Cropp Pulls a Williams: Pays for Signatures

WASHINGTON - D.C. mayoral candidate Linda Cropp is taking a page from the playbook of current Mayor Tony Williams and paying people to collect signatures so she can get on the ballot.

Candidates for D.C. Democratic mayoral race are required to gather 2,000 signatures from registered voters in order to appear on the ballot. The deadline was Wednesday to turn in signatures.

WTOP has learned Cropp's campaign has been paying homeless people to collect those signatures. Cropp is currently the chairperson of the D.C. Council.

Marshall Brown, a paid political consultant to the Cropp Campaign and father of D.C. Council member Kwame Brown, says he paid homeless people $1 for every signature they gathered. Brown adds the practice is perfectly legal, and says if the Adrian Fenty and Marie Johns campaigns say they don't do it, "they are lying." Fenty and Johns are running for mayor as well.

WTOP contacted the other campaigns -- and they all categorically denied paying for any signatures. A spokesperson for the Cropp campaign says the campaign didn't pay for any signatures -- a consultant did, and adds Cropp had no idea petitioners were being paid because she's not involved in the campaign at that level.

Brown says of the 15,000 signatures the Cropp campaign turned in, about 10 percent to 13 percent were paid for. The Fenty campaign reports it turned in 21,000 signatures.

In 2002, Williams was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars because many of the signatures he paid for turned out to be fake. And while nobody has questioned the validity of Cropp's signatures, WTOP Political Analyst Mark Plotkin says the practice does raise questions.

"It shows a vulnerability, a weakness and speaks to the lack of real intensity amongst her electorate. Maybe she's not as much of a front runner as she thinks she is."

Ward Six Candidate Misses Deadline

Ward 6 candidate Will Cobb, considered by many to be one of the front runners in the Ward 6 City Council race, missed the filling deadline because he confused the date. Cobb tells WTOP he'll appeal if his petitions are rejected.

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