At-large Councilmember David Grosso will not run for reelection in 2020.

Grosso says he has long thought that two terms was the right amount of time “because you go into it with so much energy and vigor and you know, you’re fired up and you want to make all these changes. And then what happens is, they just chip away at you over the years,” he tells DCist. “For me, it’s not happened yet, and I don’t really want it to happen. I’m still up for the fight, but I know if I stay in for one more term, my energy will be not as high as it was.”

Grosso is one of the two non-Democrats on the D.C. Council, though his independent status makes him part of the council’s progressive wing. He introduced legislation to bring universal paid family leave and publicly funded elections to the District, and has worked to regulate recreational marijuana, decriminalize sex work, and rename Columbus Day after indigenous people.

Raised in the District, Grosso got his law degree before working for a number of D.C. officials, including Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and then-Councilmember Sharon Ambrose. He was first elected to the council in 2012.

Now the chair of the council’s education committee, Grosso says that his proudest moments include passing legislation to end school suspension and expulsion based on absences, his work to elevate the arts in the District, paid family leave, and public campaign financing.

“Historically, to challenge [Ward 2 Councilmember] Jack Evans was very hard to do because he outraised money—he’d have 200 grand before anyone else could get in,” says Grosso about public financing. “And now you see all these candidates actually have a viable chance. The question of dollars is not on anybody’s mind, and they’re allowed to simply debate their differences in their policies, which is what should be.”

Grosso was the first sitting councilmember to call for an ad hoc committee to investigate pay-to-play allegations made against embattled colleague Evans, and later the first to call on Evans to resign.

He says that a huge part of why he isn’t running is because “I’m not the kind of person that thinks that I’m the only one that can do this job. And I often wish more politicians would believe that.”

But that’s not the only reason. If there’s one moment that typifies why Grosso is choosing not to run again, he says it’s what happened when the council overturned Initiative 77 last summer. Voters had approved of a measure to eliminate the tipped wage, an initiative that most public officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, publicly opposed.

To the surprise of some progressive activists, Grosso voted with the majority of the council in favor of overturning Initiative 77. He says he doesn’t regret the vote, but he does feel remorse about the way it went down.

“Mendelson put a lot of pressure on us on this. And it was the one time that I actually gave into his pressure and I regret that,” he says. “He told me he would not remove me from the Committee on Education” as long as Grosso voted with the majority to overturn the measure.

“I am very proud of the fact that I don’t trade votes and I don’t trade issues with people. I have a principled stance on things,” says Grosso. “And that one that just kind of a was in the gray zone for me. I believed in what I was doing. But I also did a poor job explaining it to my constituents and also was willing to engage in a trade with Mendelson, or at least a conversation about a trade that I felt bad about later.”

Mendelson has not responded to a request for comment. A few months after that vote, the chairman took away some education oversight responsibilities from Grosso’s committee. Some advocates have been critical of Grosso’s tenure as the chair of the education committee, during which time D.C. saw a slew of education-related scandals.

But Grosso is proud of his time in office: “If you look at my list of accomplishments, I’ve gotten done most of what I want to get done.” And he has confidence that others will pick up the baton for many of the issues he has championed on the council.

“The Sex Worker Advocates Coalition’s not going to go away, they’re going to continue to hound people,” on decriminalizing sex work, Grosso says. “With the marijuana issue, when I introduced it the first time I was by myself. Right now, the mayor is touting her plan and all the council members are on it, and so there’s a change in attitude.”

One of the issues that he wants to work on during his final 14 months in office is ushering his record sealing bill through the council. There was already a hearing on the bill last January, and Grosso is hoping the bill will come before a vote at the Judiciary Committee soon. Another is continuing to pressure the football team to change its name, which is a dictionary-defined slur.

He says he’s still not sure what will come next for him, and he wouldn’t start anything before his time on the council ends. “Odds are good that I’m going to jump right into something else that is mission driven, that is going to be trying to make the world a better place, because that’s just who I am and what I love to do,” Grosso says. “Hopefully, I’ll have more time for my friends. But if I don’t, it’s because I’m trying to save the world.”

While Grosso isn’t running in 2020, he is endorsing Christina Henderson, a former staffer on the council’s education committee who currently works for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Her website launches on Thursday, he says.

Henderson is one of a handful people in the at-large race, including State Board of Education Vice President Markus Batchelor. They are running for two open slots, one of which historically goes to the person who wins the Democratic primary. The Democratic incumbent is Robert White.

“I think it’s very important to have a different perspectives on the council than we have right now,” says Grosso. “And although I’m very proud of who I am and what I believe in and the things that I’ve accomplished, the reality is that there needs to be other voices on the council.”