This interview aired on WPFW 89.3 FM in June. There will be a follow up piece coming soon.
LISTEN TO JOHN HANRAHAN HERE:
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Councilmember Jack Evans is possibly the third most powerful elected official in the District of Columbia. While the mayor is in charge of the executive branch and the D.C. Council chairman heads up the legislative branch, for the past ten years Evans has quietly maintained control of the city’s money as chair of the Committee on Finance and Revenue. In this capacity, Evans has pushed through deals which have used huge sums of public funding to assist private interests. Examples include the baseball stadium (more than $800 million), the convention center ($850 million), the convention center hotel ($272 million), and a failed package to lure defense contractor Northrop Grumman to D.C. (at least $25 million).
In addition to earning a Council salary of more than $125,000, Evans makes an additional $240,000 a year on the payroll of the country’s largest lobbying firm, Patton Boggs. John Hanrahan, a former Washington Post reporter, questions this arrangement: “What does he do for the $240,000 he receives each year from Patton Boggs?… Patton Boggs is not a charitable organization [which exists] to provide salaries for needy councilmembers.”
A recent Evans-inspired deal has led to questions about whether the councilmember is “doing the work of his outside employer [and] combining it with his Council duties,” said Hanrahan. Alongside D.C.’s convention center, Marriott is receiving $272 million in public funding to assist them in building an upscale, 1,175-room, 15-story hotel. Evans spent years openly advocating for and helping structure the deal. But according to the Examiner, Marriott is a client of Evans’ firm, Patton Boggs.
While Mr. Evans recused himself at the last moment from voting on the deal, he has yet to respond to questions from citizens and civic organizations about the extent and nature of what role he may have played on behalf of Patton Boggs. Furthermore, Evans appears to be in violation of D.C. Code which states that a councilmember must offer a written explanation for their recusal. What’s more, directly following his recusal, Evans immediately threw himself back into the negotations to prevent the project from being sidelined because of lawsuits. Hanrahan said, “He’s working behind the scenes? The man who recused himself is now back in the middle of this matter on which he recused himeself? Does he no longer have a conflict of interest? You just don’t recuse, un-recuse and then recuse. This was clearly another appearance of a conflict of interest.”
Check out Part I of John Hanrahan’s three-part series in themail (“Jack Evans and Patton Boggs: Questions of Conflicts of Interest”).