Biddle Picks Up Coveted Catania Endorsement (Updated)
Interim Councilmember Sekou Biddle picked up an important endorsement today -- Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large).
The announcement, which was made on "The Politics Hour" on WPFW 89.3FM, is a big grab for Biddle, who has been battered by the memory of the early support he received from D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown and Mayor Vince Gray, both embroiled in various scandals. Biddle, himself an outsider when he was selected by the D.C. Democratic State Committee to fill the seat vacated by Brown, has been painted by some of his challengers as an inside guy unable to provide the independent oversight needed on the council.
Faced with a well-funded opponent in Vincent Orange (who polled best of the nine candidates in a recent citywide survey), Biddle has recently started playing up his independent bona fides. In an ad in this week's issue of the Current (the newspaper chain endorsed him last week), Biddle says that he "hasn't spent his time hanging around the DC government making political deals and lobbying with cronies," a not-too-suble jab at Orange. The ad also notes that Biddle has been endorsed by Ward 3's Mary Cheh and Ward 4's Muriel Bowser, but says nothing of Gray and Brown's early support. In mid-March, Biddle asked that Brown fully refund D.C. taxpayers for the money spent acquiring a luxury SUV for his use.
Catania, a former Republican, has long been an aggressive and independent-minded member of the D.C. Council. (He faced only token opposition in his 2010 re-election bid.) Most recently, Catania has doggedly gone after Gray administration officials for their hiring practices and inflated salaries. Catania and Biddle recently worked together on comprehensive legislation responding to last year's South Capitol Street killings; Biddle chairs the council's Special Committee on School Safety and Truancy, one of six elements of the legislation.
So far, Biddle has been endorsed by D.C. for Democracy, the Current newspapers, D.C. Young Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, Leadership for Educational Equity, SEIU State Council, and UNITE HERE Local 25. Orange has claimed the Ward 8 Democrats, Jacque Patterson, Washington, D.C. Building & Construction Trades Council, AFSCME Council 20, and the Metro D.C. AFL-CIO.
Update, 12:15 p.m.: That endorsement apparently didn't go as smoothly as planned:
March 31st, 2011 - 11:34
Anyone Catania endorses I will never vote for. Biddle has not accomplished anything on his own, and I am tired of hearing about how he rides yet another coat-tail from the council to find his way. None of the wards have endorsed him. That fool even has “Orange” as the color of his signs. How smart is that?
March 31st, 2011 - 15:06
Biddle just lost my support. I never liked the guy Catania. The more and more I read into this he seems more like a placeholder for the council’s corrupt posse. I guess I will keep walking past my precinct during Election Day.