Last night marked the first debate of the 2014 mayoral campaign, with six of the ten declared candidates – Councilmembers Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Vincent Orange (D-At Large) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), former State Department aide Reta Lewis and Busboys and Poets owner Andy Shallal – gathering for the first time. Here are five takeaways from last night’s D.C. Bar Association-sponsored debate.
The delayed attorney general election is going to be a big deal: The D.C. Council’s decision to delay the city’s first attorney general election against the will of the majority of voters is looking like it will be a sticking point during this election season. The two “outsider” candidates, Shallal and Lewis, have an advantage here, as they did not have to vote. (Shallal called the Council’s decision “obnoxious.”) Wells was the only Councilmember candidate who could say he voted to keep the election in 2014.
Evans said an elected attorney general is personally “not something I’d be supportive of,” but that it was “uncertainty” that led him to not support a 2014 election. Bowser agreed with the “uncertainty” point. “I knew I would be sitting here answering this question,” Bowser said. “It would have probably been easier if I said, ‘Well, let’s just go with it and figure out what happens.’ But I knew that would not be best for the residents of the District of Columbia.” Orange also said there was “uncertainty in the law” and “it was not ready.”
“This is another fundamental difference between us,” Wells said after Bowser. “They’re going to keep you from voting on that for at least two to four years.”
The Height Act stances: Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the night, at least to the good people in the overflow room, came after the candidates were asked, by a show of hands, who would support changing the Height Act if it meant having more affordable housing in D.C. Only Shallal and Lewis raised their hands. The question did not allow for followups, but Wells is on record as against raising the height limit, as is Evans and Bowser (kind of).
Being an outsider is not always a good thing: While Shallal did rather well pinning down specifics on some points, Lewis seemed to talk mainly in platitudes and stumbled a few times. That’s not to say Lewis didn’t have any good moments. During the conversation on the elected attorney general, Lewis said it was “unacceptable that we are not upholding the will of the people.”
Vincent Orange is indeed running: In the first big laugh of the night, moderator Bruce DePuyt initially forgot the Councilmember during the opening statement section of the debate. (“I’m sure my gaffe has already been immortalized on Twitter,” he said correctly.) Indeed, there were questions about whether Orange should have qualified to participate in the debate, as he’s yet to file some of the paperwork and hasn’t registered a campaign committee. But he assured NBC4’s Tom Sherwood that he is indeed running after a fun round of questions that concluded with:
Sherwood: The question I have Mr. Orange is, hasn’t the city had enough of shadow campaigns and incomplete records? … Why haven’t you signed the candidacy statement that everyone else has signed?
Orange: As you know Mr. Sherwood, I’ve just returned from London, where I was representing the city in the British Improvement District. Once again, I’m in compliance and everything’s in order and I am a candidate for mayor.”
Challenging Gray will be key: Mayor Vincent Gray was the always present specter in the room last night, having yet to declare, either way, whether he intends to run again. Wells was the most forceful with his rebuke of Gray: “We cannot ignore that the mayor ran a corrupt campaign and what we are seeing now with fallout with Jeffrey Thompson that a pay-to-play system is something we are paying for.” Bowser was less direct, saying D.C. residents deserve a “fresh start in the mayor’s office.”
Orange took a different approach, by referring to himself in the third person: “It’s not about the job that Vincent Gray is doing. It’s about the job that Vincent Orange can offer.”
