Martin Austermuhle
Amanda Michelle Gomez
Colleen Grablick
Puedes leer este artículo en español aquí.
The prevailing political wisdom in D.C. is that most of the contests for elected office are settled during the Democratic primary; more than 76% of the city’s voters are registered Democrats, after all.
But that doesn’t mean that Democratic candidates are certain to win, and nowhere is this more a possibility than the competitive eight-way fight for two At-Large seats on the D.C. Council — where every D.C. voter has two picks they can use.
There are also competitive non-partisan races for three ward seats on the D.C. State Board of Education, almost 350 Advisory Neighborhood Commission seats are up for grabs, and a ballot measure that will (again) ask D.C. voters whether the city should eliminate the tipped wage.
The races: Initiative 82 – Mayor – Attorney General – D.C. Council Chair – D.C. Council At-Large – D.C. Council Ward 1 – D.C. Council Ward 3 – D.C. Council Ward 5 – D.C. Council Ward 6 – Delegate to Congress – Shadow Representative – D.C. State Board of Education Ward 1 – D.C. State Board of Education Ward 3 – D.C. State Board of Education Ward 5 – D.C. State Board of Education Ward 6 – Advisory Neighborhood Commissions.
Initiative 82
Call it déjà vu or the political equivalent of “Groundhog Day,” but D.C. voters will be asked to weigh in on an issue they decided on four years ago. Yes, the fight over the tipped wage in D.C. is back on the ballot.
Long story short: In D.C., some workers (including those in bars, restaurants, nail salons, and parking lots) are currently paid a subminimum wage of $5.35 an hour by their employer, and are allowed to collect tips on top of that. If those tips bring their total compensation up to the prevailing minimum wage of $16.10 an hour, their employer is good to go. But if the tips fall short, the employer has to make up the difference. Employers say this allows them to keep operating expenses down while also letting workers make more than the minimum wage (if they collect enough in tips, of course). But critics argue that it leaves workers at the mercy of their employer and can lead to wage theft.
If approved by voters, Initiative 82 would phase out the tipped wage through 2027, after which employers would have to pay those formerly tipped workers the full minimum wage of $16.10 an hour. (Tips would still be permitted, but could no longer be counted as part of formal compensation.)
It was back in the 2018 primary that 55% of voters approved Initiative 77, which would have done what Initiative 82 proposes. The D.C. Council, though, voted to overturn the public vote, citing concerns from the hospitality industry. Opponents of the tipped wage didn’t take that as a defeat, and marshaled an effort in late 2021 and early 2022 to put the question back to voters — and later pushed back against an aggressive legal fight waged by the restaurant industry to keep Initiative 82 off the ballot.
Bars and restaurants are again urging voters to reject Initiative 82, saying it would impose ruinous operating-cost increases just as the city is emerging from the pandemic. Proponents say those concerns are overblown, pointing to the seven states that currently do not have a tipped wage, and noting staffing shortages across the industry they say could be remedied with higher pay.
Now, a regular voter could fairly wonder if the council could simply step in and overturn Initiative 82 should it pass at the ballot box. We’d never say it’s not possible, but it’s looking less and less likely — a majority of lawmakers now say they’d let the voters’ decision stand.
Read more: Here’s our full explainer on Initiative 82, and our report on how owners and workers in the hospitality industry are reacting to the proposed measure.
Mayor
Like her or not, Mayor Muriel Bowser has become something of a political institution in D.C. First elected to the D.C. Council in 2007, Bowser rose to the city’s top office in 2014, and faced virtually no opposition when she was re-elected in 2018. This year’s run is of symbolic consequence: Should Bowser win in November, she’d become only the second politician in recent history to serve three terms as mayor. (The first was Marion Barry.)
Bowser survived a competitive Democratic primary in June that tested her no-drama, middle-of-the-road approach to governance against Councilmember Robert White’s (D-At Large) more progressive pitch, and she has entered the general election cycle making much the same argument for another term: she says she’s helped D.C. get to where it is and has the experience to steer the city through the uncertain post-pandemic times ahead.
Of course, there’s a trio of challengers that largely beg to differ — former entertainment star and executive Rodney “Red” Grant, Republican Stacia Hall, and Libertarian Dennis Sobin.
Grant was born and raised in D.C.; soon after high school he started doing stand-up comedy (check him out here), which led to a career producing content for Viacom. But within the last five years he started making trips back to D.C., eventually moving his family back to the city he grew up in with hopes of eventually running it. He says that time in corporate America would lend itself well to running the city government. “Before she even was thinking about being a mayor, I was already in the executive offices making real decisions. They can say, ‘Well, he’s not experienced in politics,’ but I am experienced in running corporations,” he tells DCist/WAMU. “I feel like our city needs to be managed better.”
Part of Grant’s pitch is bringing back what he says worked when he was growing up and attending D.C. Public Schools: more trades in schools, more recreation options in neighborhoods (he cites the Boys & Girls Clubs that used to be run by MPD), and neighborhood-based citizen patrols. He also says he’d impose more checks and balances on developers in D.C.; expand mental health services; and push to promote more local TV, film, and music being made in the city. Grant also says he wants to push more city funding to community groups, especially as a means to fight crime.
“There are probably over 85 violence prevention programs that are not getting funded in the city. We need to identify who’s working with our young people directly and fund that because those people on the street that are really doing the work are the ones that I want to make sure we finance,” he says.
Hall, a mother of two who says she has lived in public housing and experienced homelessness, says a focus of her campaign is public safety. The Republican candidate says she would put more police officers in schools, and develop incentives to have officers live in the neighborhoods they police. She also wants to promote school choice and limit what she calls over-regulation of charter schools, cut taxes, end the city’s status as a sanctuary city, reduce licensing requirements for specific professions (like barbers), and repeal the city’s requirement that kids over the age of 12 get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend school.
Sobin, a repeat candidate and former sex trade entrepreneur who isn’t raising any money to fund his mayoral bid, seems quite focused on a single issue: Ending the war on drugs. “The Libertarian Party is the freedom party, and we believe the current public safety has to do with the war on drugs, which we are trying to end, at least make less racist,” he said at a recent forum. Beyond that, though, Sobin has somewhat deferred to Bowser on leading the city over the next four years. He said that he would bring her on as a consultant to manage housing issues “because I don’t have the experience she has,” and also defended her against attacks from the other challengers. “We have a mayor here who has done quite a bit for the city and we haven’t shown her the proper respect,” he said.
Watch: The Office of Campaign Finance’s official mayoral debate is here.
Attorney General
After two terms serving as D.C.’s first elected attorney general (the position was appointed by the mayor prior to 2014), Karl Racine is stepping away from public office for the time being. His announcement set up a competitive fight for the seat that was largely hashed out during the Democratic primary, with Brian Schwalb emerging victorious. Schwalb drew no competition ahead of the general election, so he will appear alone on the ballot.
D.C. Council Chair
Not unlike in the mayor’s race, incumbent D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson faced a spirited challenge from the left ahead of the June 21 Democratic primary, emerging victorious (though narrowly so) over first-time citywide candidate Erin Palmer. That campaign focused on energy and experience, with Mendelson touting his years of public service (he’s the city’s longest-serving elected official), while Palmer said the council’s top seat needed an infusion of new blood and ideas.
The incumbent calls himself a pragmatic progressive who knows how to get things done; he’s done everything from breaking up unpopular city agencies to working additional funding for at-risk schools into the city’s budget. Critics say Mendelson can sometimes seem stuck in his ways, but also concede that he knows the government and budget better than many.
Mendelson now faces two challengers who have yet to raise any money in their quests to unseat him: Republican Nate Derenge and Statehood Green Party Darryl L.C. Moch.
Derenge says that if elected he would push to do away with licensing requirements for certain jobs (like barbers), set a time limit on how long people can receive government benefits, freeze property tax rates, ban abortion after 27 weeks, repeal a city ban on Menthol cigarettes, and make it easier for residents to get permits to carry concealed handguns.
Moch, the chairman of the Statehood Green Party and a former leader of the national Green Party, says he’s particularly concerned with the displacement of Black residents happening as D.C. has grown — and grown more expensive. “D.C. should be a place where all the residents can thrive, not just some of them. Not being a [native Washingtonian], I am aware that natives are feeling pushed out and not supported, and that shouldn’t be. Folks that are from here should feel like this is their home,” he told DCist/WAMU.
If elected, Moch says he would aim to make sure the council is more responsive. “The biggest thing for me is people who have been doing this for a while can think they know best… we have to increase our listening to our communities. We have to be mindful about how people are feeling about where they live,” he said.
D.C. Council At-Large
While the Democratic primary is often seen as the actual decider of many elections in D.C., the fight for two At-Large seats on the council remains much more competitive through the general election. And that’s partly by design: one of the two seats up for grabs has to be filled by a non-Democrat, opening the field to independent contenders, as well as candidates from the Republican and Statehood Green parties.
Oh, and as we mentioned above: every D.C. voter gets to pick two candidates. (See sidebar.)
This year’s battle is also more exciting than most, in part because there are three incumbents vying for two seats. Current Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At Large) won June’s Democratic primary against a large field that divided the vote, while Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) is hoping to keep the seat she’s held for two terms. At the same time, Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie’s quickly pivoted from his aborted run for attorney general to the at-large race. Rounding out the field are business owner Fred Hill, business executive Graham McLaughlin, former D.C. government attorney and council staffer Karim Marshall, Republican Giuseppe Niosi, and Statehood Green David Schwartzman.
Silverman and McDuffie have played on their incumbency as selling points; the former touts her role in creating the city’s paid family leave program for private-sector workers and expanding job training programs for residents, while the latter promotes his 2016 bill to treat violence and crime as public health problems, as well as a more recent measure creating a Baby Bonds program for low-income children.
Silverman says she wants to remain on the council to continue pushing big progressive ideas. “We’re at a crossroads in this city. We need a new roadmap. We can’t keep using the same roadmap from 1998 that’s led to displacement,” she said at a September forum. McDuffie says much the same, arguing that his focus will be on continuing to promote racial equity. “We have to be bold. We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” he said at another forum. (Greater Greater Washington has endorsed both Silverman and McDuffie. Racine is backing Silverman, as are Councilmembers Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), while former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez is for McDuffie.
But given that it is widely thought that Bonds will win at least one of the seats as the Democratic nominee, Silverman and McDuffie have taken direct and indirect shots at each other over the course of the campaign. When McDuffie announced he was running, he specifically said he was targeting Silverman — not Bonds. He has since hinted that Silverman is too divisive a colleague. Silverman, for her part, has fired back to say that McDuffie is treating the at-large race as a consolation prize for his failed run for attorney general, and was quick to jump on news that a local lobbyist with periodic ties to Republicans had hosted a fundraiser for McDuffie.
That infighting has left something of an opening for the challengers, who have consistently framed themselves as new faces with new ideas.
Hill has been especially critical of the council for decreasing funding for the Metropolitan Police Department, saying he would give all officers — as well as teachers, firefighters, and other city workers — a 30% pay raise. He also wants to lower or freeze some property taxes for seniors, and require that D.C. abandon the current system of setting the median income threshold (which impacts the definition of affordability for housing) according to the region’s average.
Marshall, a Ward 7 resident and new father, says he would prioritize education — he wants more access to high-quality tutoring, to re-establish the council’s education committee, and to ensure additional funding to support struggling schools. (He landed the endorsement of the Washington Teachers’ Union, as did Silverman.) On housing, Marshall also says he’d push for the city to better return vacant houses to productive use. And he broadly says many of the problems the city faces today are because of the existing council; Marshall touts his own experience writing legislation when he was a council staffer and government official. “We have a lack of coordination problem,” he said at a recent debate. “We need people with lower egos who are willing to work together.”
McLaughlin sounds a similar note; in many ways, he argues, D.C.’s problems come down to management. And he says he has the experience to better run the city with its existing resources; he’s currently the vice president for social responsibility at UnitedHealth Group. He’s also described himself as a “corny-looking white guy who opened his home to men coming home from prison,” describing his history of taking in returning citizens at his Hill East home. During debates, he has said if elected he would focus on fully funding the city’s Birth-to-Three Act (which aims to lower costs of child care and improve quality), promote high-impact tutoring for second-graders, and push for more home ownership for residents, which he says is the best path to generational wealth. McLaughlin, as well as McDuffie, have been endorsed by the editorial board of The Washington Post.
Niosi, who grew up in Brookland and is now a systems engineer at the Navy Yard, says his campaign focuses on public safety, better schools, and fiscal responsibility. He says D.C. needs more police officers because the existing corps is stretched thin, and he wants schools to promote more trade and vocational options as an alternative to telling kids that college is their best option. And Schwartzman sounds some traditional Statehood Green Party themes: the wealthy should be taxed more, housing should be considered a human right (and D.C. should try out social housing), and D.C. should create a civilian police review board with subpoena power. The retired Howard University professor has also pledged something distinct: that he won’t take a council salary if elected.
Watch: The Office of Campaign Finance’s official At-Large debate is here, the D.C. for Democracy Candidate Forum is here.
Endorsements: Here’s a handy list of all the major endorsements in the At-Large race so far.
Read more: The City Paper’s look at Marshall and McLaughlin.
D.C. Council Ward 1
After a dramatic primary campaign, things are much calmer in Ward 1 this general election season.
Incumbent Councilmember Brianne Nadeau is looking at a smooth path to a third term, after defeating challengers Salah Czapary and Sabel Harris in the primary. She enjoys broad support from progressives in her ward, and in the primary this June had the widest victory margin of any incumbent.
Her challenger is Statehood Green candidate and self-described “civic agent” Chris Otten. A Ward 1 resident for more than 20 years, he’s known for loudly and dramatically fighting D.C.’s development projects, often through lawsuits and other legal orders. He’s the leader of the Save McMillan Action Coalition — a group that for years has been protesting and filing restraining orders to stop the development of the 25-acre plot of land that’s gone unused since the 1980s. He has previously served as an ANC and led an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2006.
In an interview, Otten said his priorities for the ward would be improving the city’s process for approving development plans by calling for greater scrutiny in equity and environmental impact reports. He’d also cited the displacement of long-term residents as one of the biggest issues facing Ward 1 residents, and would attempt to pass legislation amending the income restrictions on affordable housing units.
“People I love, people I care about, they cannot stay in D.C. anymore because they’re not getting the jobs to pay the ever increasing rents,” Otten said.
Acknowledging the challenge any non-Democratic candidate faces in a general election in D.C., Otten said a vote for him would serve as an “alternative vote” to Nadeau, while likely not swaying the ultimate outcome of the race.
“Being in a Democratic city, it’s a long shot as a green to win,” Otten said. “This is an alternative vote…[it’s] chance to make a statement for these important issues by voting for me.”
In an interview with DCist/WAMU, Nadeau said her focus for the upcoming months lies in passing bills through the council before the legislative cycle ends. As the chair of the Committee on Human Services, she plans to introduce a permanent version of the recently passed emergency legislation that created the Office of Migrant Services, a new government office that will provide temporary services to the migrants who have been bused to D.C. by way of Republican governors. That bill is set to have a hearing on Oct. 20. Also on Nadeau’s agenda for the fall is a bill that would overhaul the city’s rapid rehousing program, as well as two bills that would help youth in foster services remain housed and build up nest eggs.
“I had a very tough campaign and the primary — I worked really hard,” Nadeau says. “I think it just shows that I’ve been prioritizing the right issues.”
– Colleen Grablick
D.C. Council Ward 3
Matthew Frumin is the Democratic nominee, going up against David Krucoff, a registered Republican. Frumin is the presumptive favorite, as a Republican has never been elected to represent Ward 3. (While the ward does have the city’s second-highest number of Republican voters, Democrats still outnumber them 10-1.) Frumin prevailed in a crowded primary race, getting 42% of the vote, or just over 8,000 votes.
Frumin’s background: He’s a former Clinton administration appointee who now works as an attorney and lives in American University Park. He’s active in local politics and policy, having served as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for his neighborhood for roughly six years and founding the Coalition for D.C. Public Schools and Communities.
When several candidates dropped out of the primary, progressives coalesced around Frumin to defeat his more moderate opponent, Eric Goulet. But Frumin tells DCist/WAMU that he considers himself to be a pragmatist above all else. “People who know me don’t think of me as an ideologue but a problem solver,” he says.
He says that trait has enabled him to move on contentious issues like housing. He recalls having to build consensus as board president of the senior facility Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home when he was trying to create affordable housing units there. The affordable housing project prevailed, becoming Ward 3’s first project backed by the Housing Production Trust Fund.
“When we came out with our proposal, our neighbors were really unhappy with it,” says Frumin “We listened to them.” He says the board changed the direction of the building based on feedback but kept important aspects of the original proposal, including the number of affordable units.
Krucoff, meanwhile, is running as a conscientious, centrist, pro-choice Republican, comparing himself to Dwight Eisenhower and Larry Hogan. He previously ran as an independent against Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) on the platform of retroceding D.C. to Maryland. “The whole notion of political diversity is a major emphasis of our campaign,” Krucoff tells DCist/WAMU.
Krucoff would advocate for increasing the number of police officers and against a plan to place protected bike lanes along a portion of Connecticut Avenue from Woodley Park to Chevy Chase. He also says there should be an immediate moratorium on new housing vouchers. He cites neighbors who’ve linked voucher holders to increased crime in the neighborhood, among other reasons. Frumin does not support a moratorium, but says he is interested in reviewing the voucher program. (Krucoff landed the endorsement of the Post’s editorial board.)
Adrian Salsgiver, a Libertarian, will also appear on the ballot. He says that if he’s elected he’ll work to “end all so-called COVID restrictions and make sure they never return,” push to end the war on drugs, and he will also oppose bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue and 25 mile-per-hour speed limits.
D.C. Council Ward 5
The race for the Ward 5 seat on the council was one of the more exciting contests heading into the June Democratic primary. With Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) having opted against running for a third term, a field of seven candidates jumped into the race to succeed him — with Zachary Parker emerging as the winner. The former president of the State Board of Education ran as a progressive touting “bold investments that build real racial equity and truly healthy communities,” and ended up drawing endorsements from Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), Charles Allen (D-Ward 5), as well as Attorney General Karl Racine.
The general election is likely to be a bit of a sleeper by comparison; Parker faces a single opponent in Republican Clarence Lee Jr., who hasn’t raised any money and doesn’t even have a campaign website. Lee, a former three-term Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in the Trinidad neighborhood, concedes to DCist/WAMU that his bid is a bit of a long-shot, but that’s he’s also doing it to more broadly raise awareness of issues he sees in the ward.
“I’m sort of running as an anti-Democrat more than a pro-Republican, to make people think. We need more accountability from our council,” said Lee, a retired tax accountant and auditor. “I was frustrated with the lack of responsiveness from our councilmember when we made requests. It takes too long to get a stop sign, the simple things and the basic needs for D.C. residents.”
He worries that the city under Democratic leadership has become too “elitist,” and thinks the Wilson Building could stand to have a contrarian thinker within it. (Other Republicans running for office in D.C. say much the same.)
Lee says that if he did happen to win, he’d push for a 10-year freeze on property taxes, because he says current increases in property values and taxes make housing unaffordable for first-time buyers and drive long-time owners out of their homes. He would also focus on basic constituent services, and push Republicans in Congress to give the city full representation on Capitol Hill — though not statehood.
Parker, for his part, says he’s two top priorities would be to ramp up support for violence interruption programs and also affordable housing, the latter through expanded subsidies for home-buyers and new models of housing development like land trusts and social housing. Unlike Lee, he’s a strong supporter of D.C. statehood.
– Martin Austermuhle
D.C. Council Ward 6
Incumbent Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen has enjoyed something of an enviable election year: he’s faced no challengers at all in either the primary or the general election. That reality is even more surprising given periodic social media grousing over crime in D.C., and the role that critics say Allen has played in not addressing it as the chair of the council’s committee on the judiciary and public safety. But, as they say, social media isn’t always reality, and short of a shocking (and highly unlikely) write-in campaign, Allen will cruise to a third term on the council come Nov. 8.
Delegate to Congress
Since D.C. is not a state, the city’s non-voting delegate to Congress is the closest that residents get to a voice on Capitol Hill. And for the past three decades, the voice has been that of D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is running for a 16th term in office.
Norton touts herself as D.C.’s champion, and over the years has fought to get the city a full voting representative in the House, and more recently, she’s pushed for full statehood. (The House has twice passed a statehood bill in recent years.) She has also worked her way up the ladder of congressional committee leadership, and has introduced a bevy of bills she says would chip away at the symbolic and very real shortcomings the city faces by not being a state. Those include everything from not having direct control over the D.C. National Guard or its own local prosecutor for violent crimes to not being able to email council legislation to Congress for the required 30-day review period.
But not all are happy with Norton’s long stint on the Hill.
Republican challenger Nelson Rimensnyder says he could be a better bridge to the GOP that may end up in control of Congress after the midterm elections. He also argues that the unrelenting focus on statehood has been misguided; he’d rather see D.C. residents exempted from federal taxation as long as they go unrepresented, and says he’d marshal a bill to give the city a full vote in the House and a delegate to the Senate. Rimensnyder, a former Republican staffer when the city gained home rule in the 1970s, also wants to amend the Home Rule Charter to require run-off elections when no candidate wins an outright majority.
Bruce Majors, a longtime Libertarian, is also trying to unseat Norton. He believes that D.C. should be “decentralized,” meaning that more power would be devolved to ward levels. (He says every ward should have its own school board; currently there’s only a citywide State Board of Education.) Majors also advocates for the city to have an elected sheriff. And for the Statehood Green Party, Natale “Lino” Stracuzzi is also challenging Norton, pledging to be a more consistent and uncompromising advocate for statehood.
Norton has faced all three of these challengers before, but emerged victorious without much worry. In 2018, the three combined got roughly 20,000 votes, while Norton notched almost ten times that amount.
Shadow Representative
The shadow representative may sound like a villain straight out of a “Batman” movie, but it’s actually an elected position steeped in history. Early in the country’s history, territories seeking admission to the union would often send “shadow” delegations to Washington; advocates for statehood, essentially. (Tennessee is best known for having introduced the idea.) Currently, only D.C. and Puerto Rico have shadow delegations, made up of a shadow representative and two shadow senators who would, upon a granting of statehood, become their new state’s respective members of Congress.
While D.C.’s shadow delegation is elected, its three members are unpaid volunteers for the cause — and enjoy little actual power or congressional perks. Incumbent Shadow Rep. Oye Owolewa is looking for a second term in office, and he sneaked through a surprisingly competitive Democratic primary in June. During his first term he pushed to have other states recognize D.C.’s fight for statehood (earlier this year he got Democrats in West Virginia to introduce a bill to that end). He’s facing a challenge from Joyce Robinson-Paul, a member of the Statehood Green Party.
D.C. State Board of Education Ward 1
The race for the Ward 1 seat on the State Board of Education is down to one person: Ben Williams.
Williams currently teaches U.S. and local government at Capital City Public Charter in Brightwood. Originally from Ohio, he moved to D.C. roughly a decade ago after earning a graduate degree from the University of Michigan, where he studied secondary school social studies. He’s taught in D.C.’s public schools for the past nine years, becoming an active member with Teaching for Change’s D.C. Area Educators For Social Justice and the teacher advocacy group Empower Ed. He’s endorsed by the Washington Teachers’ Union.
Why run? “A lot of the issues that I’ve seen in the classroom are not getting better. And I’ve seen a lot of teachers and friends leave the classroom,” Williams tells DCist/WAMU.
Because he says the position’s greatest power is that of the bully pulpit, Williams intends to use the position to amplify issues plaguing teachers, students, and families. He’d advocate for more transparency, favoring a bill that would produce more information about teachers at all public schools as a way to influence turnover and a comprehensive dashboard on schools beyond what’s offered with the STAR rating. He’d also advocate for more professional development and scheduling flexibility for teachers.
D.C. State Board of Education Ward 3
Ward 3 residents will see D.C. Council staffer Eric Goulet’s name on the ballot again, but this time he’s running against Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Michael Sriqui for State Board of Education. Goulet unsuccessfully ran for the Ward 3 council seat during the primary season. He lost to Matthew Frumin, the candidate progressives coalesced around after Goulet received an influx of donations from a local education group that’s typically at odds with the teachers’ union and which favors mayoral control and charter schools.
Sriqui is endorsed by the Washington Teachers’ Union and believes what sets him apart from Goulet is his firsthand experience with the public school system. Sriqui’s three kids are enrolled in DCPS, while Goulet’s two kids are enrolled in a private Episcopal school (although Goulet says he plans to switch them to public schools). He’s also been active in education, participating in several school groups like the DCPS Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council.
Goulet, meanwhile, says what distinguishes him is nearly two decades of experience in D.C. government. As the former director of the council’s finance committee and one-time budget director under former mayor Vincent Gray, he’s had his hand in legislation related to school modernization and universal pre-K. Currently, he’s a health committee staffer for Gray, who represents Ward 7 on the council, but Goulet says he would resign and enter the private sector if elected.
The role has limited powers, so Goulet says he would tap into his existing relationships on the council to implement education policy. He’d advocate undertaking a new adequacy study so the city can better assess how it is spending money on public education, which the D.C. Charter School Alliance has also advocated. He is also interested in using the position to connect families to government resources, like through a regular newsletter.
Sriqui would approach the new role as he does his ANC duties, making recommendations and shepherding ideas through other governing bodies. He’s also interested in influencing education standards, including accelerating certain trainings for educators and including them when the board reviews social studies standards.
Both candidates support mayoral control of schools; however Sriqui would support making the state superintendent an independent position. (The superintendent is currently appointed by and answers to the mayor.)
D.C. State Board of Education Ward 5
Three candidates are vying to fill the seat vacated by outgoing Ward 5 representative Zachary Parker, who is running for the Ward 5 seat on the D.C. Council.
Robert Henderson, Nina O’Neill, and Carisa Stanley Beatty are all vying for the SBOE seat.
Beatty is a native Washingtonian and mother to a young D.C. Public Schools student. She says her motivation to run was borne out of her own experience navigating the school system as a parent. “Parents really need a strong advocate and a strong ally at the State Board of Education level to sort of figure this whole thing out,” Beatty says. “I realized there’s a real void in terms of advocacy at the board level.”
As the Ward 5 representative, Beatty, who works in banking, says her priority would be uplifting parent voices — namely through the creation of a Parent Advisory Committee. Similar to the school board’s student representatives, she proposes a parental voice on the board that would facilitate communication between the board and families. (Currently if a parent or family wants to raise an issue before the board, they have to testify at one of the board’s monthly meetings.)
“When you think of a student member that’s appointed, I believe that same access, and more importantly, that same routine communication opportunity, should be in place for families and parents,” she says. Beatty has been endorsed by current SBOE At-Large representative Jacques Patterson.
O’Neill, a Brookland resident with a background in special education, says her focus is improving accessibility for students with disabilities and catching kids up after three years of disrupted learning. A mother and grandmother, O’Neill moved to the ward 12 years ago and has spent much of her career as an educator for students with visual impairments.
“I’ve been really concerned about the learning loss that I’ve seen during COVID — I’ve seen it in my own students, and special education students have suffered a lot,” O’Neill says. “The lower income students, the students who are already struggling, are just really struggling now, so that was one of the big things that motivated me [to run].”
She also says she wants the city to expand its public charter school options, and praises the city’s school system for offering parents a choice.
“I think one of the advantages in D.C. is that there is some parental choice — I think people really want that, and I think we should encourage it and expand upon it,” she says. “If we want young families to remain in D.C. and not to move out to suburbs, I think that having the public schools and the public charter schools, having that variety and schools that specialize in different things… I think that’s a huge plus.”
In D.C.’s school system, parents can enter a lottery for their child’s admission to a charter school or out-of-boundary public school instead of their designated neighborhood public school. Given that the lottery system is not geographically bound like DCPS, it has attracted criticism that it disadvantages at-risk students by putting them in the same lottery pool as wealthier families for access to high-achieving charters. One effort has been made to remedy the problem: Starting this year, 11 D.C. charters gave admissions preference to at-risk students, meaning those who are experiencing homelessness, are in the foster system, or are receiving benefits like TANF and SNAP.
Henderson, the third candidate, is one of those D.C. charter school parents who became involved in local education as he tried to navigate the system for his own two sons.
“My early experience with the D.C. school system was navigating this lottery, navigating a landscape of different sector options, neighborhood schools that had been closed, that otherwise would have been prime options for us,” says Henderson, a D.C. resident since 2011.
A policy analyst by day, Henderson worked with outgoing Ward 5 representative Zachary Parker and community advocates to form the Ward 5 Education Equity Committee, a non-profit that supports students and schools through supply drives and advocating before the council on behalf of educators. (Parker has endorsed Henderson, as has the teachers’ union.) If elected, he says a top issue to tackle in the city’s school system would be addressing teacher turnover and securing a contract with the Washington Teachers’ Union, while making sure students’ mental health needs are met as they process the pandemic-induced disruptions and traumas over the past three years.
“It’s been almost four years without a contract… if we want to retain teachers and we absolutely must do that, they need to have the stability and assurance of a contract,” he says.
All three candidates are using public financing, and Henderson has brought in the most money so far, trailed by O’Neill, with Stanley Beatty third.
– Colleen Grablick
D.C. State Board of Education Ward 6
The race for the Ward 6 seat on the State Board of Education isn’t only interesting because it’s competitive, but also because it also comes only months after the D.C. Council changed city law to allow DCPS teachers and administrators to run for the board. Before this election cycle that wasn’t possible, even though charter school employees were able to — and have — run.
That new dynamic is on full display in the contested Ward 6 race, which features DCPS assistant principal Joshua Wiley and charter school operator KIPP official Brandon Best. Within the limits of what the board can do (see above), Wiley says he’d focus on ensuring that all schools get equal resources, increasing parent participation in the decision-making process, and exploring how to reverse high rates of teacher turnover. Best, for his part, says he’d work to include more parent voices in the board’s functioning, promote safe passage to and from school, and push to reduce the amount of non-teaching tasks that teachers are charged with.
Some of the differences between the two become more evident around hot-button education issues. On mayoral control, Wiley says he’d be open to changing the current system to allow for a stronger elected school board with more formal input in how the chancellor is chosen and how decisions are made (it’s now left to the mayor). Best, on the other hand, says he’s willing to stay with mayoral control; he said in a recent debate that student performance prior to the pandemic had grown under the current system. Wiley says he wants to make neighborhood schools the first pick for every family, while Best says every choice across the city should be attractive and available to all students.
Their endorsements also show how the race is breaking down: Current board members Jessica Sutter (Ward 6) and Jacques Patterson (At Large) have endorsed Best, as has the editorial board of The Washington Post and the pro-charter group Democrats for Education Reform. (The group has drawn controversy for its role in local elections.) Wiley, on the other hand, has gotten the endorsement of the Washington Teachers’ Union, current board member and Ward 5 council candidate Zachary Parker, and current Ward 8 board member Carlene Reid.
Watch: The Ward 6 Democrats hosted a debate here.
Advisory Neighborhood Commissions
ANCs are, in many ways, the most misunderstood part of the D.C. government. Yes, ANC commissioners are elected officials, each representing single-member districts of roughly 2,000 people. But they don’t get paid to do what they do, they don’t serve in partisan capacities, they certainly do not possess veto power over government functions, and their level of authority and engagement is often vague and not well understood by many residents.
The best way to think about them is as D.C.’s attempt at grassroots democracy, with 345 commissioners grouped into 46 ANCs across the city charged with taking residents’ input and advising the government on everything from liquor license applications to zoning proposals. The government, though, isn’t required to follow an ANCs recommendation, but it does have to give it “great weight” on a broad range of issues.
We couldn’t possibly summarize all 345 of the races that will appear on different ballots across D.C., but in many cases we wouldn’t have to anyhow: less than a quarter of races have more than one candidate running, so your local ANC race may not be much of a race at all.
– Martin Austermuhle
This post has been updated with comments from Ward 1 council candidate Chris Otten.
