Six years after resigning from his D.C. Council seat, former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans is launching a bid to chair the body, framing his campaign as a strategic response to mounting federal oversight of D.C.’s governance.
Evans — who represented Ward 2 for 29 years before resigning in 2020 during multiple ethics investigations — said he would restore discipline to the Council by strengthening agency oversight and reining in spending while pursuing what he called a more “strategic” approach to protecting the city’s home rule as President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans implement policies and pass laws encroaching on D.C.’s autonomy. Evans’ return sets up a June primary match against At-Large Councilmember and Chair Phil Mendelson, who has held his seat since 1998 and served as chair since 2012, as the Council heads for a shake-up this election, with several members resigning and others seeking higher offices.
Evans said in light of recent federal intervention in District policymaking — like a White House-endorsed bill to reverse a D.C. tax law — Council leaders need to avoid making controversial changes that invite retaliation and weaken home rule.
“The District of Columbia is going through some kind of difficult times right now,” Evans said. “We have some severe problems on the finance side, affordable housing, education, public safety and really those issues are not really being addressed the way it would want them to be.”
He said the Council’s push to adopt a revised criminal code — a rewrite that reduced some penalties and changed many other criminal-law provisions — and its move to separate parts of D.C.’s tax code from federal law to fund expanded tax credits were “bad policy thinking” that invited congressional intervention and risked deeper federal control over the city.
Evans said he would instead focus on clarifying what kinds of legislation are likely to trigger federal intervention and weighing that risk before advancing major bills, especially measures pushed through on an emergency basis with a less extensive public input process.
“That’s the leadership that I would bring,” Evans said. “Understanding where, really, the lines are, and not doing things to quote, ‘poke the bear.’”
Evans served on the Council of the District of Columbia from 1991 until 2020, representing Ward 2 neighborhoods that include Foggy Bottom, the West End, downtown and Georgetown. During his three decades on the body, many constituents viewed him as a fiscal power broker — he chaired the Council’s finance and revenue committee for years, which steers tax policy and makes budget decisions.
Evans pointed to his extensive experience serving on the Council as proof he is fit to tackle the challenges the city faces. He mentioned that he was on the Council when Congress established the D.C. Financial Control Board in 1995 to oversee the District’s finances after the city’s budget fell into disarray. He said he knows what it’s like to have the federal government step in and govern District affairs, and that is where the Council is heading if they continue to provoke the Trump administration.
“I think the Congress and the president could go and put the Control Board back in place again, and that’s the kind of just bad policy thinking that this Council is doing,” Evans said.
Scrutiny of Evans’ work outside the Council intensified in 2019, as investigators examined whether he used government time, staff or the prestige of his office to solicit or conduct private business and whether he took official actions affecting the financial interests of paying clients without proper disclosure or recusal.
Councilmembers may hold outside employment, but District ethics law prohibits work conflicting or appearing to conflict with official duties and requires disclosure and, when a member deems it necessary, recusal.
The Council chair is paid more than other members — $240,000 per year compared to approximately $170,000 for other councilmembers — and District law bars them, along with the Mayor, from taking compensated outside work beyond reimbursement for actual expenses.
The Council reprimanded Evans in 2019, and the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability later imposed civil penalties tied to his conduct while in office.
Evans said he made “mistakes” but did not act corruptly. He declined to specify what conduct he was referring to and said people could review the investigative documents and records for details.
No jurisdiction charged Evans with a crime, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office ended its investigation into Evans’ dealings in 2022.
Evans said he wants to chair the Council because the position’s greatest leverage and control of the budget and the Council’s oversight calendar, which he said he would use to press agencies to justify spending and rein in recurring costs. The District is facing budget pressures as it confronts a weaker revenue outlook tied to federal job cuts, high office vacancies and uncertainty over whether Congress will block planned revenue measures.
Evans also said the House’s Wednesday vote to overturn the Council’s emergency tax legislation allowing D.C. to restore its child tax credit and expand the earned income tax credit illustrates why the Council should anticipate federal blowback. He said the Council rushed the measure through on an emergency basis without hearings, and he would have opposed the program as fiscally irresponsible.
“It actually sounds like a good program, but we can’t afford it,” Evans said.
Evans also said he would overhaul the Council’s committee structure and create a standalone education committee, arguing that education policy is currently handled under the Committee of the Whole, which he said weakens oversight by spreading responsibility across all members. The Council revived their standalone education committee in 2012, but Mendelson then consolidated the committee into the Committee of the Whole in 2021.
Evans said he would reorganize the Council’s committee system to increase the number of standing committees from 10 to 12, allowing him to provide each of the 12 non-chair councilmembers with a committee to chair. He also said he would create a standalone education committee and split the current public safety and judiciary committee apart.
“The goal is to build committees that actually match the Council’s oversight responsibilities,” Evans said. “So every member has a clear area they’re accountable for.”
Evans said he would also impose stricter procedural discipline over Council operations, including enforcing on-time starts for meetings because late ones force residents to wait hours to testify, push public witnesses to the end of the agenda or cut their time short when hearings run long.
“If you’re not there at 10 o’clock and you walk in, you’re not going to be marked present, you’re going to be marked late,” Evans said.
Local leaders said the race will test whether voters treat Evans’ comeback as a return of experience or controversy.
Secretary-treasurer of West End Citizens Association Barbara Kahlow said Evans’s candidacy “surprised” her, and Foggy Bottom residents remember his responsiveness to neighborhood concerns as well as the investigations preceding his resignation. Still, Kahlow said Evans was a highly effective councilmember for Ward 2 who helped stabilize D.C.’s finances during a time of fiscal crisis.
Jim Malec, the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for 2A08, said Evans’s ethics violations disqualified him from returning to public office and elected officials should avoid even the appearance that they are using government roles to advance private interests.
“Elected officials have a responsibility to serve the public interest, full stop,” Malec said. “But Jack used public office to enrich himself, his outside employers and his consulting clients at the expense of D.C. residents.”
Malec said he expects Mendelson to win reelection and said the chair should use the Council’s oversight authority to improve basic city services. Mendelson won his most recent Democratic primary in June 2022 by 6.72 percent against ethics lawyer and former ANC commissioner Erin Palmer.
“I also encourage him to use the full breadth of the Council’s oversight authority to ensure D.C. government actually works for residents,” Malec said. “Because we’re tired of the trash not getting picked up, rats running rampant, and snow that obstructs our roads for days on end.”
