Kevin Pernell Chavous (born May 17, 1956) is an American lawyer, author, education reform activist, and former Democratic Party politician in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
[3] Chavous was educated at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis and Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana,[3] where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science.
According to The Washington Post, Chavous visited every single-family residence in Ward 7 personally, either speaking with members of the household or leaving behind campaign literature.
[17] On September 26, 1993, four-year-old Launice Smith was shot in the head and hand (and survived) while her family watched a pick-up football game at Weatherless Elementary School in the Fort Dupont neighborhood in Ward 7.
Smith was injured when four gunmen emerged from a nearby woods and then hunted down and executed 20-year-old Kervin Brown in what D.C. police said was part of an ongoing battle between rival drug gangs.
On September 29, he announced for the formation of a 20-member task force on public safety and began pushing for Ward 7 residents to police their own neighborhoods and report drug dealing, crime, and violence.
Chavous told The Washington Post in February 1996 that "it has proved easier to wait for someone else, be it the mayor or the control board, to propose hard solutions," according to journalists Howard Schneider and David A.
[22] One significant (and eventually successful) change he advocated was the creation of a District of Columbia Financial Control Board to save the city from bankruptcy.
He was one of the first council members to call for federal oversight (in early 1995), although later in the year he refused to vote to cut big-ticket items such as unemployment benefits or the city's summer youth jobs program.
But D.C. law also required that all individuals gathering such signatures be residents of the District of Columbia, and Hairston alleged that Chavous campaign worker Calvin S. Hawkins did not meet that condition.
[25] In the Democratic primary held on September 10, 1996, Chavous easily defeated Hairston and another challenger, Eddie Rhodes, winning 68 percent of the vote.
[29] In March 1997, Chavous sponsored another significant piece of legislation,[8] a resolution disapproving a construction contract for the highly controversial Barney Circle Freeway.
While his allies said it showed he could tackle tough problems, dissenters argued that Chavous avoided the real issues (lack of money for schools and crumbling infrastructure).
Larry Gray, legislative chairman of the D.C. Congress of PTAs, blamed Chavous for deep cuts in the school budget during the past four years, failures in the teacher certification program, and significant delays in getting technology into the classroom.
[39] In late 1998, after his campaign for mayor, Chavous left Cadeaux & Tagliere and joined the law firm of Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn.
[42] Several years later, in March 2001, Chavous rejoined Arent Fox as counsel,[41] a part-time position in which he specialized in business law, government relations, and general litigation.
[46] Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post said Ford's dismissal "robbed the committee of its institutional memory and one of its most vocal advocates for school reform.
"[47] But although Chavous had worked diligently to improve his name recognition and standing with the public, he garnered just 7 percent of those likely voters polled by The Washington Post in May 1997.
[50] Chavous trailed the other leading candidate in the race, Jack Evans, who raised more than $307,000 since early December 1997, as well as restaurateur Jeffrey Gildenhorn, who donated $400,000 of his own money to his own campaign.
Hunter of Atonement Episcopal Church; Mary D. Jackson, a United States Senate archivist and an ANC member; Durand A. Ford, a financial management consultant; and Gary R. Feenster, a computing analyst.
[88] When Mayor Williams apologized publicly for ethical lapses in January 2002, local news media reported that this only boosted Chavous' interest in a campaign.
[96] As Bush's proposal was considered by the House of Representatives, Chavous and D.C.'s Delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton (a strong opponent of vouchers), blamed one another for a series of snubs, missed meetings, and attacks.
[100] By the time the measure moved to the Senate in September, Chavous (along with Mayor Williams and Board President Cafritz) was opposed on the voucher issue by a significant majority of elected officials in the city.
The legislation provided for a temporary, five-year experiment under which 1,700 low-income students would receive up to $7,500 a year so that they could attend a private school in the city or nearby jurisdictions.
On September 24, 2003, Mayor Williams announced that the city's public school system was so dysfunctional and provided such low-quality education that he was introducing legislation to strip the Board of nearly all its power.
Although Chavous was working on his own bill to give the Council and mayor more power over the school system,[c] he immediately threw his support behind Williams' plan.
[107] Although Mayor Williams submitted an altered form of his original proposal two weeks after the defeat,[108] it was rejected in mid-May and the Chavous bill approved by the council in July on a close 7-to-6 vote.
Sam Bost, president of the influential Far Northeast/Southeast Council, announced in mid August that he would no longer support Chavous, and Gray won endorsements from several key organizations and individuals.
[117] Chavous argued that he had helped improve the delivery and amount of city services, was critical in winning construction of two new public schools in Ward 7, and that he had brought economic development to the area by shepherding the redevelopment of the Skyland shopping mall.
[130] Chavous joined the board of directors of the American Federation for Children and the Alliance for School Choice about 2011, organizations co-founded by Republican politician Betsy DeVos.