The ACLU​ of DC released their voter guide last week​​, which you can find on their website. The guide is one of the more thought-provoking public questionnaires circulated, pinning down candidates on contentious issues and teasing out deeper held ideological commitments.

This election cycle has felt a bit sleepier than usual, and this has made it harder to suss out the positioning of candidates, common political forces and local characters. After reading the answers on this questionnaire, some deeper thoughts on the upcoming elections have been shaken loose…

TWO CANDIDATES EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR UNDERMINING DC AUTONOMY

The ACLU asked a surprisingly direct question on District Statehood and autonomy: "If a bill you opposed were to be passed by the DC Council, would you advocate for Congress to overturn it?" 

For at least the last decade, questions of Statehood and autonomy have largely been avoided in local political debates. But a deteriorating relationship with Congress, Republican desperation for a vulnerable punching bag and recent abandonment of DC from nationally minded Democrats has renewed the issue as a relevant one.

The Statehood movement has roots that stretch decades back, but in 2016 DC formally voted to approve of statehood by 85%, anchoring the movement as a priority objective of the city. The quest achieved a major milestone in 2021, when the US Congress passed a bill that would have granted statehood to DC for the first time. Disunity from Democrats in the Senate knocked movement off course; momentum for the project has stalled ever since.

Under the current arrangement, the city is exposed to federal manipulation, and this vulnerability was renewed last year when Congress overturned a sentencing reform bill that was 20 years in the making. Although Republicans led the effort, a number of Democrats joined them in overturning the reform package, and in a betrayal President Biden expressed approval for the Republican-led ambush. The move has renewed skepticism of the Democratic Party’s actual commitment to the Statehood project. This paranoia has become relevant as Rs have teased even more attacks on local autonomy: Who will defend DC? 

Although most candidates had the good sense to swat down any association with federal meddling, two respondents said they were ok with Congressional intervention: Rodney Red Grant, running as a Democrat in the At-Large race against incumbent Robert White, and Wendell Felder, who is running for the open Ward 7 seat on the Council. Red Grant’s campaign against Robert White's incumbency has lacked muscle and purpose, and his answer here undermines any sort of populist appeal that could have fueled an insurgent campaign. After reading this response, I feel comfortable checking out of this race. The comedian has no base, no money and no positioning. He is not going anywhere and he is not prying the progressive incumbent out of his seat.

More concerning is the answer provided by Wendell Felder. Former chair of the Ward 7 Democrats, he is one of the favorites in this race: he won a straw poll of Ward 7 Dems a few weeks back and is one of the top fundraisers so far. His answer to this otherwise basic question seems to have provoked supporters of the alleged frontrunner, prompting the candidate to post a clarification on April 7th. His amendment is unconvincing and is now making me nervous about the entire local Democratic Party. How could a former local party leader flubb a question on Statehood, of all issues?

POSITIONING IN WARD 7 RACE BECOMES CLEARER

The Ward 7 race has been the hardest to assess, given the wide field of candidates and a noticeable lack of dedicated reporting. After reading candidates' answers, I'm seeing who really has a plan for the city and who is just winging it. Thorny questions on relationships to the police and our carceral system are the sort of questions that are hard to fake: who is willing to engage seriously in these topics and who dances around them?

Candidates Eboni-Rose Thompson and Nate Fleming provided the most confident and thorough answers. In responses, both anchored protection of civil liberties as priorities and avoided feeding into the shallow rhetoric of crime panic. Fleming's answers were less carceral and staked a bolder opposition to the policies of mass incarceration. But his odds are worse: he is far behind on fundraising and I'm not sure a mass base of support that could overcome fiscal hindrance has been identified. (Eboni-Rose Thompson, Ebony Payne, Veda Rasheed and Wendell Felder lead the pack in both total donations and cash-on head and are closely split.)

Thompson is looking like the credible "progressive" pick in the race. Currently repping the ward on the Board of Education, she has been an advocate for public schools, enjoyed prior support from the teachers' union and been a consistent voice in ongoing public testimony in local debates on community violence and safety. Her calls have been consistent, anchoring the need for deeper community structures and support as the real answer to upticks in crime and violence. Her answers reflect thoughtfulness, strategy and experience: a stark contrast to the aggressive showboating others are pushing in the race. A Washington City Paper article covered a recent Ward 7 debate that devolved into petty sniping between a few egomaniacs on the panel. Entertaining, but will shallow spectacle win out over substance?

​IS A WARD 4 SHOWDOWN STILL HAPPENING?

Of the candidates running for the Ward 4 seat, only incumbent Janeese Lewis George took the time to answer the ACLU's questionnaire. Her answers reflect her commitment to the 2020 racial justice movement that carried her into office, and its encouraging to see her hold the posturing and honesty that has made her so popular across the city. While encouraging to see the Councilmember overcome prior caginess to supporting a 24-hour harm reduction service, her reluctant support for the city’s new "Crime Center" should be interrogated. These centers, which have been propping up around the country, enable the sort of mass surveillance that railroads civil liberties and supercharges racial profiling. If Janeese was facing more credible challenges, it may be easier to waive off posturing like this. However her two opponents don’t even seem to be campaigning.

On Janeese's opponents, I had thought they would be eager to get their policing and public safety plans on record with the ACLU, given that Janeese's left-posture on the Council has been their favorite sticking point. Is their absence a snub or a quiet egress from the competition?

On competitor Paul Johnson — I'm not quite convinced that he is actually running. His campaign's social accounts are inactive, and his single-page website lacks any sort of deeper exploration of his position. I have seen Johnson provide testimony in Council hearings before and he seems like a reasonable man, but this pursuit is likely going nowhere. 

Lisa Gore's campaign is more active, but is the political effort there? Gore has largely reinvented herself as a harsh online critic of Janeese, just a few years ago she was one of the Councilmember's most ardent fans. This about-face is jarring, but more embarrassing than intimidating. Gore shed her prior base to pursue support from a coven of online reactionaries. Though endlessly eager to harass Janeese and her supporters, these online networks seem most comfortable lobbing vitriol behind the safety of a computer screen. As a whole, pro-cop constituents in the city seem largely uninterested in doing the sort of campaign legwork necessary to unseat a popular sitting Councilmember. According to most recent campaign finance filings, Janeese's cash on hand is more than double Gore's.

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Discussions of criminal justice have been tense in the city over the last year. Dedicated propaganda and fear-mongering have contributed to an undercurrent anxiety in the city. But the kind of fear that justifies turning over statehood and creating a surveillance state are only truly popular among the hyper-online commentariat. Go to a bar or pool hall in the city and ask what people are worried about; rents and wages are number one. Most people seem to get that rates of violence in the city are outgrowths of deeper social issues; back-the-blue and tough-on-crime jingoism is more patronizing than effective.

Candidates that really have a plan for governing get this, and weaker candidates running for ego or campaign-finance payouts just don't. When asked to put "lock-em-up" posturing to paper, pro-carceral talking-points are revealed as insufficient or terrifyingly ignorant of basic civil liberty concerns. It's why even the police union's biggest booster on the Council, Brooke Pinto, was reserved in her answers on the ACLU questionnaire. Even she reiterated her commitment to the Police Reform Commission's call for policing alternatives.

Though it’s been said we are in a period of reactionary opposition to the defund movement, I'm beginning to suspect the post-Floyd critiques of policing and incarceration have become a baseline across the city.