Attorney General Nominee A 'Scrapper'

By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 3, 2008

P eter J. Nickles is here to stay.

And he's even moving to the District, he says.

As expected, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) nominated the family friend to be attorney general. Not interim. Not acting.

Nickles, the mayor's former general counsel, has been a lightning rod for controversy as confidant and enforcer since the mayor took office last year. When Fenty has conflicts with the D.C. Council, Nickles is generally in the mix. In front.

He got his interim attorney general title in a swirl of controversy, replacing Linda Singer, who, sources say, resigned in December after Nickles interfered with her cases.

Recently, his plan to rid the attorney general's office of what he calls underperforming lawyers by firing them has prompted complaints of age discrimination in favor of younger attorneys. Nickles is 69. The union representing attorneys has gotten retirements for three attorneys and reinstatements for another three.

Despite complaints about Nickles's sharp-elbow style, four council members joined Fenty at a news conference Friday on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building to give the nod to the nomination.

Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) was one. The former mayor said he has known Nickles at least 20 years, pointing to Nickles's work as a private attorney suing the city on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners.

"I've locked horns with him, too," Barry said.

"Many times," Nickles chimed in.

Barry added, laughing, "I agreed with you on a lot of issues. As mayor, I couldn't because I was being sued."

Council members Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) praised Nickles's work on a lawsuit against slumlords, and David A. Catania (I-At Large) applauded his leadership on the lawsuit against health insurance provider CareFirst and negotiating the saving of Greater Southeast Community Hospital, since renamed United Medical Center.

Bowser called him a "scrapper." Graham called him "a can-do guy."

Conspicuously absent at the well-attended news conference was Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), a fact noted by NBC4 reporter Tom Sherwood.

Mendelson is chairman of the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary and is now the one locking horns most often with Nickles. He will oversee the council hearing on Nickles's nomination.

In an interview, Mendelson unloaded his list of his misgivings about Nickles. Among them: replacing the lead attorney on the city's gun case before the Supreme Court, and that Nickles still resides in Virginia despite knowing that he was likely to be Fenty's nominee for the permanent spot.

"Shall I go on?" Mendelson asked, after listing a half-dozen issues.

At the news conference, Fenty said it was not unusual for a committee chairman to be absent from such an event.

Of Mendelson, Nickles said, "It's never been personal."

He said the two had lunch on the square across the street from the Wilson Building about a month and half ago. What issues were discussed? "All of them," Nickles said. "It was a long lunch."

As for his residency, Nickles has 180 days to move to the District. He said he is condo-shopping and searching Craigslist. "I'll invite you over to my house for a drink," he promised Sherwood.

Beer Brawl

Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) strengthened his reputation as a consensus builder this week by trying to broker a deal between Graham and council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) over a ban on "single sales" -- code words for 40-ounce containers and tall cans of beer sold by liquor stores, to the chagrin of neighborhoods around the city.

One by one, council members, including Jim Graham, Wells and Adrian Fenty when he was on the council, have managed to get moratoriums on such sales in various communities. Council members Yvette M. Alexander (D-Ward 7), Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) are the latest to join the anti-single-sales movement.

Wells, successful with an H Street moratorium, is looking for an expansion in Ward 6 that would put Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in charge of curbing sales in their areas. Evans wants the same for Ward 2. They had their proposals on the agenda Tuesday as emergencies but pulled them. See, Graham has a problem with the proposals, and it's called ANC 1D, a commission that has taken an unusual stance: It is against a ban on single sales in Mount Pleasant.

Giving ANCs the power to run the show in wards 2 and 6 could give ANC 1D the opportunity to reverse a moratorium that has been in effect in Mount Pleasant for eight years. Graham introduced legislation Tuesday that would extend the moratorium, which expires in October. In an interview, Graham said the local neighborhood association, unlike the ANC, favors the moratorium.

At Tuesday's meeting, he said there has been less public urination and a drop in arrests for disorderly conduct because of the moratorium.

But the ANC wants the city to come up with a better approach to public drunkenness, said Jack McKay, who is in his sixth year as a commissioner.

"Cutting off single sales is not going to change their behavior," he said of the people who drink beer on the street. "They are not going to become upstanding citizens because you cut off single sales."

"It's a feel-good solution that simply moves the problem to somebody else's neighborhood," said McKay, who has lived in Mount Pleasant for 34 years.

Mount Pleasant will have to see whether the extension stands, and if the moratoriums in wards 2 and 6 are passed as written. Gray mediated for Graham, Evans and Wells on Monday. And the next day, when Evans and Graham were bickering at the meeting, Gray put a stop to it.

Graham said he plans a hearing on the Evans and Wells bills. But Evans said he reserves the right to propose his measure as an emergency July 15.