D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) plans to file an appeal Thursday of a D.C. Board of Elections ruling that disqualified him from running for the city’s next attorney general.

       The three-member elections board on Monday determined that McDuffie was ineligible to appear on the Democratic primary ballot because he has not been “actively engaged” as an attorney — language that references a D.C. code statute that lists qualifications for the attorney general position. The board’s decision was the result of a successful challenge brought by fellow candidate Bruce V. Spiva, who is now mounting an effort — including a six-figure television and digital ad buy — to try to build momentum for his own race.

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       Chuck Thies, a senior adviser to McDuffie’s campaign and longtime political strategist, said the team will file a notice with the D.C. Court of Appeals on Thursday in an effort to overturn the board’s decision, which stunned McDuffie’s backers, including Dionna Maria Lewis, a trial attorney who served on the Board of Elections between 2016 and 2019.

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       Lewis said her reaction to Monday’s ruling was “utter shock,” namely because she feels the board typically errs on the side of enfranchising candidates to grant them ballot access.

       “This boils down to an interpretation of what I believe to be an ambiguously read statute,” Lewis said. “The board read it in a very narrow way pertaining to who I believe is a qualified candidate.”

       Thies said the campaign will seek an expedited review from the Court of Appeals; April 28 is the last day for challengers and candidates to appeal rulings made by the Board of Elections. The board is scheduled to consider a slew of signature petition challenges Friday, including a notable challenge brought by the mayoral campaign of Robert C. White Jr. that questions the validity of thousands of signatures collected by Trayon White Sr., another candidate in that race.

       McDuffie ineligible to run for D.C. attorney general, elections board says

       D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said Wednesday that some members of the public have reached out to him in hopes the council might consider emergency legislation that could clarify the language in the statute. Although Mendelson — who was an original sponsor of the 2009 bill that made the District’s attorney general an elected position — said he disagreed with the board’s ruling on McDuffie, he also said he had no immediate plans to introduce such a measure himself and that no other lawmakers had raised the idea.

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       Emergency measures require votes from nine of the council’s 13 members to pass; McDuffie would need to recuse himself from the matter. The council’s next scheduled legislative meeting is May 3, though Mendelson or a majority of the council could call for a rare special legislative session before then.

       “My understanding is that an appeal’s going to be filed in court. The council’s next meeting is in two weeks,” Mendelson said. “For the moment, we’ll see how that plays out.”

       Thies said McDuffie’s campaign has not raised the issue with Mendelson or other council members, adding that it would be “inappropriate” to do so. He also said any route to emergency legislation would probably have issues with timing and optics: The elections board is slated to conduct a lottery to determine ballot position April 29, start sending ballots to overseas and military voters May 6 and will mail ballots to all other registered voters beginning May 16.

       “It’s Court of Appeals or bust,” Thies said.

       As McDuffie prepares to take the issue to court, Spiva, a former Perkins Coie law firm partner, is seizing the opportunity to boost his name recognition. As a longtime lawmaker, McDuffie is the most recognized name among the Democratic candidates for attorney general and has also outraised all his opponents, which also include Ryan Jones, an attorney who has his own law firm; and Brian Schwalb, partner-in-charge of the Venable law firm who earned an endorsement from incumbent Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) in March.

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       Spiva’s campaign manager, Alaina Haworth, said that Monday’s ruling brought extra attention to the attorney general’s race and that voters are likely to reevaluate the slate of candidates. On Wednesday, Spiva’s campaign announced that it had launched a six-figure television and digital ad buy — Haworth declined to give a specific total but said it is the first TV ad from any primary-election candidate.

       The 30-second advertisement, which was released slightly ahead of schedule following the ruling, details Spiva’s upbringing and background in D.C. statehood advocacy and civil rights cases, and is expected to run through June.

       Thies said McDuffie plans to film a campaign advertisement of his own Saturday, though he asserted the effort has long been in the works and not a reaction to Spiva’s ad or the election board’s decision.

       “Will our messaging change? Sure. Will some resources need to be redirected? Yes,” he said. “But knocking on doors and boosting voter engagement, none of that has changed.”