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The Metropolitan Police Department’s union flopped in the highest-profile elections last year, failing to get David Catania elected mayor or stop D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson from getting more than 75 percent of the general election vote.
Now, the Fraternal Order of Police local hopes for different results in the 2016 races with help from a new political action committee.
FOP Chairman Delroy Burton says his union is considering starting a PAC funded by increased dues. The proposed increase—-from 1 percent to 2 percent of a starting officer’s salary—-would put biweekly union dues at a little more than $41 each pay period. In order to change the union bylaws, Burton would have to win two-thirds of voting union members.
Members could opt out of having their dues spent on the PAC. But Burton, who feuded with MPD Chief Cathy Lanier during the summer about her decision to eliminate vice units, says the new PAC would give the union more influence in District races.
“If we were able to influence who the mayor was and is, and the mayor took our advice,” Burton says, “maybe we’d have some input on who the next chief of police could be.”
Photo by Darrow Montgomery