Adrian Fenty
Encyclopedia
Adrian Malik Fenty was the sixth, and at age 36, the youngest, mayor of the District of Columbia
. He served one term—from 2007 to 2011—losing his bid for reelection at the primary level to Democrat Vincent C. Gray
. Though Fenty won the Republican mayoral primary as a write-in candidate, he declined the Republican nomination and said he would likely not seek elected office again. Gray went on to win the general election for Mayor in the largely Democratic District.
Since leaving office, Fenty has embarked on a career as a paid speaker, part-time college professor, adviser for the state and local government practice of an information technology consulting firm and special counsel to a Washington D.C. plaintiffs' litigation firm. Previously, Fenty was a D.C. Council member for six years. A Washington D.C. native, Fenty is a graduate of Oberlin College and Howard University Law School.
from the comune
of Monte San Giovanni Campano
in Lazio in 1920. His father, Phil Fenty, who is originally from Buffalo, New York
, has roots in Barbados
and Panama
. Phil and Jeanette Fenty moved to Washington D.C. in 1967. Fenty was raised in the Mount Pleasant
neighborhood. While he was growing up, his parents owned and ran a Fleet Feet athletic shoe store in the D.C. neighborhood of Adams Morgan
.
Fenty graduated from Mackin Catholic High School, earned a B.A. in English and economics at Oberlin College
, and a J.D.
from the Howard University School of Law
. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi
Fraternity.
In 1997, Fenty married Michelle Cross Fenty, an attorney. The couple has three children—twin sons born in 2000, and a daughter born in 2008.
(D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
(D-DC), and U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-MA).
He then served as an aide to Councilmember Kevin P. Chavous
, was elected to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission
(ANC), district 4C, and was president of the 16th Street Neighborhood Civic Association
.
, defeating longtime Ward 4 Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis
by a margin of 57 to 43 percent after engaging in an aggressive door-to-door strategy. Unopposed in both the primary and general elections in 2004, Fenty was reelected for a second term.
The Washington Post described Fenty's performance as a Council member as "independent" and "contrarian". During his time on the Council, he opposed public funding for a new baseball stadium, saying the owners should pay for it. He proposed a $1 billion capital improvement program for the public schools—which the Council initially opposed, but eventually passed. According to the Washington Post, Fenty's legislative style was to focus on constituent services and take attention grabbing positions.
in 2005. Then-Council Chair Linda Cropp
, businesswoman Marie Johns, then-Councilmember Vincent Orange
, and lobbyist Michael A. Brown
also vied for the position.
The race was widely viewed as neck-and-neck between Fenty and Cropp through the spring of 2006. Fenty ran on a platform of bringing a more energetic and hands-on approach to city government,, advancing bold ideas for change, and sticking to them. Fenty said he would take his uncompromising style to the mayor's office, and cited with approval, Margaret Thatcher's saying that, "Consensus is the absence of leadership". Cropp stressed her 25 years of experience in city government and her desire to continue the progress made by Anthony Williams, who endorsed her candidacy. She also stressed her ability to cooperate with diverse groups and reach consensus. She criticized Fenty's proposed approach to governing; being mayor, saying the mayor's job is "not just standing up and saying, 'This is what I want done,' and miraculously it's going to happen." Both candidates raised significant and nearly equal amounts of money – roughly $1.75 million through June 10, 2006 – and neither gained any significant advantages from the numerous candidate debates and forums.
By July 2006 polls showed Fenty with a roughly 10-point advantage; political observers debated whether it was due to Fenty's unprecedented door-to-door campaign, Cropp's lack of engagement in the campaign, or the electorate's desire for a new direction. Cropp's campaign began running negative attack ads
during the month before the primary, painting Fenty as unfit for the job and as a careless lawyer who had been admonished by the D.C. Bar, (in 2005, he received an informal admonition from the Bar for his role in a probate case in 1999). The attacks backfired. Fenty won all 142 city precincts in the Democratic Primary—a feat unparalleled in earlier mayoral elections—defeating Cropp by a 57 to 31 percent margin. He received 89 percent of the vote in the general election and became the District's sixth elected mayor since the establishment of home rule
.
Education reform was a major focus of Fenty's mayoral tenure. On the first day of his term, he introduced legislation to vest control of the public schools in himself, rather than the elected school board. Previous attempts to reform the schools, including one in 1996 where a D.C. financial control board took charge of the schools, had failed. At the beginning of Fenty's term, student test performance scores and graduation rates were among the lowest in the nation and District residents had been demanding that the schools be "fixed". In April 2007, the D.C. Council approved Fenty's plan; the necessary legislation was approved by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in May 2007.
Under the new structure, the existing superintendent was replaced by a chancellor selected by the mayor and reporting directly to him. The power shift also allowed Fenty to make swift changes in the system’s central office, alter teacher qualification requirements, and implement a school consolidation process. His selection of Michelle Rhee
to manage District schools surprised the education establishment.. In choosing Rhee, Fenty consulted with national education figures including New York City School Chancellor
, Joel Klein
.
The restructuring has been credited with improvements. To better allocate resources, Fenty and Rhee significantly reduced the school system's central administrative staff and closed 23 schools with low enrollments. After 2007, student achievement tests at the secondary level reportedly rose an unprecedented 14 points in reading and 17 points in math. Student SAT scores rose 27 points in 2010. Graduation rates rose each year since 2007, and 72 percent of District students took the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test
(PSAT), which functions as a practice test for college bound students. Fenty's administration had also taken on a major, five-year maintenance and construction effort to improve school buildings by 2014. Fenty and Rhee successfully negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with the Washington Teachers Union that establishes a system of performance-based teacher compensation.
The Fenty administration also overhauled District agencies for efficiency. His choice of a woman for police chief, Cathy Lanier, received media attention. Under Fenty, Lanier added police officers to the streets and expanded community policing initiatives, for example, "beefing up" the policy of accepting anonymous text message tips from local residents to cut down on potential retaliation. The homicide rate in the District dropped 25% in 2009; the homicide closure rate rose to 70%. with Fenty reporting that homicides were at their "lowest level since 1964" and that "both violent crimes and property crimes" had experienced a double-digit decline.
Fenty championed development efforts including renovating libraries, parks and recreation centers. Under Fenty, 16 neighborhood and school playgrounds were opened and nine play courts and fields were completed. The District's largest shopping center, the DC USA Shopping Center, and the Camp Simms retail development were opened, and thousands of affordable housing units were established or renovated. The "Housing First" program to provide permanent supportive housing for the city’s homeless was begun. The backlog of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations was reduced by improving the retention of social workers, building an experienced leadership team, and increasing the recruitment of social workers to fill vacancies. Additionally, the Fenty administration improved the delivery of emergency medical services and expanded health care coverage for the uninsured. It also finalized the sale of Greater Southeast Community Hospital (now United Medical Center) in a public-private partnership that kept the facility open.
In December 2009, Fenty made history by signing the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Act of 2009 to legalize same-sex marriage
in the District of Columbia.
While serving as mayor, Fenty was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition
, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City
mayor Michael Bloomberg
and Boston
mayor Thomas Menino
. Fenty was known to carry three BlackBerry
devices: one directly connected him to the police chief, the second was for other city business, and the third was for personal matters.
On August 1, 2010, the editorial board of The Washington Post
officially endorsed Fenty, citing his attempts to fix the District's struggling public school system. Washington City Paper
followed on September 9.
January 2010 hypothetical polling showed Gray in the lead by 4 points; a Washington Post poll of August 29 found Gray with a 17-point lead; a Clarus poll conducted September 7 gave Gray a 7-point lead; and a Public Policy Polling
survey sponsored by WAMU-FM radio and Washington City Paper showed an 11 percent lead for Gray on September 8.
Fenty lost the September 14 Democratic primary to Gray by a margin of 7 points—53 percent to 46 percent. While Fenty received the most write-in votes for mayor in the Republican primary election, Fenty had previously said he would not accept the Republican nomination. Following the reporting of the primary results, Fenty called it highly unlikely he will run for public office again.
In August 2011 an investigation into the hiring practices of Mayor Vincent Gray found that during the 2010 primary, a Gray campaign official had paid another candidate, Sulaimon Brown, to disparage Fenty.
, which produces foreign language software. In March 2011, Fenty became a strategic adviser for the state and local government practice of Capgemini Government Solutions LLC, an information technology consulting firm. In May 2011, Fenty became a member of the advisory board of EverFi Inc., an online education and certification firm. In July 2011, Fenty joined the plaintiff and litigation oriented law firm of Klores Perry Mitchell P.C. as special counsel.
On the Morning Joe Program of March 8, 2011, Fenty backed Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker's anti-union efforts and broadly condemned the concept of collective bargaining. Saying that "Most governors and mayors would love to be able to manage their team without the interference of collective bargaining", Fenty expressed his faith in the ability of managers to set fair wages and hours, and to fairly reward or hold their employees accountable. He also said that the Democratic Wisconsin senators should be held accountable for leaving the state to delay the enactment of Walker's legislation.
|-
Mayor of the District of Columbia
The Mayor of the District of Columbia is the head of the executive branch of the government of Washington, D.C. The Mayor has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Council of the District of Columbia...
. He served one term—from 2007 to 2011—losing his bid for reelection at the primary level to Democrat Vincent C. Gray
Vincent C. Gray
Vincent C. Gray is an American politician who is currently serving as the seventh Mayor of the District of Columbia. Prior to his inauguration as mayor in January 2011, Gray served as Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, and as Councilmember for Ward 7...
. Though Fenty won the Republican mayoral primary as a write-in candidate, he declined the Republican nomination and said he would likely not seek elected office again. Gray went on to win the general election for Mayor in the largely Democratic District.
Since leaving office, Fenty has embarked on a career as a paid speaker, part-time college professor, adviser for the state and local government practice of an information technology consulting firm and special counsel to a Washington D.C. plaintiffs' litigation firm. Previously, Fenty was a D.C. Council member for six years. A Washington D.C. native, Fenty is a graduate of Oberlin College and Howard University Law School.
Early life, education, and family
Fenty was born in Washington D.C., the second of the three children of Jeanette Bianchi Perno Fenty and Phil Fenty. Fenty's mother, Jeanette Bianchi Perno Fenty, is Italian-American. Her family immigrated to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from the comune
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Monte San Giovanni Campano
Monte San Giovanni Campano
Monte San Giovanni Campano is a comune of c. 12,800 inhabitants in the province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about 90 km southeast of Rome and about 14 km east of Frosinone....
in Lazio in 1920. His father, Phil Fenty, who is originally from Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, has roots in Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
and Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
. Phil and Jeanette Fenty moved to Washington D.C. in 1967. Fenty was raised in the Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant, Washington, D.C.
Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in the northwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The neighborhood is bounded by Rock Creek Park to the north and west; and Harvard Street, NW and the Adams Morgan neighborhood to the south; and Sixteenth Street, NW and the Columbia...
neighborhood. While he was growing up, his parents owned and ran a Fleet Feet athletic shoe store in the D.C. neighborhood of Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan
Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., centered at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Adams Morgan is considered the center of Washington's Hispanic immigrant community, and is a major night life area with many bars and restaurants,...
.
Fenty graduated from Mackin Catholic High School, earned a B.A. in English and economics at Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
, and a J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
from the Howard University School of Law
Howard University School of Law
Howard University School of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of Howard University. Located in Washington, D.C., it is one the oldest law schools in the country and the oldest historically black college or university law school in the United States...
. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi
Kappa Alpha Psi is a collegiate Greek-letter fraternity with a predominantly African American membership. Since the fraternity's founding on January 5, 1911 at Indiana University Bloomington, the fraternity has never limited membership based on color, creed or national origin...
Fraternity.
In 1997, Fenty married Michelle Cross Fenty, an attorney. The couple has three children—twin sons born in 2000, and a daughter born in 2008.
Early political career
Before becoming involved in local D.C. politics, Fenty worked as an intern for U.S. Senator Howard MetzenbaumHoward Metzenbaum
Howard Morton Metzenbaum was an American politician who served for almost 20 years as a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Ohio . He also served in the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate from 1943 to 1951.-Early life:Metzenbaum was born in Cleveland, to a poor Jewish family, the son...
(D-OH), U.S. House of Representatives D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Eleanor Holmes Norton is a Delegate to Congress representing the District of Columbia. In her position she is able to serve on and vote with committees, as well as speak from the House floor...
(D-DC), and U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-MA).
He then served as an aide to Councilmember Kevin P. Chavous
Kevin P. Chavous
Kevin P. Chavous is an attorney,author, national education reform leader and former Democratic Party politician in Washington, DC. He was elected as Ward 7 member of the Council of the District of Columbia in 1992 and served three terms until his defeat in the September, 2004 primary...
, was elected to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission
Advisory Neighborhood Commission
thumb|right|upright|The District of Columbia is divided into 8 wards, each of which is further divided into local ANCs.Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are bodies of local government in Washington, D.C...
(ANC), district 4C, and was president of the 16th Street Neighborhood Civic Association
Civic Association
The Hong Kong Civic Association is a political group founded in 1954 in Hong Kong by Dr. Hilton Cheong-Leen. In 1975 it claimed a membership of 10,000....
.
D.C. Council
In 2000, Fenty won a seat on the D.C. CouncilCouncil of the District of Columbia
The Council of the District of Columbia is the legislative branch of the local government of the District of Columbia. As permitted in the United States Constitution, the District is not part of any U.S. state and is instead overseen directly by the federal government...
, defeating longtime Ward 4 Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis
Charlene Drew Jarvis
Charlene Drew Jarvis is an American educator and former scientific researcher and politician who served as the president of Southeastern University until March 31, 2009...
by a margin of 57 to 43 percent after engaging in an aggressive door-to-door strategy. Unopposed in both the primary and general elections in 2004, Fenty was reelected for a second term.
The Washington Post described Fenty's performance as a Council member as "independent" and "contrarian". During his time on the Council, he opposed public funding for a new baseball stadium, saying the owners should pay for it. He proposed a $1 billion capital improvement program for the public schools—which the Council initially opposed, but eventually passed. According to the Washington Post, Fenty's legislative style was to focus on constituent services and take attention grabbing positions.
2006 mayoral campaign
Fenty began his campaign to replace retiring mayor Anthony A. WilliamsAnthony A. Williams
Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the District of Columbia for two terms, from 1999 to 2007. He had previously served as chief financial officer for the District, managing to balance the budget and achieve a surplus within two years of...
in 2005. Then-Council Chair Linda Cropp
Linda W. Cropp
Linda Washington Cropp is a politician in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. She was a Democratic member of the Council of the District of Columbia, where she was the first woman to serve as the elected Council Chairman. On September 12, 2006, she lost the Democratic Primary for...
, businesswoman Marie Johns, then-Councilmember Vincent Orange
Vincent Orange
Vincent Bernard Orange, Sr. is a politician from Washington, D.C. He was most recently a Democratic member of the Council of the District of Columbia, where he served as an elected member for Ward 5. In 2010 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Chairman of the Council...
, and lobbyist Michael A. Brown
Michael A. Brown
Michael A. "Mike" Brown, MPP is a politician in Ontario, Canada and was the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from October 2005 until October 2007...
also vied for the position.
The race was widely viewed as neck-and-neck between Fenty and Cropp through the spring of 2006. Fenty ran on a platform of bringing a more energetic and hands-on approach to city government,, advancing bold ideas for change, and sticking to them. Fenty said he would take his uncompromising style to the mayor's office, and cited with approval, Margaret Thatcher's saying that, "Consensus is the absence of leadership". Cropp stressed her 25 years of experience in city government and her desire to continue the progress made by Anthony Williams, who endorsed her candidacy. She also stressed her ability to cooperate with diverse groups and reach consensus. She criticized Fenty's proposed approach to governing; being mayor, saying the mayor's job is "not just standing up and saying, 'This is what I want done,' and miraculously it's going to happen." Both candidates raised significant and nearly equal amounts of money – roughly $1.75 million through June 10, 2006 – and neither gained any significant advantages from the numerous candidate debates and forums.
By July 2006 polls showed Fenty with a roughly 10-point advantage; political observers debated whether it was due to Fenty's unprecedented door-to-door campaign, Cropp's lack of engagement in the campaign, or the electorate's desire for a new direction. Cropp's campaign began running negative attack ads
Negative campaigning
Negative campaigning, also known more colloquially as "mudslinging", is trying to win an advantage by referring to negative aspects of an opponent or of a policy rather than emphasizing one's own positive attributes or preferred policies...
during the month before the primary, painting Fenty as unfit for the job and as a careless lawyer who had been admonished by the D.C. Bar, (in 2005, he received an informal admonition from the Bar for his role in a probate case in 1999). The attacks backfired. Fenty won all 142 city precincts in the Democratic Primary—a feat unparalleled in earlier mayoral elections—defeating Cropp by a 57 to 31 percent margin. He received 89 percent of the vote in the general election and became the District's sixth elected mayor since the establishment of home rule
District of Columbia home rule
District of Columbia home rule is a term to describe the various means by which residents of the District of Columbia are able to govern their local affairs...
.
D.C. mayor (2007–11)
Under the new structure, the existing superintendent was replaced by a chancellor selected by the mayor and reporting directly to him. The power shift also allowed Fenty to make swift changes in the system’s central office, alter teacher qualification requirements, and implement a school consolidation process. His selection of Michelle Rhee
Michelle Rhee
Michelle A. Rhee is a public figure involved in the American education system. She was chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools from 2007 to 2010...
to manage District schools surprised the education establishment.. In choosing Rhee, Fenty consulted with national education figures including New York City School Chancellor
New York City School Chancellor
The New York City Schools Chancellor is the leader of the New York City Department of Education, the agency that handles New York City's public schools. The current Chancellor is Dennis M. Walcott, who began his tenure on April 18, 2011 after the resignation of Cathie Black on April 7, 2011...
, Joel Klein
Joel Klein
Joel Irwin Klein was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the United States, serving more than 1.1 million students in more than 1,600 schools...
.
The restructuring has been credited with improvements. To better allocate resources, Fenty and Rhee significantly reduced the school system's central administrative staff and closed 23 schools with low enrollments. After 2007, student achievement tests at the secondary level reportedly rose an unprecedented 14 points in reading and 17 points in math. Student SAT scores rose 27 points in 2010. Graduation rates rose each year since 2007, and 72 percent of District students took the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test
PSAT/NMSQT
The Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test is a standardized test administered by the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation in the United States.This test is offered by the College Board....
(PSAT), which functions as a practice test for college bound students. Fenty's administration had also taken on a major, five-year maintenance and construction effort to improve school buildings by 2014. Fenty and Rhee successfully negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with the Washington Teachers Union that establishes a system of performance-based teacher compensation.
The Fenty administration also overhauled District agencies for efficiency. His choice of a woman for police chief, Cathy Lanier, received media attention. Under Fenty, Lanier added police officers to the streets and expanded community policing initiatives, for example, "beefing up" the policy of accepting anonymous text message tips from local residents to cut down on potential retaliation. The homicide rate in the District dropped 25% in 2009; the homicide closure rate rose to 70%. with Fenty reporting that homicides were at their "lowest level since 1964" and that "both violent crimes and property crimes" had experienced a double-digit decline.
Fenty championed development efforts including renovating libraries, parks and recreation centers. Under Fenty, 16 neighborhood and school playgrounds were opened and nine play courts and fields were completed. The District's largest shopping center, the DC USA Shopping Center, and the Camp Simms retail development were opened, and thousands of affordable housing units were established or renovated. The "Housing First" program to provide permanent supportive housing for the city’s homeless was begun. The backlog of Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations was reduced by improving the retention of social workers, building an experienced leadership team, and increasing the recruitment of social workers to fill vacancies. Additionally, the Fenty administration improved the delivery of emergency medical services and expanded health care coverage for the uninsured. It also finalized the sale of Greater Southeast Community Hospital (now United Medical Center) in a public-private partnership that kept the facility open.
In December 2009, Fenty made history by signing the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Act of 2009 to legalize same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
in the District of Columbia.
While serving as mayor, Fenty was a member of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition
Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition
Mayors Against Illegal Guns is a coalition of over 600 mayors who support a number of gun control initiatives that the group calls "commonsense reforms" to fight illegal gun trafficking and gun violence in the United States...
, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
mayor Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
mayor Thomas Menino
Thomas Menino
Thomas Michael "Tom" Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor...
. Fenty was known to carry three BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
devices: one directly connected him to the police chief, the second was for other city business, and the third was for personal matters.
Controversies
A significant charge was that Fenty circumvented the D.C. Council and made certain contract awards for park improvements through the D.C. Housing Agency. Then-Council Chair Gray complained that Fenty did not share tickets to sporting events.2010 re-election campaign
On July 31, 2009, Fenty's 2010 mayoral campaign chest passed the 2006 primary fundraising total of $2.4 million. Fenty officially launched his reelection bid in April 2010, defending his management style and pledging to remind voters that had made the types of tough decisions that are necessary for real change.On August 1, 2010, the editorial board of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
officially endorsed Fenty, citing his attempts to fix the District's struggling public school system. Washington City Paper
Washington City Paper
The Washington City Paper is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Founded in 1981, and published for its first year under the masthead 1981, taking the City Paper name in volume 2, by Russ Smith, it shared ownership with the Chicago Reader from 1982...
followed on September 9.
January 2010 hypothetical polling showed Gray in the lead by 4 points; a Washington Post poll of August 29 found Gray with a 17-point lead; a Clarus poll conducted September 7 gave Gray a 7-point lead; and a Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling
Public Policy Polling is an American Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina. PPP was founded in 2001 by businessman and Democratic pollster Dean Debnam, the firm's current president and chief executive officer...
survey sponsored by WAMU-FM radio and Washington City Paper showed an 11 percent lead for Gray on September 8.
Fenty lost the September 14 Democratic primary to Gray by a margin of 7 points—53 percent to 46 percent. While Fenty received the most write-in votes for mayor in the Republican primary election, Fenty had previously said he would not accept the Republican nomination. Following the reporting of the primary results, Fenty called it highly unlikely he will run for public office again.
In August 2011 an investigation into the hiring practices of Mayor Vincent Gray found that during the 2010 primary, a Gray campaign official had paid another candidate, Sulaimon Brown, to disparage Fenty.
After politics
Fenty signed with Greater Talent Network, a major speakers bureau, in January 2011. The same month, Fenty became an outside adviser and counsel to Heffler, Radetich & Saitta, an accounting and consulting firm based in Philadelphia. Also in January 2011, it was announced that Fenty would become a distinguished visiting professor of politics, a featured lecturer and a career adviser in the Department of African American Studies at Oberlin College. In February 2011, Fenty became an outside adviser to Rosetta StoneRosetta Stone (company)
Rosetta Stone Inc. is an American software company that develops Rosetta Stone, a language-learning software.-Corporate structure:Rosetta Stone, Ltd., formerly Fairfield & Sons, Ltd. d.b.a...
, which produces foreign language software. In March 2011, Fenty became a strategic adviser for the state and local government practice of Capgemini Government Solutions LLC, an information technology consulting firm. In May 2011, Fenty became a member of the advisory board of EverFi Inc., an online education and certification firm. In July 2011, Fenty joined the plaintiff and litigation oriented law firm of Klores Perry Mitchell P.C. as special counsel.
On the Morning Joe Program of March 8, 2011, Fenty backed Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker's anti-union efforts and broadly condemned the concept of collective bargaining. Saying that "Most governors and mayors would love to be able to manage their team without the interference of collective bargaining", Fenty expressed his faith in the ability of managers to set fair wages and hours, and to fairly reward or hold their employees accountable. He also said that the Democratic Wisconsin senators should be held accountable for leaving the state to delay the enactment of Walker's legislation.
Athletics
Fenty is known for being a more than respectable amateur triathlete and runner. Even when he was mayor, he still made time to train and participate in events such as the Nation's Triathlon and the Washington DC Triathlon.Electoral history
External links
- Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty
- Fenty for Mayor official Web site
- CityMayors profile
- Adrian Fenty radio interview on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show
- Adrian Fenty radio interview on WTOP's Post Politics Program
- Mayor Against Illegal Guns homepage
- Washington Post profile of Fenty
- Washington Post endorsement of Fenty
- Article about the Mayor's Inaugural Ball
- Fenty Sweep Is One for the Record Books
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