$

I was certainly relieved when the conviction came down but make no mistake about it, this is a sad thing for our city.

Jeffersontext

There are a million sides to every story. Be back with more later.

-
It's later.

As things get sticky for Councilwoman Head around these emails let's me make sure that I'm telling the whole story.

We'll ultimately get many of these emails released but if what was leaked to me and others yesterday by LJI is the worst of the worst, count me as mostly unimpressed.

The Councilor is going to have to answer some questions about this for sure.

But...

Let us not forget the unusual circumstances around the early off-the-books release of the emails to LJI through Veronica White.

Connections to the Jefferson machine are quite transparent.

I actually have grown to have a lot of respect for what Head has brought to District B after ages of careless representation. Those changes have been good and I would hate for a sensationalized feud between Washington and Head to lead to the undoing of what I would say has been largely progress.

What really makes me angry and uncomfortable with the whole thing is that in my heart, I think that the LJI world and the Stacy Head world ought to be allied instead of feuding. I would say that 80% of their substantive interests align but that personal beefs around mostly inconsequential BS have distracted both sides from doing some really important things.

I have occasional email contact with both camps.

It's amazing how often they're on the same side of an issue but think they're working against one another. It's almost funny but it's mostly distracting. And I hate feeling like I have to pick a side.

Cold Case

Following up on a tip, I called Congressman Cao's Washington office to ask how many open constituent service case files were inherited from Congressman Jefferson's office. I'd been told that it was a comically low single digit number.

I was able to speak to Cao's new Chief of Staff, Clayton Hall.

I asked him to confirm that what I'd heard.

But before he answered that question he described a little bit about how open constituent service cases are supposed to be handed over. It isn't just a manila folders changing hands. Rather, the outgoing staff sends a letter to the relevant constituent to ask whether or not to transfer the open case to the next Congressman's staff. Some say yes and others say no.

After putting me on hold to get the exact number of open cases transferred from Jefferson to Cao he came back with a precise answer:

"Zero."

Jefferson's staff told Cao's staff that they had closed all of their open case files. And I suppose that that's entirely possible.

But it's kind of hard to believe.

Generally, a Congressional office has a hundred or more ongoing constituent service files open at any one time. The 2nd Congressional District, because of all the individual issues people have with different federal agencies, would generally have more open cases than most other districts. New Congressman also receive a high number of inquiries at the beginning of their term. So while it's hard to pinpoint precisely what a "normal" caseload would be for Cao, right now the number of open cases in the hundreds.