Duchy Pulls Controversial Press Release

Presidential politics has caused a kerfluffle in Montgomery County politics. A minor mistake by Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg's part appears to have become a full scale tempest in a teapot. Trachtenberg supports Hillary Clinton while Dan Clements, the attorney who called attention to Trachtenberg's action, supports Barack Obama.

The Gazette reported:

Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg faced questions about using public resources to distribute news of her personal political activities from The Gazette and an Annapolis attorney.

The Dec. 21 release described her plans to travel to Iowa to campaign for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton in advance of the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Now, posting activities of a primarily political nature with no relation to council business was probably a bad call. However, the expense involved was minor--computer resources are cheap. I imagine one could also question the amount of time county employees spent on this release which could have been focused on county business but it is still hard to get excited about it.

Still, Duchy magnified the attention by first defending her decision as generally appropriate before pulling the press release:

On Wednesday, she called the release reasonable.

‘‘I think it’s legitimate to present information to the general public on the activities that council members are engaged in,” said Trachtenberg, a first-term councilwoman. ‘‘I certainly didn’t see this as anything inappropriate.”

Except that one tends to think that the county website is not just a taxpayer-funded version of Twitter, designed to advertise all activities on the part of members of the Council, but intended to focus on information related to the County. Nonetheless, I can see how this is a debatable question subject to interpretation.

Duchy's real gaffe was giving a disingenuous justification for the press release:

She justified the item, saying her trip to Iowa would involve NOW forums, not Clinton campaign events.

Trachtenberg said the announcement was similar to council members describing their out-of-town speaking engagements.

‘‘Council members do have schedules outside the council building,” she said.

But the six-paragraph statement puts the emphasis on the political elements of the trip. The main headline reads: ‘‘Councilmember Duchy Trachtenberg Heads to Iowa to Help Clinton Campaign.” A smaller headline reads: ‘‘Montgomery County Legislator Has Been Asked to Speak About the Candidate with NOW Activists.”

It's always bad when the headline of your own press release contradicts your statements to the media. And one suspects that a past president of Maryland NOW might not feel the same way if a pro-life councilman used the Council's website to trumpet their out-of-state activities to promote pro-life candidates.

It's never the original action but the cover-up that gets politicians every time. This rather minor judgment call might never have appeared on the front page of the Gazette of Politics and Business if Duchy had simply said it was a mistake and pulled the press release without defending or justifying it in ways easily disproved. If she had simply pulled the press release or stuck to her defense of this sort of press release as common, it is hard to imagine this story gaining much traction.

Duchy's final strategic error was to look afraid of the media:

Trachtenberg (D-At large) of North Bethesda did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.

The Gazette is the widely distributed newspaper which covers Montgomery County politics closely. They also are not known for slice-and-dice reporting, so one should keep on good terms with its reporters and return their calls.

Like I said, a real tempest in a teapot. But also not the type of a press a councilmember completing her first year in office likes to attract.