District of Columbia Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in District of Columbia, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Can DC's elected Chief Financial Officer hire, fire, and direct the financial staff at the DC Housing Authority, even though DCHA is technically an independent agency that gets most of its money from federal HUD?
Yes. Congress has repeatedly amended the Home Rule Act since 1995 to give the DC CFO control over financial personnel at all DC agencies, including independent ones. DCHA is part of the DC government …
Could the DC Inspector General force the DC Housing Authority and its employees to turn over documents and testify, even though DCHA was an independent agency under federal-court receivership and was statutorily exempt from the Procurement Practices Act?
Yes. The Inspector General's subpoena and audit authority did not depend on whether the audited agency was inside the Procurement Practices Act. The 1995 FRMA amendments and the 1996 Procurement Refor…
Does the DC Council have the legal authority to review and approve large real-estate leases (over one million dollars per year) signed by the District government, the same way it reviews large procurement contracts?
Yes, but the source of authority changed in 1995. A 1991 Council law (D.C. Code § 1-336(c)) that purported to give the Council lease-approval power was probably invalid under Wilson v. Kelly. But the …
Did the Council have to approve contracts over one million dollars for the Washington Convention Center Authority and other DC independent agencies, or only contracts run through the Mayor's office?
Yes, all of them. Section 451(b) of the DC charter (added by the 1995 federal control-board law) covers every contract by any DC government entity over one million dollars in a 12-month period, includ…
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Attorney general opinions in District of Columbia are written by the District of Columbia Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.