Front-runner in DC attorney general race appeals to get back on ballot

The front-runner in the race to become the next attorney general for Washington, D.C., appealed a ruling that determined he was ineligible to run, setting the stage for the candidate’s last-ditch effort to appear on the ballot.

Kenyan McDuffie, a former trial attorney and current councilman on the D.C. Council, was removed from the ballot after the city’s Board of Elections determined he did not meet the minimum requirement of being “actively engaged” as a D.C. attorney for at least five of the past 10 years. However, McDuffie argued that he uses his legal background to draft legislation on the D.C. Council’s judiciary committee, making him an eligible candidate.

“The statute does not require candidates to be ‘employed’ as an attorney but to be ‘actively engaged … as… an attorney employed … by … the District.’ That is a meaningful distinction because it is based not on an employee’s job title or qualifications, but on what they do,” McDuffie’s lawyers argued in their 120-page appeal. “And there is no dispute that Mr. McDuffie does the work of an attorney — that he exercises ‘legal skills and judgment,’ — every day in his role as Councilmember.”

The appeal comes just one week before the D.C. Board of Elections is set to finalize the ballot before sending it to the printer on May 2. McDuffie has requested that the board expedite its decision so his name can appear on the ballot sent to voters ahead of the June 21 primary or consider delaying the primary election altogether until the matter is resolved.

LEADING DC ATTORNEY GENERAL CANDIDATE DEEMED INELIGIBLE

McDuffie’s absence from the ballot throws some uncertainty into the race to become the second attorney general of the nation’s capital as the three other candidates don’t hold the same name recognition as the Ward 5 councilman. McDuffie was widely considered to be a front-runner in the race, and he had been outraising his opponents and garnering several high-profile endorsements.

However, in a ruling last week, McDuffie’s challenger Bruce Spiva successfully argued the lawmaker’s experience on the D.C. Council does not equate to legal work because other council members who draft similar legislation are not attorneys.

The city’s Board of Elections should expand its interpretation of what makes a candidate qualified to run for attorney general to include those who use their legal experience in different ways that aren’t necessarily tied to a legal firm, McDuffie argued in his appeal.

“The Board was wrong,” the filing said. “To begin, this Court, like courts across the Nation, holds that qualifications for elected office must be construed in favor of the candidate, that there is a presumption that candidates for office are qualified to serve, and that any doubt or ambiguity must be resolved in favor of eligibility. That presumption reflects the fact that voters, not bureaucrats, are best suited to decide whether a candidate is qualified, and it serves the fundamental right of voters to cast their votes for the person of their choice.”

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It is not clear whether the D.C. Board of Elections will expedite its consideration of McDuffie’s appeal before ballots are set to be distributed throughout the district, and the board said it awaits a decision from the D.C. Court of Appeals before moving forward.