Democrat Fauntroy Joins Washington Mayoral Race

Walter E. Fauntroy, the District of Columbia’s non-voting delegate in Congress, announced Saturday that “after weeks of painful and at times tearful consideration,” he had decided to seek election this fall as mayor of Washington.

His decision, according to recent polls, made him the leading candidate among the five Democrats who have announced their intention to seek the mayor’s post. Another potential Democratic candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, announced last week that he would not enter the race.

Fauntroy’s announcement also seemed to indicate clearly that Washington’s current mayor, Marion Barry, will not seek a fourth term. Barry is undergoing treatment for alcoholism and faces a trial in June on an eight-count indictment for perjury and drug possession.

Fauntroy did not mention Barry by name Saturday, limiting himself to criticizing the news media for its “preoccupation with our mayor’s personal life.”

Fauntroy, a black Baptist minister, made his announcement Saturday to a predominantly black audience of nearly 1,000 who are likely to form the backbone of his mayoralty campaign: fellow ministers, whose congregations represent a powerful bloc of voters, and influential political activists--including some of the clergy--who formed a “Draft Fauntroy for Mayor” committee several weeks ago.

The occasion was Fauntroy’s annual prayer breakfast, held in the student center of Howard University.

Fauntroy said he decided to run because he thought he could be the “catalyst” of an effort to “stop the hurt and end the polarization that is tearing our nation’s capital apart.”

But he also said that the decision was “the most difficult” he had made “in three decades of service to the people of Washington,” and he offered two reasons weighing against his decision to run:

His wife, Dorothy, “who has been at my side for nearly 33 years,” was “unalterably opposed” to it, he said, as were his son, Marvin, his brothers and sisters, and the members of the New Bethel Baptist Church of which he is pastor.

After nearly 20 years as the district’s delegate in Congress, he said his seniority on the House Banking Committee “has placed me in position to help millions of hurting people I care about--the have-nots of our city, our nation and our world.”

At the same time, Fauntroy said, Washington is “a city of many beautiful but hurting people,” with the highest infant-mortality rate in the nation, the highest murder rate, the second-highest public school drop-out rate, 15,000 homeless and “more poor children per capita” than all but one state.

If elected, he said, he would “forge . . . four unprecedented partnerships”:

--The district government, Congress and the White House--to develop “model, do-it-here-first programs” to deal with the city’s crises in affordable housing, education and drug control.

Fauntroy, one of the city’s most outspoken proponents of statehood for the district, said President Bush must “recognize that the governance of our nation’s capital is not alone the responsibility of our local government. As much as we don’t like the present arrangement, it is a shared responsibility.”