As the Washington Post reported Tuesday night, Mayor Adrian Fenty‘s school-takeover bill has cleared the Senate only to find another hurdle. The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has ruled that D.C. resident Mary Spencer will have “about one week” to gather enough signatures to force a referendum on the question. She needs 20,000 of them, all by registered voters.

Good for her.

Only in a jurisdiction where people are used to having their rights trampled could an elected official snap his fingers and vaporize an elected instrumentality—-yes, granted, with the help of the city’s legislature. The deal is this: I voted for Robert Bobb last year, and if city leaders want to strip him of the authority that I and many thousands of D.C. voters vested in him, they should have to do more than just rush a package through the council. This is not an alley-closing or a ceremonial resolution recognizing the accomplishments of the Turkey Thicket Citizens Association.