Anthony A. Williams

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Anthony Williams

Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams (born July 28, 1951, in Los Angeles, California) is a United States politician who has served as mayor of Washington, D.C. since 1999.

Williams is the adopted son of Virginia and the late Lewis Williams, and is one of eight children. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale College, earned a juris doctorate from Harvard Law and a Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Prior to his service in the D.C. government, Williams served as Chief Financial Officer of the United States Department of Agriculture and held a variety of executive posts in cities around the U.S.

Williams first rose to prominence as the District of Columbia's Chief Financial Officer during the final term of Mayor Marion Barry. The city council and mayor, reeling from years of fiscal mismanagement, were put under the oversight of a Congress-appointed control board by whom Williams was appointed. Williams led the city into a fiscal recovery, which made him a popular figure; having been "drafted" by popular support, he was elected mayor in 1998, despite not having held any elected office since sitting on the New Haven, Connecticut Board of Aldermen when a student at Yale University.

In 2002, Williams ran for reelection. Because D.C. is dominated by Democrats, the Democratic primary election is widely considered to be the actual deciding contest. In the 2002 primary, the mayor needed to collect signatures from voters to get his name on the ballot. The firm that he hired to do this had some irregularities with the names on petitions. Examples of faulty signatures on his petitions included Tony Blair, Billy Joel, and Robin Hood. As a result of the dodgy petitions, Williams was fined $277,700 by the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics [1] and was kicked off the ballot, forcing him to run as a write-in candidate. His chief opponent, minister Willie Wilson, also ran as a write-in. Despite this handicap, Williams won both the Democratic and Republican primaries as a write-in candidate and went on to be reelected in the general election.

In the D.C. political spectrum, Williams is generally seen as a moderate; he has good relations with Congress, the business community, and the city at large. Unlike mainstream Democrats, he said he was "open" to Sam Brownback's proposal to implement a flat tax in DC, and he supports school vouchers. His public persona is that of an uncharismatic bureaucrat, especially when compared to the colorful Barry. He is known for his signature bow tie.

Williams was instrumental in arranging a deal to move the financially ailing Montréal Expos, a Major League Baseball team, to Washington, D.C. Although he faced opposition from much of the D.C. City Council, Wiliams eventually prevailed—and in late December 2004, the Council approved by one vote a financing plan for a new stadium. The new team, the Washington Nationals, began playing in April of 2005, the first time since 1971 that the nation's capital has had its own major league baseball team.

On September 28, 2005, Williams announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2006. [2] Williams endorsed Linda W. Cropp as a successor, although Cropp lost to Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary; Fenty went on to win the general election.

In 2006, he became a member of the Capital-to-Capital Coalition, a group of Washington, D.C.-area businesses and leaders who are dedicated to the establishment of a non-stop passenger air route between Washington Dulles International Airport and Beijing, China.