NEWS LOOSE LIPS
Tweet Revenge
Illustration by Ashley Jaye Williams
Ed Hanlon may have single-handedly destroyed local government agencies’ Twitter usage.
By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals Ed Hanlon is on the verge of back-to-back victories. Last month, Hanlon notched a win in one of his latest battles against advisory neighborhood commissioners on his own ANC, 2B, which covers part of Dupont Circle. The scrap stems from Hanlon’s efforts to get his hands on emails between commissioners Randy Downs and Daniel Warwick, both of whom served as the ANC’s liaisons with the D.C. Department of Transportation regarding the hotly contested 17th Street bike lane. ANC 2B passed a resolution during its July 8 meeting approving DDOT’s plans for the bike lane, which has been in the works since at least 2017. Hanlon, who was the lone dissenting vote, appears to have been caught off guard that the project was moving forward and ahead of the meeting demanded access to emails between his fellow commissioners and DDOT. For good measure, Hanlon clarified that he was seeking correspondences that occurred over government and personal email accounts, those sent by snail mail, and
messages sent over Snapchat. Downs, who is in the middle of an independent run for the Ward 2 Council seat, and Warwick, who chairs ANC 2B, refused Hanlon’s demands and told him to file a Freedom of Information Act request. In turn, Hanlon said he was entitled to the emails and Snaps under the ANC Act, which gives all commissioners “equal access” to the commission’s records. He sought the opinion of the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which initially told him in June that Downs and Warwick did not have to share emails sent from personal email addresses and that Hanlon’s interpretation of the rules governing ANC emails would produce “unnecessarily absurd results.” Relentless in his pursuit, Hanlon asked the OAG to reconsider. At the beginning of July, OAG reversed its original opinion, writing that emails from commissioners sent on behalf of the ANC “belong to the ANC.” Warwick and Downs say they spent the better part of their Fourth of July holiday compiling emails in order to comply with OAG’s decision and Hanlon’s demand for a quick turnaround. (Hanlon did write in emails that he
4 august 21, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
was willing to compromise on a timeframe.) Although the bike lane will move forward, mark one for Hanlon in the win column. Hanlon’s current battle has been percolating for about a year and has consumed the energy and attention of two D.C. government agencies. If Hanlon wins, it would mean two of his fellow ANC 2B commissioners are on the hook for a $4,000 fine from the Office of Campaign Finance. It could also mean the end of government-run Twitter accounts as we know them. Last December, OCF sustained a complaint from Hanlon over the use of ANC 2B’s Twitter account. Hanlon alleged that ANC 2B commissioners were using the account to illegally support Patrick Kennedy’s Ward 2 Council campaign. Warwick and Aaron Landry, who represents single member district 2B04, appealed OCF’s decision to the Board of Elections, which has yet to make a final decision. During the hearing on Aug. 5, Landry and Warwick provided several examples of governmentrun Twitter accounts posting content similar to that which OCF says violates the law. Since the beginning of the year, three ANCs
in Ward 2—2A, 2B, and 2E—have deleted all their content and unfollowed all accounts to avoid becoming the next target of Hanlon’s complaints. Hanlon did not respond to LL’s requests for comment. During the BOE hearing, the director of the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, Gottlieb Simon, told the board that if OCF’s order is upheld, “I have come to the conclusion that it will be necessary for me to advise commissioners to delete accounts if they have them and to refrain from establishing new accounts, as there would be considerable liability in their continued operation.” In September 2019, Hanlon accused his fellow commissioners of breaking the law that says government resources cannot be used to support a candidate for public office. The offensive behavior, according to Hanlon’s complaint, is a retweet from ANC 2B’s official account of one of Landry’s tweets. “I love the 17th Street Festival,” Landry tweeted last August, along with a picture he took while standing outside ANC 2B’s booth. Landry tagged Kennedy, who was campaigning for the Ward 2 Council seat at the time, in the photo. The photo tag linked to Kennedy’s personal Twitter account, which at the time described him as a Ward 2 Council candidate and featured a link to his campaign website. In Hanlon’s view, the retweet equated to support for Kennedy’s campaign. In December, OCF general counsel William SanFord agreed with Hanlon and slapped six of the eight ANC 2B commissioners with a $4,000 fine, despite the fact that none of them actually sent the retweet, and only two of them had access to the account. The ANC’s unelected executive director, Peter Sacco, sent the retweet but is not mentioned in the order. All but two of the six commissioners were later absolved, but Landry and Warwick are still on the hook for the fine. Warwick and Landry filed motions for reconsideration and appealed OCF’s order to the BOE. SanFord denied the motions, and the two are awaiting a final decision from the BOE. At the same time, Hanlon continued to file complaints about his and other ANC’s Twitter accounts. As they rolled in, OCF staff would notify Landry, who recorded the conversations. In one call that he shared with LL, OCF attorney advisor Austin Franklin says Hanlon claimed that ANC 2B violated the law by following Kennedy. “Can you just unfollow him, please?” Franklin asked. “Excuse me?” Landry replied, asking whether OCF could provide any official guidance. “I’m a little shocked that this is even being taken seriously. This is really ridiculous.” Franklin did not give a legal justification for why the ANC 2B account should unfollow Kennedy and asked again if Landry was willing to bend to Hanlon’s demands.
