Former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is seeking re-election to his Ward 7 council seat. (Courtesy Photo)
On Feb. 3, former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced he is seeking re-election to the council seat he held from 2005-2007. Gray said he can help Ward 7 reach its potential. “When people ask why I am returning to the campaign trail, I tell them ‘Because we have work to do’,” he said. “If we don’t do it, who will?”
Gray added, “The hope and promise of Ward 7 cannot slip away.Every day I see our accomplishments slowed or stalled.” The people we’ve helped here in Ward 7 and across the District deserve better. If we work together as a community our voices will not be ignored.”
Some residents aren’t happy to see Gray running for the Ward 7 seat. “Vincent Gray shouldn’t be running because he wants to use Ward 7 to run for mayor in 2018,” Gary Butler, a Ward 7 advisory neighborhood commissioner said. “I hope Ward 7 moves past Vincent Gray. He should have stayed retired.”
Gray was elected as the chairman of the D.C. Council in 2006 after his short term as the Ward 7 representative. In 2010, Gray defeated Mayor Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary and went on to win the general election in November.
Shortly after becoming mayor in 2011, an illegal shadow campaign taking place during the 2010 campaign season was revealed and the U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ronald Machen negotiated guilty plea deals during Gray’s term, where several members of his campaign team pled guilty to corruption charges. Gray maintained that he knew nothing of the illicit operation. He was defeated by current mayor Muriel Bowser in 2014.
In December 2015, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips decided to close the investigation into Gray, saying that there was not enough compelling evidence to indict Gray of a crime. From that time to Feb. 3, there was wide spread speculation about whether Gray would get back into politics and if he did, whether he would run as a the Ward 7 council representative or run for the Democratic at-large seat held by D.C. Council member Vincent Orange (D).
Carrie Thornhill will serve as Gray’s campaign manager and Chuck Thies will be his treasurer and communications director.
Gray will try to unseat D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7), who he endorsed for his seat in a special election in 2007. He also supported her re-election bids in 2008 and 2012. Alexander said she is not concerned about what her former benefactor is doing and credited a late Ward 7 political activist for her rise in politics. “I am the council member for Ward 7 and am working for the people of Ward 7,” she said. “I have a legislative track record of achievements and contrary to what some believe, he was not my political mentor. It was Lorraine Whitlock who got me interested in politics when I was 14; Vincent Gray didn’t start me.”
The race includes Ward 7 Democrats Chairman Ed Potillo and a few lesser known candidates. A recent poll conducted by the Higher Ground PAC, led by Gray allies, shows the former mayor leading Alexander by 16 points for the June 14 Democratic nomination.
Constance Woody, a longtime Ward 7 activist known for her work in advocating for seniors, embraces Gray’s bid. “He has done much for the city and for Ward 7,” Woody said. “That campaign finance scandal was a political ploy to get him out of politics. We need him as a council member because the present council member doesn’t follow-up on what she says she will do.”