The DC Council has been considering since August how it should punish the Ward 8 legislator for his blatant violations of the legislature’s Code of Conduct and a variety of local laws. This week a special ad hoc committee unanimously recommended his expulsion.

Strangely, there must first be a public hearing, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28, and only then a final vote, likely sometime in February, before he actually gets kicked out. That is six months or so after the offending behavior initially came to the public’s attention, via White’s arrest by the FBI and his subsequent indictment on a felony bribery charge.

It’s bad enough that the actual criminal trial may not be held until January 2026. (My prediction is that eventually he is going to jail, even if he ultimately accepts a plea deal.)

However, District residents should not also have to wait months for closure around the issues related to White’s violation of local ethics rules and laws. They have already been forced to contend with the fact that an obviously corrupt member was allowed to run for reelection; given Ward 8’s electorate, facing only a white male Republican opponent virtually guaranteed White would win.

Equally egregious, White has been permitted to attend council meetings and vote on critical social and financial public policies, including as recently as Tuesday during both the Committee of the Whole session and the final legislative meeting of Council Period 25.

That unmistakable farce has been enhanced by the reality that White, despite a recommendation of expulsion, will be sworn in on Jan. 2 to begin a third term. Later that day, he will be allowed to vote on the legislature’s organizational proposal, including committee assignments and leadership.

And giving me an even more nauseous headache is this: White, the violator of rules, will have the right to register his aye or nay for the rules that will govern members’ behavior during the next council.

Folks, we’re all the way down the rabbit hole hanging out with the March Hare, dancing in chaos and madness.

When I asked DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson about the duplicity of the process, he said, “We are following our rules.”

Is it possible to change the rules?

“We can’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” Mendelson told me. “That wouldn’t be fair.”

Is it fair to DC residents that their elected officials have failed to act swiftly and decisively to rid the government of someone charged with a major felony, who has refused multiple times to explain his behavior, and who continues to collect his publicly financed salary?

When I pressed Mendelson about whether he intends to review the rules to prevent such a scenario in the future, he said, “We’ll certainly look at the rules but there has to be due process.”

I sense no conviction in his words. They were said probably to move me along so he could get to the next round of media questions.

Unsurprisingly, White’s fan base — the dozen or so Ward 8 residents who attended the ad hoc committee meeting on Monday, including Regina Pixley — compared the plight of their councilmember to that of President-elect Donald Trump. “What he did was more detrimental,” said Pixley, citing Trump’s 34 felony convictions and the finding of liability for sexual abuse in a civil case in New York City.

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