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By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
 
D.C. voters won’t go to the polls to nominate a mayoral candidate until September 2006, but many of the city’s prominent gay activists are switching their allegiance from Mayor Anthony Williams to District Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) as their favored candidate for mayor next year.
To the disappointment of his supporters, Williams has resisted calls to announce whether he plans to run for a third term. Some political pundits have predicted he won’t run but say he will delay saying so to avoid being labeled as a lame duck.
“Tony Williams was the right person for the right time” when he ran for mayor in 1998 and 2002, said gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, the issues committee chair for each of the mayor’s two campaigns.
“Now, Adrian Fenty is the right person at the right time for this city,” Rosenstein said.
Rosenstein, who has served as an informal Williams adviser, received widespread attention Monday when the Washington Post identified him as one of a number of key Williams backers that have joined Fenty’s recently formed exploratory campaign committee.
While Rosenstein announced his support for Fenty in the past week, he and other local activists say gay Democrats have been switching their support from the Williams camp to Fenty during the past two months, in what some view as a growing trend that went largely unnoticed.
Among the longtime Williams backers who joined the Fenty effort is Clark Ray, a Williams appointee on the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission and a former Williams campaign operative in 2002.
Other gay Democrats who recently joined the Fenty exploratory panel are former Williams fund-raiser Bruce Johnson and ANC commissioners Jim Brandon, Christopher Dyer, and Babak Movahedi.
Darren Glymph, treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club and another Williams backer, also joined the Fenty camp. The Stein Club, a local gay group, has been among the mayor’s strongest allies. Stein Club president David Meadows could not be reached by press time.
The club’s former president, Kurt Vorndran, said he doubts the club would make a mayoral endorsement before next year but said individual club members, like Glympth, would likely join the campaigns of other candidates.
A smaller group of gays has joined the exploratory panel of lobbyist Michael Brown, who is also expected enter the mayoral race, according to gay activist Phil Pannell, who is among Brown’s backers.
Brown is the son of the late Ron Brown, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee and secretary of Commerce during President Clinton’s first term in office. Michael Brown currently serves as chair of the D.C. Boxing & Wrestling Commission and is a member of the board of the Whitman-Walker Clinic.
Meanwhile, gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania, who dropped his Republican Party affiliation last year to become an independent, reportedly is considering entering the mayoral race only if Williams becomes the Democratic nominee, sources familiar with Catania have said.
Catania has declined to say publicly whether he plans to run for mayor, despite calls from many of his gay and straight supporters to enter the mayoral race next year.
Catania’s new role as chair of the Council’s Committee on Health is expected to give him a platform to push his longstanding efforts to promote reform in problem-plagued city agencies, especially the city’s AIDS office.
At least two other Democrats — Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5) and attorney A. Scott Bolden, former chair of the D.C. Democratic State Committee — have formed mayoral exploratory committees. Both have been seeking gay support.
Also, Council Chair Linda Cropp is rumored to be considering a run but has not formed an exploratory committee as of yet.
Aside from Williams, who has been a strong supporter of gay civil rights, Fenty has emerged as the potential mayoral contender who has most aggressively courted the gay vote. He has met with many of the city’s gay leaders during the past year.
Like Williams, he said he supports legalizing same-sex marriage but favors holding off on a D.C. gay marriage bill until the atmosphere in Congress becomes less hostile to gay rights.
In a guest column in the Feb. 11 issue of the Washington Blade, Fenty pledged to take a lead role in fighting a voter referendum to ban same-sex marriage in the District if a group of citizens decides to place such a measure on the ballot. Last year, a D.C. resident filed a petition with the elections board to place a gay marriage ban on the ballot but withdrew the petition after the board said it was improperly ...
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