artnews’s posterous

By Art Levine
At a meeting of about 50 progressives Thusrday night at Busboys and Poets, DC Council Chair Vincent Gray lashed out at Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign, a key sponsor of the guns-gone-wild amendment sabogating DC voting rights in the Senate. Clearly beyond caring about ticking off powerful legislators,  the nattily-dressed, somewhat nerdy, but still folksy Council Chairman said of Ensign, "I never heard of him before this -- and then they start coming out of the woodwork."

 He then threw down a surprising, if joking, dare to the influential Senator: "Why don't you run for D.C. Council if you want to be all up in our business?  I have no doubt he'd go down to a resounding defeat."

 

       The council chairman, sitting on a stool on the Busboy and Poets backroom stage, was explaining the council's legislative priorities to activists invited by two independent progressive groups,  DC for Democracy and DC Drinking Liberally. He started  talking about the city's deepening budget crisis -- even reading from an in-depth Power Point  handout (sample dull-but-worthy eye-glazer: "Current deficit aproximately $260M, before considering spending pressures that may add another $50-$60M" ) before DC for Democracy's chair Keshini Ladduwahetty politely interrupted him sooner than expected to invite questions from the audience. But his bitterness over the District's ongoing lack of voting rights for its citizens emerged frequently in biting off-the-cuff comments as he discussed several local issues with an aplomb and an in-depth knowledge that impressed the audience, although those soundbites could also serve as fodder for the city's right-wing critics.

       Among the highlights:

        When  asked about the Mayor's proposed budget-saving through abandoning the Emancipation Day celebration,  Gray remarked, "If we have to eliminate a holiday, let's eliminate Independence Day: We've got nothing to celebrate, we're not independent." 

 

    When a questioner prodded him about the need for eco-friendly street-cars Washington  (a cause Gray supports),  the audience member led up to the question by referring to "the capital of the greatest country on Earth" -- and Gray promptly snapped back, "What country is that?"    

 

 At another point, Gray, his frustration at Congress mounting, remarked, "Maybe we should consider civil disobedience." Pausing with expert comic timing, he added, "What are they going to do -- disenfranchise us?"

 

   That was the sore point that always galled him. Near the end, he said, "Our country was founded on 'taxation without representation.' We are the only country in the free world with a capital without represetnation in the national legislative body."

 

       And, Senator Ensign, he's still willing to take you on when you decide to quit the U.S Senate and run for City Council