District of Columbia

• Facebook
• Twitter

President Obama won the District of Columbia, perhaps the nation’s most reliable Democratic stronghold, and voters amended the Washington City Charter to disqualify council members and mayors from serving or ever running again if convicted of a crime while in office.

The charter measures came during an ugly period for local politics in the nation’s capital.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s 2010 election campaign illegally paid another candidate to undermine Mr. Gray’s principal opponent. A member of the City Council, Harry B. Thomas, resigned before pleading guilty in January to charges that he had embezzled more than $350,000 from a nonprofit group he controlled and failed to report income taxes. After that, the Council’s chairman, Kwame R. Brown, resigned. He pleaded guilty in June to bank fraud and misuse of campaign money.

The measures aimed at helping to cleanse the ethical landscape passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote, but they may not do all that voters intended. As written, the rules may not apply to either Mr. Brown or Mr. Harris because they were not in office when they were convicted, having resigned before their guilty pleas.

Representative Eleanor Holmes-Norton, a Democrat, won re-election to her nonvoting seat in the House. Vincent Orange, a Democrat, retained his at-large seat on the Council, and David Grosso, an independent, won the other at-large seat.

Incumbents won the four other Council seats on the ballot.