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D.C. mayor signs same-sex ‘marriage’ legislation Unitarian Universalist pastor Rob Hardies poses for a picture with Mayor Adrian Fenty. Credit: All Souls Church. Washington D.C., Dec 19, 2009 / 06:57 am (CNA).- Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington, D.C., has signed a measure recognizing same-sex “marriage” in the District. The law has been criticized for redefining marriage and also for its lack of strong religious freedom protections for those who do not approve of such unions.Fenty signed the measure at the Unitarian Universalist All Souls Church in the northwest part of the District.In his remarks at the signing, provided to CNA...

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty will sign legislation Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in the District at a bill-signing ceremony so historic that his staff scrambled to find the perfect location Thursday. Would it be All Souls Unitarian Church, a Northwest house of worship known for its diversity, liberalism and welcoming of same-sex couples? Would it be Covenant Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in Southwest where husband-and-wife team of Dennis and Christine Wiley serve as co-pastors and support gay marriage? Or would it be a secular site? Late in the day, Katie Loughary, executive director at All Souls, said it...

Congress appears likely to keep the D.C. voucher program closed to new students but open to current ones, curtailing the hopes of advocates who had pressed for a full revival of the controversial program. The news is buried deep within a thousand-page omnibus spending bill released Monday by a joint conference of House and Senate Appropriations Committee members. The proposal allocates $13.2 million to vouchers and would tighten accountability measures for schools that participate in the program, which provides low-income D.C. students with up to $7,500 to attend private schools. Bringing further upheaval to the program, the Washington Scholarship Fund,...

RICHMOND | The governors of Virginia and Maryland, both Catholics, said Tuesday that it would be wrong for the church to suspend or reduce social services in the nation's capital if the District approves gay marriage. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley criticized the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington's response to the District's gay marriage proposal during a joint appearance on Washington radio station WTOP. The D.C. Council is expected to approve gay marriage next month. The archdiocese says that unless the proposal is amended to add a religious exemption, its Catholic Charities won't be able to continue...

The D.C. Council introduced a marriage equality bill on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009. Public hearings were held on Oct. 26 and Nov. 2 and supporters of marriage for same-sex couples significantly outnumbered those who testified against it. The full Council is expected to take an initial vote on Dec. 1 with a final vote by the end of the year.

WASHINGTON - D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's use of government resources to facilitate his recreational activities isn't limited to a police escort while he trains with his bike team. The mayor has used a federal Homeland Security vehicle to transport himself and his bike to at least 14 races in the past two years. The District's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency has two large SUVs, which are detailed to the city from the U.S. Government Services Administration. According to records obtained by WTOP through the Freedom of Information Act, the mayor's Executive Protection Unit has signed out one or both...

Attorney General Eric Holder tries to kill a TV ad supporting D.C. school vouchers. President Obama isn't taking kindly to a television ad that criticizes his opposition to a popular scholarship program for poor children, and his administration wants the ad pulled. Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of D.C. Children First said October 16 that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had recently approached him and told him to kill the ad. The 30-second ad, which has been airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and News Channel 8 to viewers in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, urges the president to reauthorize the...

Kevin Chavous is an African American and former Democratic city council member from Washington, D.C. He says he’s an Obama supporter, but he is distinctly unhappy with the president. Elections may have consequences, but no one expected that the White House would be so brazenly petty as to allow poor minority children in the nation’s worst school district to become the victims of political score-settling. That’s exactly what happened when the Obama administration killed off the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program several months ago. Of course, if the White House thought that it could pay off the powerful teachers’ unions, and...

The D.C. Council voted Tuesday to block Ximena Hartsock from becoming the next director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, aggravating the tension between the council and the mayor and casting fresh doubt on the future of the troubled agency. After a long debate, the council voted 7 to 5 to reject Hartsock and remove her as the head of an agency that has had seven permanent or interim directors in the past decade. It was the first time since Fenty took office in 2007 that the council had rejected one of his nominees ...The vote followed a contentious...

A massive layoff of teachers and support staff at D.C. public schools triggered chaos outside of McKinley High School Friday afternoon. The melee happened after school let out, as students and parents filled McKinley's parking. Many were upset about the layoffs of 388 school employees, including 229 teachers. "The students were emotional, you know, they were upset to see their teachers being escorted by the police officers, knowing that they did nothing," said Saymendy Lloyd, a parent activist. "Why do you choose to do it at the time the children are out there and you do not expect to have...

A key circuit on the train track near Monday's derailment in Washington, D.C., was apparently not operating as it should have been, raising the possibility that the Metro train that crashed into another one may not have known to slow down, accident investigators said today. Investigators tested six circuits between the two stations where the crash occurred. Five of those performed as expected, according to National Transportation Safety Board investigator Deborah Hersman. Such circuits let trains know how fast to go and provide them with information about whether there's another train up ahead. But one circuit showed what Hersman described...

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, following through on promises to dismiss teachers deemed ineffective, has fired about 250 tenured and novice instructors this week for poor performance or failure to obtain a license, union officials said yesterday.... The dismissal of 80 tenured teachers is a landmark of sorts for the school system, which historically has fired only a handful of instructors each year for poor performance. ...

WASHINGTON - D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to travel out of town, keeping his whereabouts a secret from the public. A spokesperson for Fenty refused to say where the mayor is today, whether or not he's in the country, or how long he will be gone. Even people close to Fenty aren't aware of his travel schedule. Fenty's spokesperson Mafara Hobson wrote that the mayor is on a "personal trip" and declined to answer any other questions. Fenty recently returned from an undisclosed trip to the Middle East. When asked by WTOP, Fenty said the trip was "basically a family...

The District has installed a heater at the East Potomac Pool, the outdoor aquatics facility Mayor Adrian M. Fenty sometimes uses to train for triathlons. Out of the city's 19 outdoor pools, it's the only one that has received the upgrade, which cost $75,000. John Stokes, a spokesman for the Department of Parks and Recreation, said the installation is "part of an extended outdoor pool-season pilot." He said the city is hoping to "maximize and expand pool services for District swimmers" at its premier pools: East Potomac, Banneker and Anacostia.

Fighting to save the District's popular school-voucher program, some 1,000 parents, pupils and politicians gathered near Mayor Adrian Fenty's office on Wednesday to protest Congress' plans to end school choice in Washington. That same day, the Senate approved a $4,500 voucher for cars, encouraging citizens to trade in their old automobiles for newer ones that burn less fuel. So, Congress thinks that vouchers for schools are bad, but vouchers for cars are good. Slashing school vouchers spares teachers' unions from competition. On the other hand, car vouchers are supposed to boost demand for cars built by the United Auto Workers....

Mayor Adrian Fenty continues to travel out of town, keeping his whereabouts a secret from the public. A spokesperson for Fenty refused to say where the mayor is today, whether or not he's in the country, or how long he will be gone. Even people close to Fenty aren't aware of his travel schedule. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who is first in the line of succession to the mayor and the second-highest ranking elected official in town, is in the dark. Fenty recently returned from an undisclosed trip to the Middle East. When asked by WTOP, Fenty said the...

Supporters of a celebrated school voucher program in Washington rallied near the mayor's office Wednesday to save the scholarships from being slashed by Congress -- nearly 40 percent of whose members send their own children to private schools. An estimated 1,000 parents, children and community leaders attended the afternoon protest in Washington's Freedom Plaza, where they called on D.C. politicians to help preserve a federal school choice program that currently assists more than 1,700 students with scholarships worth up to $7,500. "Several years ago many of us in this good city worked very hard to get a program going with...

Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the struggling public school system in the District of Columbia, has already won bi-partisan admiration for her energetic and innovative efforts to shake up one of the most troubled educational establishments in the country. Now she deserves further plaudits for her courageous clarity on the issue of vouchers. Most public education bureaucrats reflexively oppose vouchers as a threat to their monopoly, denouncing any use of government funds to allow poor children to choose parochial or private school alternatives to failing neighborhood schools. Ms. Rhee, however, fearlessly spoke up against efforts by Congressional Democrats to kill a...

Democrats are taking away funding for DC area kids

Democrats are once again proving that "choice" as it relates to children applies only to killing them, not to parents choosing where to educate them. Sorry, but for pro-choice politicians to argue against school choice shows that they care only about the teachers unions that elect them, and not for the lives of the people they represent. The Washington Post called congressional democrats on their hypocrisy in an editorial today: REP. DAVID R. Obey (Wis.) and other congressional Democrats should spare us their phony concern about the children participating in the District's school voucher program. If they cared for the...

Government Spending: Did anyone really think $787 billion would be enough to quench the Democratic Congress' thirst for play money from the taxpayers? Now they want $410 billion more.In addition to solar water heaters for rural Puerto Rico and the Raul Alvarez Golf Course in Austin, Texas, Obama administration sources say the U.S. is also planning to relieve taxpayers of $900 million for Gaza, much of which can be expected to land in the pockets of the terrorist group Hamas, which runs the region. To a family being foreclosed on, or a businesswoman forced by tough times to close up...

Boehner Condemns Provision Tucked in Democrats’ Secret $410 Billion Spending Bill to Kill D.C. School Choice Program Language Designed to Eliminate Program Was Kept Secret by Democratic Congressional Leaders for Weeks, Never Passed by Committee Washington, Feb 23House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today condemned a provision tucked into Congressional Democrats’ $410 billion “omnibus” spending bill that would phase out the District of Columbia’s groundbreaking school choice program, which has provided educational opportunities for thousands of inner-city children since it was established with bipartisan support in 2004. Boehner issued the following statement: “The D.C. school choice program has provided hope...

WASHINGTON (AP) — While senators worked into the night on an economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama could sit back and relax — if only for a couple of hours — to observe a popular dance theater group at the Kennedy Center. Though it was announced earlier in the day the president would attend, the Obamas picked the right moment to reward themselves with the show. They left around a flurry of news that lawmakers had reached a deal on a stimulus measure at the heart of the president's plan for reviving the economy. The Obamas were accompanied by Attorney...

WASHINGTON - From the steam grates of Pennsylvania Avenue to the porticoes of the city's grand buildings, homeless Washingtonians who live inside the nation's tightest security zone are being encouraged to decamp during the inauguration for shelters in the city's outer neighborhoods. The security sweeps will probably begin Monday. Buses will make one-way trips to two of the District's largest shelters, which will remain open round-the-clock, said D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6). "Everyone has to be out of the perimeter by then," Wells said.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2009 – Operation Gratitude, a troop-support group, is joining forces with Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and thousands of volunteers from across the country on Jan. 19’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday to assemble care kits for servicemembers deployed overseas. The effort, called "A Day of Service for Our Military," allows for people to show their support and express their appreciation to those in the military, organizers said. “We are thrilled to partner in this event, as this is a great way to introduce more Americans to the great work of Operation Gratitude and...

By Mary Beth Sheridan Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 22, 2008 Officials are casting doubt on an early projection that 4 million to 5 million people could jam downtown Washington on Inauguration Day, saying it is more likely that the crowd will be about half that size. D.C. authorities said the earlier estimates, provided by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), were based on speculation surrounding the historic nature of the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's first African American president. After weeks of checking with charter bus companies, airlines and other sources, they're reassessing. "It's more of an...

A key D.C. councilwoman expressed concern Wednesday about a new executive order from Mayor Adrian Fenty that appears to grant Police Chief Cathy Lanier broad authority to issue subpoenas. The order, signed quietly by Fenty last month and posted on the city’s Web site last week, gives the chief the power to probe “any municipal matter” and allows Lanier to delegate her subpoena power “to her subordinates.” Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, a constitutional law professor and former prosecutor, wrote a letter Wednesday to Fenty, asking him to explain the order. “I have grave concerns over the prospect that this...

As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms. During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent...

In 11th grade, Allante Rhodes spent 50 minutes a day in a Microsoft Word class at Anacostia Senior High School in Washington. He was determined to go to college, and he figured that knowing Word was a prerequisite. But on a good day, only six of the school's 14 computers worked. He never knew which ones until he sat down and searched for a flicker of life on the screen. "It was like Russian roulette," says Rhodes, a tall young man with an older man's steady gaze. If he picked the wrong computer, the teacher would give him a handout....

Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee told the D.C. Council yesterday that the District needs to completely rethink its approach to preventing school violence, with a better trained security force but also by teaching students to manage conflicts before they spiral out of control. Rhee spoke to the council a day after fights among rival groups at Anacostia High School left five students injured, including three with stab wounds. Flooding school corridors with more police or private security guards is not the answer, she said. Students feel less safe in schools filled with guards, she said, and dollars are better invested in...

Chancellor Michelle Rhee told the DC Council yesterday that the District needs to completely rethink its approach to preventing school violence, with a better trained security force but also by teaching students to manage conflicts before they spiral out of control. Rhee spoke to the council a day after fights among rival groups at Anacostia High School left five students injured, including three with stab wounds. Flooding school corridors with more police or private security guards is not the answer, she said. Students feel less safe in schools filled with guards, she said, and dollars are better invested in teaching...

Today Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, joined by members of the Council of the District of Columbia and Acting Attorney General Peter J. Nickles introduced new emergency and temporary legislation to further amend the District’s firearms laws. “This new legislation is the second step in the process to do all that we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. “These actions will continue to protect our citizens from gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment.” “We believe that any legitimate concerns by Congress on District gun laws should satisfied by the new laws,” said Acting Attorney General...

Michelle Rhee, Take 1Michelle Rhee, Take 2

It did not take long for Summer Spencer to learn how highly her boss, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, valued the D.C. summer youth jobs program. Shortly after she was hired last year to run the city's employment agency, Fenty (D) gave her a directive: Turn no student away. To the mayor, the work-training program was a linchpin in his bid to improve the education system and decrease crime. (snip) But over the past several weeks, Fenty's push to rapidly expand the program has backfired, with a $31 million cost overrun and organizational chaos resulting in one of the most high-profile...

Back on July 18, I followed 2nd Amendment case plaintiff Dick Heller to the D.C. courts and watched him begin the laborious process of registering an old revolver. The chatter in the crowd, and among reporters, was how onerous D.C.'s laws still were, even after the city's gun ban was overturned. Ten days later, Heller has a solution. Dick Heller, et al., filed a complaint (For Declaratory Judgment, Injunctive Relief, and Writ of Mandamus) against the city today to force them to comply with the US Supreme Court ruling in the District of Columbia v. Heller and to protect our...

Washington, D.C., defies the Supreme Court's Second Amendment ruling.Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the District of Columbia had violated the Second Amendment by making armed self-defense in the home impractical and banning the most popular weapons used for that purpose. Last week the D.C. Council responded by unanimously approving a law that makes armed self-defense in the home impractical and bans the most popular weapons used for that purpose.D.C.'s political leaders know they are inviting another Second Amendment lawsuit, but they are determined to defy the Supreme Court and the Constitution for as long as possible.The new...

Notwithstanding the adverse ruling the District of Columbia received from the U. S. Supreme Court for its unconstitutional ordinance restricting the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, bureaucrats in the Federal City continue their efforts to gnaw away at the Second Amendment. That amendment is elegant in its simplicity: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Nevertheless, it took over 150 pages for the Court to expound upon its meaning. (Surely the justices have too much time on...

The government bureaucrats of the DC City Council just can't get over the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld your individual right to keep and bear arms. Poor poor pitiful beltway politicians! So rather than repealing their ban on handguns, the council created a new exception -- the handgun ban does not apply to people who want to register a pistol for use in self-defense in the home. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PaulWeyrich/2008/07/21/a_persistent_threat_to_second_amendment_rights This means that anyone purchasing a handgun to protect a business or for sport shooting is still in violation of the law. And to make matters worse, another thing the...

The Washington D.C. City Council has created so many hoops for handgun owners to jump through before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights, they may require legal counsel just to identify what the hoops are.  This sorry state of affairs is much to the satisfaction of The Washington Post, which called for just such an obstructionist policy in an editorial.  At least one of those hoops is illegal, according to the Supreme Court, but a Post news story spun that fact as the opinion of “opponents of the handgun ban.”  Is editorial policy coloring the news?The Washington Post is...

It shouldn't have come as a surprise that the District of Columbia can and will continue to all but completely disarm its law-abiding citizens after the Supreme Court ruled otherwise. After all, this is the same D.C. that was home to the most restrictive firearms laws in the country - until the Court struck them down. The same D.C. that banned the law-abiding citizens from possessing any handgun. The same D.C. that forced its law-abiding citizens to keep the few firearms they could possess both unloaded and disassembled or locked at all times. And the same D.C. that has disarmed...

[...] But we're burying the real news here. It seems that Heller may not have brought his gun with him to register, but he was armed with a load of candidate petitions, Duggan said. Seems that Heller is planning to run for the House seat currently held by Eleanor Holmes Norton. Heller is seeking signatures to be on the ballot as a libertarian candidate. A man identifiying himself as J. Bradley Jansen, who said he was Heller's campaign manager, said Heller must get 3,000 signatures and has until the end of August to collect them.

Mayor Adrian Fenty and his feisty attorney general, Peter Nickles, stood on the steps of the Wilson Building this week ostensibly to announce how the District will comply with the Supreme Court's rejection of Washington's ban on handguns. But really, they were delivering very much the opposite message: With only the narrowest of exceptions, we're sticking with our gun ban. Don't like it? Sue us.

It's been barely three weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Second Amendment, tossing the District of Columbia's strict ban on handgun ownership as an unconstitutional infringement on the individual right to bear arms. As you'd expect, D.C. officials have been busy little bureaucrats since then, trying to figure out a way to get around the high court's decision. On Monday, the D.C. council announced emergency legislation designed to update the gun ban. As expected, it's a joke. Instead of simply acknowledging that individuals have a right to own handguns in the district, the legislation would still require that...

"It appears that the city does not yet understand the decision and order of the Supreme Court," said Heller, a 66-year-old a security guard. "An applicant must fill out registration forms, submit fingerprints and pass a written firearm-proficiency test, while police ballistics experts test-fire the revolver. The revolver will then be returned to the owner, but he or she cannot legally use the weapon, even for self-defense, until notified that the registration has been approved. "

District Gun Registration Starts Tomorrow D.C. police will start the gun registration process at 7 a.m. tomorrow, when it opens an office at police headquarters at 300 Indiana Ave. NW. It is the start of the 180-day amnesty period in which residents may register handguns they have had illegally, or guns from other states. An officer from the gun unit will meet the applicant at the door and take temporary possession of the gun to ensure safety at headquarters. Officers will tag the gun and run ballistics tests before returning it to the owner. Paperwork indicating that registration is in...

The D.C. Council on Tuesday night approved emergency legislation that will repeal the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns while setting stiff regulations for registering and storing guns inside homes. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill as early as Wednesday, which would allow residents to begin registering guns Thursday. The bill passed unanimously in the 13-member council with minimal discussion, though several council members acknowledged that more work should be done on the legislation, which as an emergency bill will only be in effect for 90 days. "There will be more work to be done,"...

The District, rebuffed by the Supreme Court last month in a landmark decision on its 32-year-old gun ban, could soon be headed back to court over a new gun law that could take effect as early as Wednesday. The D.C. Council will vote Tuesday on emergency legislation that will require handgun owners to keep their weapons disassembled or under lock and key in what gun rights advocates see as direct defiance of the Supreme Court ruling. That ruling said the District could not bar residents from "rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."...

The fallacy of gun registration By Charles Bloomer web posted July 14, 2008 One of the gun grabbers' favorite "common sense" gun control measures is gun registration. As with other gun control schemes, the anti-gun crowd never considers whether or not the particular "common sense" law actually does anything constructive. In actuality, the "common sense" gun laws are grossly deficient in common sense. Last week on WTOP radio's "Ask the Chief" program, Washington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier inadvertently admitted that the District's gun registration program was a failure. According to the Chief, "Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that...

We may be able to measure the life of the District of Columbia's newly proposed handgun law with a stopwatch. Unveiled today by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council members, this measure is lawsuit bait that makes a mockery of the Supreme Court's landmark District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF file) on June 26 by imposing maximum inconvenience on law-abiding D.C. residents who want to own firearms. In striking down the District's previous handgun ban, the Court ruled that "the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful...

WASHINGTON — The District of Columbia Council planned to vote Tuesday on emergency legislation to allow handguns, but only if they are used for self-defense in the home and carry fewer than 12 rounds of ammunition. (snip) The nation's capital would still require all legal firearms — including handguns, rifles and shotguns — to be kept in the home unloaded and disassembled, or equipped with trigger locks.