Local
Graham faces reprimand by D.C. Council
Gay Council member files lawsuit challenging ethics board
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) (Washington Blade photo by Jeff Surprenant)
D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) introduced a resolution on Thursday calling for the Council to reprimand gay Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) on grounds that he violated a Council ethics rule in 2008 over dealings with a Metro and lottery contract.
Mendelson scheduled a special Council meeting for Monday, Feb. 25, to discuss and vote on his nine-page reprimand resolution.
In a separate action, Mendelson said he plans to remove from Graham’s Council committee assignment responsibilities for overseeing the city’s alcoholic beverage regulatory agencies.
Meanwhile, Graham’s attorneys on Thursday morning filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court challenging the legal authority of the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability to issue a finding last month alleging that Graham violated the city’s code of conduct over the contract matter.
Mendelson’s resolution seeking a Council reprimand is based, in part, on the findings of the ethics board that Graham breached city ethics rules.
In addition to the lawsuit, Graham’s attorneys filed separate motions asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction ordering the ethics board to withdraw its ruling on Graham until its legality is determined by the court.
Mendelson’s resolution cites findings by three separate entities, including the Board of Ethics and Government Responsibility, that Graham breached the city’s code of conduct by allegedly attempting to pressure a businessman into withdrawing a bid for a Metro development contract in exchange for Graham’s support for the businessman receiving a D.C. lottery contract.
Graham has denied he interfered with the contract approval process. He has said he made it clear he favored another company for the Metro contract but said his preference was based on sound evidence the company he favored was better qualified to carry out the contract.
“Councilmember Graham’s actions constitute a clear violation of Council Rule 202(a), which requires that, as a Councilmember, he ‘maintain a high level of ethical conduct’ and ‘refrain from taking, ordering, or participating in any official action that would adversely affect the confidence of the public on the integrity of the District government,” Mendelson’s proposed resolution says.
“To maintain the confidence of the public in the integrity of the legislative branch of government, the Council expresses disapproval of the conduct of Councilmember Jim Graham as detailed in this resolution, and hereby reprimands Councilmember Jim Graham for affecting adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of government in violation of D.C. Official Code…”
Graham’s office released a statement from one of his attorneys saying the lawsuit filed on Thursday asserts that the ethics board issued its ruling against Graham without legal authority.
The board “had no basis to issue the findings and pronounce judgment against our client without granting him a chance to be heard, allowing him to review and challenge the evidence to which we were denied access, and conducting a full adversary hearing,” attorney Caroline Mehta said in the statement.
“The Board violated the law and its own rules,” she said. “This is not the ethics process that the Council sought to put into place, nor is it one whose decisions are worthy of respect or weight.”
She added, “Today we filed for relief and are confident that the court will agree that the Board acted lawlessly and denied Councilmember Graham basic fairness and due process.”
In its 38-year history, the D.C. Council has handed down a reprimand to just one Council member – Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), the city’s former mayor. In 2010, an internal Council investigation found that Barry improperly awarded contracts from his office based on favoritism rather than merit.
Council observers said the court doesn’t have authority to prevent the Council from reprimanding Graham, regardless of how it rules on whether the ethics board acted legally in its ruling against Graham.
District of Columbia
Mayor Bowser signs bill requiring insurers to cover PrEP
‘This is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS’
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on March 20 signed a bill approved by the D.C. Council that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
Like all legislation approved by the Council and signed by the mayor, the bill, called the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act, was sent to Capitol Hill for a required 30-day congressional review period before it takes effect as D.C. law.
Gay D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) last year introduced the bill.
Insurance coverage for PrEP drugs has been provided through coverage standards included in the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But AIDS advocacy organizations have called on states and D.C. to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP as a safeguard in case federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
Like legislation passed by other states, the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act requires insurers to cover all PrEP drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Studies have shown that PrEP drugs, which can be taken as pills or by injection just twice a year, are highly effective in preventing HIV infection.
“I think this is a win for our community,” Parker said after the D.C. Council voted unanimously to approve the bill on its first vote on the measure in February. “And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
District of Columbia
Blade editor to be inducted into D.C. Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame
Kevin Naff marks 24 years with publication this year
Longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff will be inducted into D.C.’s Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame in June, the group announced this week.
Hall of Fame honorees are chosen by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter. Naff and two other inductees — Seth Borenstein, a Washington-based national science writer for the AP and Cheryl W. Thompson, an award-winning correspondent for National Public Radio — will be celebrated at the chapter’s Dateline Awards dinner on Tuesday, June 9, at the National Press Club. The dinner’s emcee will be Kojo Nnamdi, host of WAMU radio’s weekly “Politics Hour.”
“I am tremendously honored by this recognition,” Naff said. “I have spent a lifetime in the D.C. area learning from so many talented journalists and am humbled to be considered in their company. Thank you to SPJ and to all the LGBTQ pioneers who came before me who made this possible.”
Naff joined the Blade in 2002 after years in print and digital journalism. He worked as a financial reporter for Reuters in New York before moving to Baltimore in 1996 to launch the Baltimore Sun’s website. He spent four years at the Sun before leaving for an internet startup and later joining the mobile data group at Verizon Wireless working on the first generation of mobile apps.
He then moved to the Blade and has served as the publication’s longest-tenured editor. In 2023, Naff published his first book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include luminaries in journalism like Wolf Blitzer, Benjamin Bradlee, Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and Edgar Allen Poe. The Blade’s senior news reporter Lou Chibbaro Jr. was inducted in 2015.
Maryland
Supreme Court ruling against conversion therapy bans could affect Md. law
Then-Gov. Larry Hogan signed statute in 2018
By PAMELA WOOD, JOHN-JOHN WILLIAMS IV, and MADELEINE O’NEILL | The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled against a law banning “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ kids in Colorado, a ruling that also could apply to Maryland’s ban on the discredited practice.
An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide whether it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
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