Amid the coronavirus crisis, DC voters are mailing in absentee ballots now and/or will cast them in person on June 2. The GGWash Elections Commtitee endorses Janeese Lewis George for Ward 4, Vince Gray for Ward 7, both Trayon White and Mike Austin for Ward 8, and Robert White for at-large, in the 2020 DC Democratic primary, We’ve already endorsed Patrick Kennedy in Ward 2.

The primary is less than a month away, and the best way to vote is by mail. You can easily request your ballot now. You can use iOS or Android apps to access an absentee ballot form that can be completed digitally or by hand then scanned, emailed, faxed, or mailed to the board of elections.

You can also call 202-727-2525 or email dcabsentee@vote4dc.com to get a form sent in the mail. An absentee ballot form was also included in the voter guide you have likely already received. For those who have requested your absentee ballot, you can track your status here.

Incoming councilmembers, when they begin their new jobs in January 2021, will be met with a much-diminished budget due a decrease in revenue and increase in spending following COVID-19. Beyond budget numbers, how the council addresses people’s access to transportation, housing and job stability, and public health and safety will intensify as the ramifications of coronavirus become more evident. George, Austin, Trayon White, and Kennedy are using fair elections financing. Gray is not. Neither is Robert Whtie, but he has said he is not taking contributions from corporations.

We believe that Janeese Lewis George, Vincent Gray, Trayon White and Mike Austin, and Robert White are the best possible leaders for the District, and think that you should vote for them in the Democratic primary.

Janeese Lewis George. 

For Ward 4: Janeese Lewis George

The Ward 4 race is the most interesting one on the primary ballot.

There are so, so many GGWash-relevant features to Ward 4’s political, spatial, and socioeconomic landscape: It’s got an easily navigable and consistent street grid with lots of existing middle-density housing, which means there’s enormous opportunity for inclusive, thoughtful, neighborhood-scale infill growth (rather than wholesale redevelopments of large parcels, like in Noma and Navy Yard).

Major thoroughfares like 16th Street NW and Georgia Avenue NW are absolutely screaming for dedicated bus service. Neighborhood-serving retail and residential streets need a heavy dose of traffic calming. The redevelopment of Walter Reed Army Medical Center is almost complete, and other big parcels, like the Takoma Metro station parking lot, could be replanned soon.

Ward 4 has long been the seat of both DC’s black middle class and the Green Team, the tenuous political machine that has run from Adrian Fenty to Muriel Bowser to Brandon Todd.

Since 2015, Ward 4 has been represented by Brandon Todd, who succeeded Muriel Bowser, who was the Ward 4 councilmember before being elected mayor. When she served on the Council, Todd was her constituent services director.

It would be easy to flatten the Ward 4 race into stereotypes, and describe it as a tussle over whether a constituent services-focused older guard will hold its power, or be swept away by policy-minded progressive upstarts. Such false and unfair tropes have long held sway in local discourse. We should not allow them to persist—least of all in this race.

George, a passionate and knowledgeable Ward 4 native, is an eminently qualified challenger to Todd. She has demonstrated that she can address the needs of longtime residents while mobilizing newer neighbors around policies that would serve the public interest. We endorse her for the Ward 4 seat.

Todd has been supportive of subsidized affordable housing developments. He has modestly addressed transportation, including legislation to slightly alter the membership of the Bicycle Advisory Council, which Todd hopes will improve bike parking enforcement. We’ve appreciated his presence behind awareness-raising events as Bus to Work Day, but he’s been hesitant to support raising public parking fees for multiple car owners, or push an unnecessary exemption for resident out-of-state permit holders.

We welcomed Todd’s responses to our questionnaire alongside Marlena Edwards’, though Todd’s were sent in several weeks after the deadline. Edwards has experience in local Democratic politics, but does not believe in building more housing, and did not demonstrate a fluency in public and active transportation.

George is enthusiastic about urbanism and understands where current policies fall short. Her responses to our questionnaire were thorough, and directly addressed topics like building more housing in wealthy parts of the city. She wrote: “If we continue to allow individual neighborhoods to block development or opt-out of upzoning it will exacerbate racial disparity.” Regarding public housing redevelopment, she said, “We should be using build-first plans in every public housing redevelopment.”

George is outstanding on transportation and strongly supports pedestrian and bike-safety improvements, writing in her questionnaire: “Every time DDOT repaves a road, protected bike lanes should be installed, and bulbouts built at crosswalks.” She fundamentally understands the need for better, safer streets: “When we are making decisions about how to use road space, we should be thinking about people not vehicles.” She also told us, “Open Streets was an important reminder that one of the most valuable resources our city has is space.” Early on in her campaign, she expressed concern on Twitter about how unsafe it can be to cross the street in her ward.

We’re pleased to endorse Janeese Lewis George for her dedication to Ward 4, her thoughtfulness, her understanding of how DC works, and her forward-looking approach to governance. She has the clarity to transcend some of DC’s stubbornly, and sometimes painfully, entrenched cultural dichotomies, and would skillfully serve Ward 4.

Vincent Gray for Ward 7.

For Ward 7: Vincent Gray

We’re endorsing former mayor and former DC Council chair Vincent Gray for Ward 7, which he has represented since 2017, in his bid for re-election against Kelvin Brown, Anthony Lorenzo Green, Rebecca Morris, and Veda Rasheed.

In his career, Gray has hit some urbanist high notes: he co-sponsored the Vision Zero omnibus bill, has supported more funding for subsidized affordable housing, and has paid close attention to grocery and retail options in his ward. His mayoral administration authored MoveDC, the city’s first comprehensive transportation plan, and he has supported the Benning Road Streetcar expansion.

His questionnaire responses align with some of GGWash’s topmost priorities, such as support for more housing across the city; dedicated infrastructure for transit, biking, and walking; and less reliance on cars. Gray backs Mayor Bowser’s goal of 36,000 new units of housing by 2025. He also supports the mayor’s goal to set production targets in each area of the city to evenly disperse new growth. (Not all candidates agreed on this point: Morris rejected the notion that housing supply is an issue.) And, he supports building more dedicated multimodal transportation infrastructure, even if this means taking street space away from cars.

Gray noted that a shift toward more space-efficient transportation is critical for accommodating a growing population: “With the District’s increasing population, it is important that we have alternative transportation methods, especially those that encourage and support transportation by means other than a personal vehicle. Protected bike lanes are critical to the District’s growth; cars will take up too much space in a city that could soon be home to over 800,000 residents.”

Further, Gray is the only candidate to express support for certain specific Ward 7 transportation and development improvements. He expressed optimism for funding the DC Streetcar extension east to the Benning Road Metro; Kelvin Brown was skeptical and Rebecca Morris opposed the extension, which will vastly improve Ward 7’s transit access to the H Street corridor and Union Station.

Our elections committee hoped to hear from Ward 7 candidate Anthony Lorenzo Green, whose impressive resume and work on community violence and police brutality would be welcome on the Council. However, Green chose not to participate in our endorsement process.

Though we don’t require questionnaire responses to endorse candidates, it’s hard for us to understand how people conceptualize issues without knowing how they talk about them. Policy areas to which Green is committed, including food justice, violence prevention, and aging in place, are just as critical features of urbanism as public transportation and development. We would welcome Green’s racial justice-oriented approach, but we don’t have a clear sense of how, if he were elected, he might integrate that with the issues on which we focus.

The longevity of Gray’s career has not dampened his commitment to service in Ward 7. In his role as an elder statesman, he could be proactive—or rest on his laurels. Should he return to office, we hope he continues to take an aggressive stance on public health, redevelopment projects and affordable housing, and implementing recommendations—like the ones his mayoral administration made in MoveDC—for more effective transportation planning.

Trayon White for Ward 8.

For Ward 8: Mike Austin and Trayon White

Ward 8 is lucky to have a field of smart and considerate candidates. Incumbent Trayon White and his challengers, community activist Stuart Anderson, ANC 8C chair Mike Austin, and attorney Yaida Ford all provided thorough answers to our questionnaire, and are all well-qualified to hold office.

And, between them, there’s a philosophical split: Anderson and Austin focus on top-down DC policymaking, while Ford and White favor bottom-up community organizing.

For example, in his questionnaire responses, Austin wrote about changes to the Comprehensive Plan to streamline development and strengthen anti-displacement measures, while Ford and White focused on resident engagement and government accountability, especially for agencies like the Department of Transportation and the Department of Energy and Environment. Anderson and Austin supported removing parking for transportation improvements as a matter of policy; Ford and White said they would defer to what they hear from constituents.

At GGWash, we recognize that local politics involve both top-down policy solutions and bottom-up community engagement. One doesn’t preclude the other. Serving on the council necessitates on-the-ground organizing sometimes, and technocratic policymaking other times. Both methods inform each other, so GGWash promotes both philosophies in our work.

Austin, as an ANC chair, and White, as a councilmember, have experiences with both organizing and policymaking. But in a race where candidates line up with two different—though not diverging, and not contradictory—approaches to governance, it makes sense to endorse the best two representatives of each. This is doubly relevant when a popular incumbent is seeking reelection. A challenger, then, really has to show their stuff.

And, so, we think that both Austin, for his policy-minded approach, and White, for his commitment to garnering grassroots support, are worthy of your vote. (Yes, we’re pulling a New York Times.)

A crowded field is likely to favor White, who has served his constituents well. White is passionate, works hard for Ward 8, and has accomplished a great deal since he was elected in 2017: He’s introduced legislation on mold in housing and decriminalization of fare evasion, fought for basic road safety improvements, focused on reducing sudden increases in traffic ticket fines, pushed for inclusion of language about racial equity in the Comp Plan updates, and secured funding for hundreds of thousands in small business grants in Ward 8. His responses to our questionnaire reflected his work and his beliefs, and we were pleased to see his support for more housing alongside stronger displacement protections.

Mike Austin for Ward 8.

But Mike Austin is most aligned with our stances on transportation improvements and housing production, and we would be remiss if we did not endorse a candidate who can speak so clearly and directly to how they would approach those issue areas if elected. Austin clearly identified the scope and scale of problems in housing and transportation—likely a result of his time as legislative director for former Ward 8 councilmember LaRuby May—and backed them up with work that he could do in his role as councilmember.

In particular, we were impressed with Austin’s command of how housing should be addressed in DC. He expressed support for building more market-rate housing, inclusionary zoning, building affordable housing in parts of the city where restrictive policies have kept it out, denser housing along major transit corridors, and encouraging development into neighborhoods experiencing disinvestment. All of these are necessary conditions to create the full spectrum of housing the District needs, but admitting so is not often politically expedient.

Likewise, Austin was the sole candidate to talk about disparities in access to transportation and safe streets. He wrote, “Ward 8 residents deserve equitable access to public transportation to connect them to all areas of the city, whether it be for work or leisure. Ward 8 also needs greater investments to improve sidewalk conditions, more streetlights, stop signs, traffic signals, medians, rumble strips, bike lanes, and other traffic calming measures that are proven to increase pedestrian and rider safety.” Transportation equity is a specific area of focus for GGWash, and we would love to see more champions for it on the council.

The political discourse in Ward 8 is, in many ways, much smarter than in the rest of the city, and its residents will benefit from the dynamism of this primary. White is a fine councilmember. Mike Austin would be, too.

Robert White for the at-large seat.

For at-large: Robert White

GGWash has previously endorsed Robert White in his bids for a seat on the DC Council, first in 2014, and again in 2016. White is running unopposed in the Democratic primary, but we’re pleased to endorse him once again as he seeks reelection.

White’s answers to our questionnaire were, as usual, subject-aware and detailed. He firmly understands why frequent, reliable transportation and affordable, accessible housing matter to all DC residents. In his responses, he explained specific policies that he would pursue, such as “formally identify[ing] unused District properties” to be turned into affordable housing. He also spoke directly to sticking points in DC processes, such as installing crosswalks and permitting new developments.

Of particular interest is White’s position on the Eastern Downtown Cycletrack. In December 2019, Ward 1 councilmember Brianne Nadeau delayed a vote on emergency legislation to compel the District Department of Transportation to begin work on a protected bike lane on 9th Street NW. This was partly because White, who had said he supported the bill, said he wanted more time to discuss the issues with churches who opposed the bike lane.

When Nadeau brought up the emergency bill again in February, White supported the bill and delivered remarks on the strains and conflict that were inherent in planning a bike lane on 9th Street—long a stronghold of Shaw’s black religious institutions—but also showed a path forward. He reiterated this in response to our questionnaire:

“When we do have these conversations about changing infrastructure, the goal is not only to bring everyone to the table, but to have respect for each affected community’s perspective. We cannot allow ourselves to get gridlocked. We’ve seen how ineffective that has rendered our federal legislature, and the harm that it causes constituents. The worst thing that we can do, and what will continue to slow progress on public transit and safety efforts is to exacerbate the tension between communities.”

White has shown that he can lead the conversation about how race and class intersect with the policies and plans that need to be executed to provide critical services, like more and better public transportation and more housing. As an at-large councilmember, he’s well-positioned to do so without being bound to a geographically fixed set of constituents.

Robert White knows how to handle the political complexities of a changing city, especially when he hears from voters. We’re endorsing him with the hope that, in his next term, he does so boldly.

This is the official endorsement of Greater Greater Washington. All endorsements are decided by our volunteer Elections Committee with input from our staff, board, and other volunteer committees.