for a status hearing. Each faces an additional charge of failure to obey
a police officer.” Keith Silver, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner,
SMD 6C01, was arrested on April 18 and charged with “unlawful assembly
— blocking passage.” Silver is due back in court for a status
hearing at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 13.
For more info, contact Karen A. Szulgit, FreeDCnow@gmail.com,
232-2500.
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