Phil Mendelson's Conflict of Interest

[jsteele]

Mike DeBonis is reporting that Phil Mendelson, who sided with PEPCO in voting against Elizabeth Noel's nomination to the Public Service Commission, owns stock in PEPCO. This would appear to me to present a fairly serious conflict of interest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/post/should-phil-mendelson-have-recused-himself-from-noel-vote/2012/03/20/gIQAuTd1PS_blog.html

I have to say that I don't think I have ever felt as let down by a group of candidates that I supported then I have by the crew for whom I voted in 2010. Kwame Brown turned out to be primarily interested in fully-loaded Navigators. Vince Gray has had one scandal after another. Now, boring Phil Mendelson kills the nomination of a fantastic consumer advocate while doing the bidding of a corporation in which he has a financial interest.

With all the controversies facing this Council -- which has one (recently-resigned) member on his way to jail and its Chairman under federal investigation -- you would think the remaining members would be doing everything within their power to show they have clean hands. Didn't Mendelson realize that he would be the swing vote on the nomination? Why put himself in this kind of position? He should have recused himself and allowed the nomination to proceed to the full Council. Now he has not only alienated many of his former supporters, he has given them reason to question his ethics. That was the primary thing he had going for him.

[Anonymous]

Not to differ with your main point, I have a quibble: Since the bill was stated as an approval of the nomination that they defeated, a two-two vote would presumably still have defeated it, since it a tie does not carry on most votes.

There has been a lot of discussion of this on Ward 4 list-serves. I know there are some Ward 3 people on here; has it had much attention there, since Cheh was the strongest voice for Noel? How about other parts of town, especially those without representation on the committee?

[jsteele]

According to my Twitter feed, Alexander is getting a lot of heat for the vote.