D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson removed a rule change on Tuesday that was aimed at making it easier for the council to expel a council member for a second time.
“In my reading of the rules, I think that what we are trying to do can be done anyway, and so that’s why that’s not part of this,” Mendelson said during the council’s afternoon legislative meeting.
The rule removal comes after a heated exchange during a council gathering before a morning meeting. At the time, some council members raised concerns about the move impacting the upcoming special election, in which expelled former Ward 8 Council member Trayon White is running for reelection.
White was arrested by the FBI last August for bribery. The bureau alleged that he accepted over $150,000 in kickbacks for his influence in awarding violence intervention services for D.C. He has pleaded not guilty.
Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker raised concerns about the move, saying the rule change would go against the wishes of voters.
“We are saying to Ward 8 residents, potentially even if you decide to overlook these acts for whatever reason, we are going to supersede that vote in action,” Parker said during the morning discussion.
Mendelson said he made the decision to remove the measure after the morning meeting.
The amendment had proposed that reelected members could be expelled after a previous expulsion based “on the same evidence previously found to warrant expulsion and need not conduct an additional investigation or identify any new evidence as the basis of the subsequent expulsion.”
D.C. Council member Kenyan McDuffie previously told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli that it was up to the voters to ultimately decide who represents them.
“They know that Trayon White is still under federal indictment,” he said. “Being armed with that information is something that they will take with them to the polls.”
The special election for that Ward 8 seat is set for July 15.
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