DC Council At-large Candidates Forum – Greater Greater Washington

Dense housing on the edge of downtown DC by BeyondDC under license Creative Commons.

Candidates running for the general council seat in the June Democratic primary ballot took to the virtual stage on Tuesday, April 19 to discuss housing, transportation and land use issues, at a forum hosted by GGWash.

The two candidates present were Nate Fleming and Lisa Gore. Alex Koma from Washington City Paper moderated the forum and Alex Baca, Policy Director of GGWash DC, kept time.

All DC voters can vote for the four members of the DC General Council, who represent the entire district and no specific wards. While November’s general election will also include a race for the non-majority party seat currently held by council member Elissa Silverman, only the Democratic seat currently held by council member Anita Bonds is up for grabs in the June primary. . (One of the indignities of DC’s lack of statehood is that the interplay between Home Rule Charter stipulations and our strongly Democratic voter population means that two At-Large seats are reserved for officials who do not identify as Democrats, excluding them from the primary ballot).

Bonds has held the seat since 2012, and for several years chaired the Council’s Housing and Executive Administration Committee (formerly Housing Neighborhood Revitalization), which oversees the Department of Housing and Community Development; the District of Columbia Housing Authority; and the Housing Production Trust Fund. First-term council members do not chair committees until the second half of their term, so a shake-up (Bonds is running) would move the housing chair to another incumbent.

To dig deeper into the specific platforms of these and other candidates vying for this universal seat, check out their responses to our transportation, housing, and land use questionnaires.

GGWash participated in a number of candidate forums this spring, including an online forum for candidates for the Ward 5 Council seat and an in-person forum for candidates for Council President and Mayor, both focused on transportation issues, and an online forum. forum for candidates for ward council seat 3 housing oriented.

These educational events are for voters to learn more about the opinions of DC’s Democratic primary candidates. GGWash also endorses candidates for the DC primary and general elections, primarily based on their responses to questionnaires (available here) we sent to each campaign, which address housing, transportation, and land use. . Questionnaires were sent to candidates whose information was on file with the Board of Elections before March 12.

Visit our Election 2022 hub, where you’ll find candidates’ responses to our questionnaire, information about who we support, how we arrived at our decision, recordings from our candidate forums, and ways you can imply.

Caitlin Rogger is Deputy Executive Director of Greater Greater Washington. Interested in the structural determinants of social, economic and political outcomes in urban settings, she worked in public health before joining GGWash. She lives on Capitol Hill.

Alex Baca is the DC Policy Director at GGWash. Previously Director of Engagement for the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Executive Director of the Cuyahoga County Bikeshare System, she has also worked in journalism, bike advocacy, architecture, construction and transportation in DC. , San Francisco and Cleveland. She has written about all of the above for CityLab, Slate, Vox, Washington City Paper and other publications.

Melvin B. Baillie