How to be an A-list Washingtonian

Do you want to be the consummate Washingtonian? Then first, buy a house in the 22066 ZIP code and send your kids to the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. Your office should be designed by top architecture firm Jacobs, get cleaned by ABM Janitorial Services and be furnished by Maryland Office Interiors. And you should have your business lunches at the Seasons restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel.

These are the top picks in various categories in the Washington Business Journal’s 2007 “Book of Lists.” The journal ranked nearly 2,500 major companies in virtually every industry in the Washington area.

In the consequential-for-D.C. categories of “Lobbying firms” and “Law firms,” the 2006 champs were dethroned. Patton Boggs took the top lobbying spot from Cassidy & Associates, which fell into second place, and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr wrested the No. 1 law firm position from Hogan & Hartson (No. 2). Patton Boggs Managing Partner Stuart M. Pape told Yeas & Nays that his firm is quite deserving of the honor. “We’ve had a very broad-based bipartisan practice for a long time, and I think that, year in and year out, that has turned out to be the key to success,” he said.

But in a town filled with lawyers and lobbyists trudging up to Capitol Hill to get those mighty federal dollars for clients, Joseph West, a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, earned perhaps the most prestigious honor: The title of “Top Washington Lawyer for Government Contracts.”

We asked West how he’ll fare in the 110th Congress. “We’re going to see major investigations on money spent on Iraq, on Katrina and on other huge federal programs,” West says. “Our clients are all going to be pressed hard on every contract where there have been major expenditures to justify the cost that they billed for and things like that.”

“It does make my life a bit more difficult,” West joked. “But there’s going to be continued work for us, which is good, since I have kids in college.”

NASCAR driver is rebuked for Bush sticker

It’s no secret that NASCAR drivers skew Republican, which is fine with the Federal Election Commission, just so long as they don’t display their preferences where anyone can see them.

In a decision announced Tuesday, the FEC sent an “admonishment letter” to Kirk Shelmerdine Racing. Kirk Shelmerdine, a former pit boss for the late Dale Earnhardt, has been an unsuccessful, underfunded and undersponsored driver. He has never finished higher than 26th.

So back in 2004, in a move perhaps designed to draw some attention to his car, he placed a “Bush-Cheney ’04” decal on his rear quarter panel, which was otherwise unencumbered by advertising. Democratic activist Sydnor Thompson complained to the FEC, and the agency found that Shelmerdine “may have made an unreported independent expenditure or a prohibited corporate expenditure.”

Former commissioner Bradley Smith dissented in one of the case’s early votes and blogged about the result this week. He has written that in reference to the FEC’s $250 expenditure limit, “evidence is strong that the market value of Shelmerdine’s rear quarter panel was approximately $0, give or take $249.”

McKnight, Hamilton on Fenty’s guest list

Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty’s camp has been tight-lipped about which bold-faced names might be joining him at the Convention Center on Tuesday for his inaugural ball. But a few precious names have finally leaked out from Fenty’s invite list. According to a source in the Fenty camp, incoming Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, R&B crooners Anthony Hamilton and Brian McKnight, and D.C.’s own Chuck Brown, the godfather of go-go, are on the list.

You could put quite a band together with those four, although what would you call the genre? Irish go-go R&B? Go-go blue-eyed soul?

Profs turn in lousy report card for the 109th

Congress should consider itself on academic probation next year, after a group of political scientists who were asked to rate legislators’ performance this year gave them only a C-minus.

“If our sons or daughters brought home these grades, we’d be talking to the teacher the next day,” said Edward Carmines, director of research for the Center on Congress at Indiana University, which conducted the survey.

The only “A” members received was on being accessible to their constituents. But that was more than outweighed by a spate of Ds and low Cs, on such matters as keeping partisanship in check and limiting the role of special interests.

By the numbers

5,999: The cost, according to the Dallas Morning News, of a string of Tahitian pearls made to look like Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s own pearl necklace (they can be found at the Pearl Source in Los Angeles)

$0.99: Cost on eBay of a “silver wild pearl ring Nancy Pelosi’s been wearing”

Media mix

Steve Scully is not only C-SPAN’s political editor, he’s also serving as president of the White House Correspondents Association this year. So all eyes will be on him when the comedian at this spring’s dinner either kills or flops. He gave us his Media Mix via e-mail.

Q: What are you listening to now?

Diana Krall’s latest CD (and anything jazz).

Q: What was the last movie you saw?

“Bobby” and “Flushed Away” (What can I say, I have three young children).

Q: What Web sites do visit in the morning?

The Drudge Report, Fox News, Marketwatch and ABC’s “The Note.”

Q: What book are you reading?

“The Audacity of Hope” by Senator Obama and “Five People You Meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom.

Q: What’s your favorite TV show?

C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” (of course) and CNN’s “American Morning.”