D.C. special election suddenly gets interesting

Special elections tend to be sleepy affairs, and the one to fill D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown's now vacant at-large seat was shaping up to be something of a snoozer. No longer. Just this week, a number a shake-ups have hit both the process to temporarily fill the seat and the campaigning for the actual special election, scheduled for April 26.

As The Post reports today, the D.C. Democratic State Committee's vote on an interim seat-holder is tomorrow, and a flurry of endorsements has made what once seemed a sure-thing for perma-candidate Vincent Orange (who used to represent Ward 5 on the Council, ran for mayor in 2006 and challenged Brown for chair last year) something of a toss-up. Sekou Biddle, a Ward 4 member of the D.C. State Board of Education, picked up not only Brown's endorsement on Monday, but also that of council members Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5), Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) and Marion Barry (D-Ward 8). And if that wasn't enough, he also got the nod from Lorraine Green, a close confidante of Mayor Vince Gray, and the Ward 6 Democrats, where he handily defeated Orange in a straw poll. (Despite the fact that Orange gained the endorsement of Kelvin Robinson, a Ward 6 resident who unsuccessfully challenged council member Tommy Wells in 2010.)

[Continue reading Martin Austermuhle's post at DCist.com.]

Martin Austermuhle blogs at DCist. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.