After the 2010 elections, it seemed a safe bet that the District would continue its 12-year streak without a major political scandal. The image of a city run by a crack-smoking mayor was a distant memory, no longer visible in the rearview mirror as successive mayors drove the District on the road to municipal respectability.

Washingtonians took pride in their city’s improved reputation, particularly longtime black residents who lived through the embarrassing arrest of former mayor Marion Barry on drug charges.

The civic pride began diminishing in the past few months, after D.C. Council members Harry Thomas Jr. and Kwame R. Brown, both Democrats, were forced to resign. It came to screeching halt when a federal investigation implicated that three political aides to Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) were involved in a scheme involving boatloads of illicit campaign contributions and irregularities. Everyone is waiting to see whether Gray will be charged next.

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“People who have a local perspective, rather than a larger perspective, view everything bad that happens in the District as a negative thing about them,” said David Bositis, a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a D.C.-based think tank focused on political and public policy issues.

Read more at The Washington Post.