The D.C. Council opened its May 6 legislative meeting with a moment of silence for John Ray, a veteran D.C. council member and four-time mayoral candidate who died on April 16. The council later, in a 7-5 vote and after some debate, postponed a vote on the Open Meetings Clarification Temporary Amendment Act of 2025 until the next legislative meeting.
Much of the discussion before and during the legislative meeting centered on the District’s economic future, particularly how D.C. businesses, landlords, and residents would fare under policy changes championed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and approved by the council.
Council members also discussed emergency legislation centered on college athlete name, image or likeness, and a tax abatement for 1333 H Street SE, along with other matters.
This edition of The Collins Council Report centers on a polarizing eviction bill, the work ahead for State Superintendent Antoinette Mitchell in the realms of literacy and workforce development, and the tug-of-war between the council and Bowser about her yet-to-be-fully-submitted Fiscal Year 2026 and Fiscal Year 2025 supplemental budget proposals.
A Budget Delay that Threatens Council Business
By the morning of May 6, council members learned that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), despite revealing her education and economic development priorities, still hadn’t submitted her Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, nor the Fiscal Year 2025 supplemental budget that triggers $400 million in cuts for the current fiscal year.
For council members, this raises the question of whether the executive and legislative can start budget deliberations on May 15 – a date enshrined in a resolution the council approved during the latter part of April.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said that won’t be the case, and the budget proceedings could go well into the summer recess — all to the detriment of D.C. residents.
“I think it’s enormously unfair to the public,” Mendelson said, telling The Informer that the budget snafu on Capitol Hill has no bearing on the mayor’s ability to submit her budget proposals. “We have to receive the budget and the mayor has known since March 10, March 11, that the Congress was making this mistake with regard to the current fiscal year. She could have started working on this alternative budget for the current year to be prepared, to meet her deadlines. She chose not to.”
Several minutes before Mendelson made his comments, he and his council colleagues learned that the D.C. Local Budget Act – the bill that reverses a $1.1 billion cut to D.C.’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget that congressional Republicans facilitated in a continuing resolution– remains in limbo due to House Republicans’ insistence in addressing ongoing budget issues, as it relates to Medicaid, food security, among other aspects of American life.
That means, for the time being, the District will not have access to funds needed to operate the D.C. government, as outlined in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget, throughout the summer and up until Sept. 30, when the fiscal Year ends.
Whenever the budget season starts, Bowser and the D.C. Council will have to not only figure out how to facilitate cost savings in the supplemental Fiscal Year 2025 budget and Fiscal Year 2026 budget. The council will also have to consider how to fund renovations to Capital One Arena in Gallery Place-Chinatown and whether to approve another $1.1 billion in capital funds for the construction of a new football stadium on RFK campus.
Bowser, responding to her council colleague’s concerns on Monday, noted that she plans to submit the budget later that week, which would allow the Office of the Chief Financial Officer less than 10 days to certify it in preparation for the mayor’s presentation in council chambers.
In the interim, Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee has his hands on the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, Bowser said.
“We offer to give them what we’re calling the pre-certification FY26 documents, which is kind of unprecedented and we work with the CFO to make these documents available,” Bowser said on Monday during her economic growth presentation at The Atlas Performing Arts Center in Northeast. “We can give that to them right now. So far, the council has elected not to receive them.”
Every year, after receiving the mayor’s budget proposal, the council conducts committee hearings to ascertain the degree to which they would adjust the mayor’s budget allocations. Within a 70-day period, council members would be able to negotiate investments into projects and programs relevant to their ward and committees under their purview, all of which would appear in the finalized budget to appear before the legislative body.
With the date of Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal originally scheduled for early April, the whole process has been thrown out of whack, much to the chagrin of D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) who said that her role as a council member has been jeopardized.
“When the council’s business is in a holding pattern, it means that we can’t do the work that we were sent here to do,” Nadeau, chair of the council’s Committee on Public Works and Operations, told The Informer. “Because we never know when it’s coming in, we don’t know when it’s coming out, we haven’t been able to do much either. I got a bunch of bills in my committee. I could’ve done work if I knew of a six-week delay.”
In Face of Rental Housing Crisis, Councilmember Lewis George Stands Up for Tenants
On the second reading, the council approved the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Amendment Act of 2025, this time with amendments in the form of a substitute (ANS) that D.C. Councilmembers Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) and Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) crafted to:
- narrow the qualifications for rental emergency to situations that would result in immediate homelessness
- clarify the documents housing providers must provide to comply with the eviction process
- leave the application of a rent waiver defense up to the discretion of a judge while allowing instances when a tenant raises the waiver to end with court rulings on motions, not only at trial
- prevent tenants with pending emergency rental assistance applications from postponing their eviction.
Frumin, chair of the council’s Committee on Human Services, reflected on what he called a huge undertaking that could bode well for landlords and tenants.
“With this ANS, the bill before us today would return the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) to its original limited purpose of providing emergency assistance, make our District dollars go farther, and make our District court as fairer,” Frumin said. “The courtroom efficiency made possible by this legislation will keep rental arrears down and limit the losses of providers while encouraging settlement and open communication between landlords and tenants. It is a win-win that will allow housing providers to limit their losses and make ERAP work more quickly for residents who desperately need it.”
With the law now, for the most part, solidified, the District will maintain pre-pandemic eviction rules that the council reinstated last fall with the passage of emergency legislation.
On the bill’s first reading last month, the council approved it with Parker and D.C. Councilmembers Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) and Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) voting “present.” This time around, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) stood as the sole “no” vote on the ANS, and the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Amendment Act of 2025 in its entirety, expressing her concerns about legislation that even a racial equity impact assessment said would exacerbate displacement.
“Residents’ need for rental assistance is still an ongoing need in the District, and unfortunately, ERAP cannot be consistently relied on to cover rent on an ongoing basis,” Lewis George told her colleagues as she acknowledged members of UNITE Here Local 25 who filled council chambers in opposition to Bowser’s proposed repeal of Initiative 82.
“I think the reality we are sitting with, though, is…that people are genuinely struggling to get by in the District of Columbia,” Lewis George continued. “I saw some of those people today in this chamber to show their support for a living wage and to protect the little people on Initiative 82, and I think it’s no wonder why folks are struggling to pay their rent because workers in the city are still fighting for wages they deserve and can live on.”
While Frumin empathized with Lewis George’s sentiments, he said the provisions included in the ANS can address D.C.’s pressing socioeconomic issues while striking a balance between the needs of tenants and landlords weathering an unprecedented economic situation.
“ERAP was intended to play the role, and I do think that what we’ve done in this process is to achieve that, and in some ways, increased leverage for tenants over where we were before by the introduction of the rent waiver defense,” Frumin said in response to Lewis George. “We then made modifications to it, but at bottom, it is there to try to drive landlord compliance with ERAP, and I think, as written, we’ll succeed in doing that and benefit all of our residents, both our landlords and our tenants, by encouraging folks to stay up-to-date so that they have the ability to redeem their tenancy.”
In recent months, housing advocates have stormed the Wilson Building in response to the ERAP legislation and the RENTAL Act, which includes provisions narrowing TOPA eligibility. Those who’ve spoken on the steps of city hall lament what they call the introduction of laws that prioritize bankers, and not renters.
However, as Bowser continues to promote an economic development plan centered on sports, entertainment and hospitality, some council members, like D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large), said that the District needs, now more than ever, to protect the District’s housing stock.
“Just this week, many residents got notice that their building is gonna be sold by one of our largest landlords in the city that can no longer operate in the city because of the non-payment of rent in D.C.,” White said. “That is far out of proportion with the rest of the nation.”
White, chair of the council’s Committee on Housing, went on to reflect on testimony he most likely gathered during meetings with landlords and tenants he conducted throughout the city in recent weeks.
“We are seeing backlogs in the courts in our eviction process,” White continued. “We’re seeing non-payment of rent. We’re seeing programs like ERAP that are being used more broadly than they were intended, and what it is resulting in is a very broken rental system. The people who are gonna be paying the consequences if we don’t make the necessary fixes are the people who live in these buildings, the people who need housing that they can afford.”
Dr. Antoinette Mitchell, Daughter of the District, Officially Stamped as State Superintendent
The council unanimously approved Dr. Antoinette S. Mitchell as the state superintendent, a role she assumed last school year in an acting/interim role after Dr. Christina Grant left the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to sit at the helm of Harvard University’s Center of Education Policy Research.
Though the council, and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson in particular, sang Mitchell’s praises during its May 6 Committee of the Whole meeting, some of those who sat on the dais didn’t hesitate to reflect on work left to be done in the areas of literacy, workforce development, and impediments to in-class learning.
“OSSE’s stance up until this point has been to ask [local education agencies] to adhere to research-backed science or research-backed and supported literacy-focused training, and I would love for them to take a stronger stance,” D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) said. “They are leading a math task force, and it’s not clear what’s going to come of that. I would love for OSSE to take a more definitive stance of how they’re going to [use] the findings of that math task force to inform learning in our classrooms.”
Before becoming state superintendent, Mitchell served as OSSE’s assistant superintendent of postsecondary and career education, where she oversaw college and career readiness, financial assistance, career and technical education, and adult literacy.
Before joining OSSE, Mitchell served as a dean at Trinity Washington University School of Education. Her decades-long career also includes stints at the Urban Institute, and at what was then Hine Junior High School as a secondary social studies teacher.
As D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) recounted on Tuesday, Mitchell wowed council members during a confirmation hearing where she expressed interest in youth and adult technical education, and teacher retention, both issues that gained prominence during the pandemic.
“As we all know, training and opportunity to gain new skills is the call of the day, and particularly when we think about the job market,” Bonds said on the dais about Mitchell. “And so she has expressed her interest. In fact, she’s talked a little bit about all of what she has been engaged in, and I’m happy about it because she spoke with great joy as if this is part of her mission for our city as a whole.”
D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) said Mitchell’s confirmation proved significant for D.C. students and families who will see a D.C. native and D.C. Public Schools alumna at the helm of their state education agency.
“Dr. Mitchell had her family with her, including her mother, who had just turned 100 years old, [and] I think for her to be able to witness her daughter, who went through D.C. Public Schools, was a teacher in D.C. Public Schools, and now to be able to lead the top educational official here in the District, I think is tremendous,” Henderson said. “I’m very excited about what Dr. Mitchell will add to [OSSE] in terms of her own stamp on things.”
Henderson emphasized Mitchell will be critical in helping address critical challenges.
“There are still obviously places for improvement, whether it be from the achievement gap perspective, but also what we do with some of our most vulnerable students, especially around special education,” she said, “and I anticipate that [Mitchell] will have a laser focus on many of these things.”
In a statement to The Informer, Mitchell too reflected on what she described as a full-circle moment for a daughter of the District.
“It is both an honor and a profound responsibility to serve as state superintendent in the city where I was born, raised and educated. I am thankful to Mayor Muriel Bower for the nomination and to the D.C. Council for my confirmation to the position,” Mitchell said. “The excellent education I received in D.C. Public Schools prepared me well for the rigors of college, a career in education and ultimately for this role. I am committed to ensuring that students in our classrooms today have access to the same high-quality learning opportunities that shaped my life.”