D.C. Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) has attracted a number of gay activists to the preliminary stages of his campaign for mayor. (File photo Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
DEMOCRATS: D.C. Boxing & Wrestling Commission Chair Michael Brown; Attorney A. Scott Bolden; Council Chair Linda Cropp (At-large); Councilmember Adrian Fenty (Ward 4); Councilmember Vincent Orange (Ward 5).
(Mayor Anthony Williams has not announced his plans but recent reports suggest that he will not seek another term).
REPUBLICANS: Bob Kabel, the gay leader of the D.C. Republican Party, said the GOP plans to run a candidate but no one has stepped forward to date. D.C. Councilmember Carol Schwartz was the party’s candidate in the three previous elections.
STATEHOOD GREENS: The Statehood Green Party plans to run a candidate but has not identified one yet.
INDEPENDENT: Gay Councilmember David Catania — a former Republican — is reportedly considering a run only if Williams seeks another term.
D.C. voters won’t go to the polls to nominate a mayoral candidate until September 2006, but many of the city’s prominent gay activists are switching their allegiance from Mayor Anthony Williams to District Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) as their favored candidate for mayor next year.
To the disappointment of his supporters, Williams has resisted calls to announce whether he plans to run for a third term. Some political pundits have predicted he won’t run but say he will delay saying so to avoid being labeled as a lame duck.
“Tony Williams was the right person for the right time” when he ran for mayor in 1998 and 2002, said gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, the issues committee chair for each of the mayor’s two campaigns.
“Now, Adrian Fenty is the right person at the right time for this city,” Rosenstein said.
Rosenstein, who has served as an informal Williams adviser, received widespread attention Monday when the Washington Post identified him as one of a number of key Williams backers that have joined Fenty’s recently formed exploratory campaign committee.
While Rosenstein announced his support for Fenty in the past week, he and other local activists say gay Democrats have been switching their support from the Williams camp to Fenty during the past two months, in what some view as a growing trend that went largely unnoticed.
Among the longtime Williams backers who joined the Fenty effort is Clark Ray, a Williams appointee on the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission and a former Williams campaign operative in 2002.
Other gay Democrats who recently joined the Fenty exploratory panel are former Williams fund-raiser Bruce Johnson and ANC commissioners Jim Brandon, Christopher Dyer, and Babak Movahedi.
Darren Glymph, treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club and another Williams backer, also joined the Fenty camp. The Stein Club, a local gay group, has been among the mayor’s strongest allies. Stein Club president David Meadows could not be reached by press time.
The club’s former president, Kurt Vorndran, said he doubts the club would make a mayoral endorsement before next year but said individual club members, like Glympth, would likely join the campaigns of other candidates.
A smaller group of gays has joined the exploratory panel of lobbyist Michael Brown, who is also expected enter the mayoral race, according to gay activist Phil Pannell, who is among Brown’s backers.
Brown is the son of the late Ron Brown, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee and secretary of Commerce during President Clinton’s first term in office. Michael Brown currently serves as chair of the D.C. Boxing & Wrestling Commission and is a member of the board of the Whitman-Walker Clinic.
Catania’s plans unclear
Meanwhile, gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania, who dropped his Republican Party affiliation last year to become an independent, reportedly is considering entering the mayoral race only if Williams becomes the Democratic nominee, sources familiar with Catania have said.
Catania has declined to say publicly whether he plans to run for mayor, despite calls from many of his gay and straight supporters to enter the mayoral race next year.
Catania’s new role as chair of the Council’s Committee on Health is expected to give him a platform to push his longstanding efforts to promote reform in problem-plagued city agencies, especially the city’s AIDS office.
At least two other Democrats — Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5) and attorney A. Scott Bolden, former chair of the D.C. Democratic State Committee — have formed mayoral exploratory committees. Both have been seeking gay support.
Also, Council Chair Linda Cropp is rumored to be considering a run but has not formed an exploratory committee as of yet.
Aside from Williams, who has been a strong supporter of gay civil rights, Fenty has emerged as the potential mayoral contender who has most aggressively courted the gay vote. He has met with many of the city’s gay leaders during the past year.
Like Williams, he said he supports legalizing same-sex marriage but favors holding off on a D.C. gay marriage bill until the atmosphere in Congress becomes less hostile to gay rights.
In a guest column in the Feb. 11 issue of the Washington Blade, Fenty pledged to take a lead role in fighting a voter referendum to ban same-sex marriage in the District if a group of citizens decides to place such a measure on the ballot. Last year, a D.C. resident filed a petition with the elections board to place a gay marriage ban on the ballot but withdrew the petition after the board said it was improperly drafted.
Brown, Bolden, and Orange have also expressed support for gay civil rights, but the three have not been as outspoken on the issue as Williams and Fenty. Last Sunday, Brown and Bolden attended a meeting of the D.C. Coalition, which represents black gays. The two urged the group to get involved in the 2006 mayoral race.
‘A great mayor’
Nearly all of the gay activists who have switched support from Williams to Fenty say they believe Williams won’t seek a third term. While saying Fenty would be best suited for the job of mayor, they continue to praise Williams.
“I think Tony Williams has been a great mayor,” Ray said. “I was a deputy campaign manager in his last campaign. Now, I believe Adrian Fenty will be able to take the city to the next level.”
Rosenstein credits Williams with “bringing the city back” from a state of financial ruin to a state of solid economic growth.
“I have the utmost respect for the mayor,” he said. “I told Adrian that if the mayor doesn’t run, he should base his campaign on the mayor’s legacy.”
Fenty has been a strong opponent of Williams’ plan for a city-financed baseball stadium to serve as home for the Washington Nationals. But like nearly all of his colleagues on the Council, Fenty has been slow to respond to calls by gay activists and gay business owners to change the city’s zoning laws to allow six gay bars and clubs slated to be displaced by the new stadium to move to a new location.
Most of the adult-oriented gay clubs on the unit block of O Street, SE, where the stadium is to be built, would be prohibited from relocating under current zoning laws.
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