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[quote=Anonymous]Beverly Perry the Senior Adviser to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is leaving for a law firm job. She has been with her for a long time. I still think she will run but might be looking for fresh leadership.

https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/772449/beverly-perry-longtime-adviser-to-mayor-muriel-bowser-departs-for-a-lobbying-job/

[b]Beverly Perry, Longtime Adviser to Mayor Muriel Bowser, Departs For a Lobbying Job
What does that mean for Mayor Bowser’s political future?[/b]

Beverly Perry may have started out her life modestly, from a farm sharecropping family in North Carolina. But at 78, she’s stepping down from Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office as the most powerful person in Bowser’s inner circle, and one of the most influential people in local Washington.

“She was my unofficial advisor before she became my senior advisor,” Bowser said in announcing Perry’s resignation. Perry has been and is still a mentor to the much younger Bowser.

Perry is joining the national Taft Law Firm, according to a press release. She’ll head a new “Government Resource and Response Group.”

Close associates of Perry say she had talked for several years about trading the time-consuming, rough-and-tumble political life of mayoral politics for more family time and the golf courses she loves. Sources say Perry was on the verge of resigning back in early 2023, but decided to stay on after Bowser’s then-powerful Chief of Staff John Falcicchio abruptly quit amid his sexual harassment scandal.

Now, Perry’s departure raises questions about what it means for Bowser’s own future. Is Perry leaving before Bowser gets involved in a fourth run for mayor in 2026? She would not want to be seen abandoning ship during the campaign, or shortly after. Or, as political insiders speculate, is Perry striking out on her own now because she knows Bowser won’t seek reelection?

Bowser has privately mulled not running, and has dropped vague hints that she may not run again. But as of now, she has no serious opposition in sight if she does seek a fourth term, but some Bowser associates have expressed concern that if she doesn’t run, it will appear as if President Donald Trump chased her out of office.

Another question is who might fill Bowser’s daily inner circle now that Perry will be a phone call away rather than a few offices away. Perry was co-chair of Bowser’s first run for mayor in 2014 and has remained a close confidante and adviser ever since.

Prior to that, Perry had a career as a federal government lawyer and then as a top Pepco utility executive. One of her power company duties was to lobby then-D.C. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Williams, who would later become mayor, to pay Pepco millions in overdue fees. Perry in 2008 also chaired the board of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. She has served on many community boards, including those for the African American Civil War Memorial, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Congressional Black Caucus Institute, and Arena Stage.

Perry graduated from Georgetown Law and George Washington University, attending night school at both while working. At times, the Washington Post reported in 2015, she brought her young son with her to the law library after classes.

For Bowser, Perry has been the adviser in every political or government strategy meeting, with a quiet word or sometimes a barnyard expletive. Some of those meetings were held in Perry’s home in Northwest. A Post story in Bowser’s first year as mayor described Perry as “a voice of calm, experience and, when needed, restraint.”

More recently, the mayor acknowledges that Perry had been a key player on the Hill in getting the 180 acres of federal land around the RFK Stadium turned over to the city, as well as the deal to bring the Commanders to the site.

Most often, Perry was a quiet public presence with Bowser, working the crowd of any official event involving the mayor, but staying mostly out of sight of TV news cameras, with little public recognition of her, even by the mayor.

Associates of the mayor stress that Perry will be gone officially from the mayor’s office and government loop, but expects to remain in Bowser’s orbit, whatever Bowser chooses to do next.
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