As nearly a dozen Democratic at-large D.C. Council candidates fight for their place on the June 16 primary ballot, at least one former elected official says that they need to see a council member with a skillset reminiscent of a business owner.
Former D.C. Council member William P. Lightfoot told The Informer that he’s yet to see a 2026 Democratic at-large council candidate with entrepreneurial experience. As a council member-turned-business owner, Lightfoot said he’s been able to appreciate the parallels between deliberating on a budget and signing someone’s check.
“It’s actually the experience of living the problem as opposed to theorizing it,” said Lightfoot, trial attorney at Lightfoot Law, PLLC, a personal injury and workers’ compensation firm owned by his son William J. Lightfoot in 2019.
“You have the experience of identifying a problem that a person may have,” Lightfoot continued. ”They’re not getting to work on time. They’ve got problems with child care. They’ve got to go to school because their kid’s PTA is that afternoon. You see these problems firsthand, and then you can see how to craft a solution for those problems.”
Between 1989 and 1997, Lightfoot served as an independent at-large D.C. council member. During his stint on the dais, he championed campaign finance reform, government austerity, a D.C. Council-Board of Education merger, year-round youth curfew, and the end of a local telecommunications monopoly, among other causes.
After leaving the council, Lightfoot, then a part-time attorney, transitioned to fully running his personal injury law firm then known as Koonz, McKenney, Johnson, DePaolis & Lightfoot. He also served as chair of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2014 and 2018 campaigns, and that of D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty in 2010, as well as co-chair of the latter’s transition team and inaugural committee.
Nearly three decades out of the John A. Wilson Building, Lightfoot said he continues to reflect on his experiences while watching a legislative body, in some respects, go along the wrong path.
“One of my criticisms of the current council is a lack of appreciation of unintended consequences,” Lightfoot told The Informer. “Just by looking at over the years of legislation, when it’s passed, it seems like it’s going to be good, but then it has some unintended consequences. And that’s a problem. It takes a while to appreciate because when people first get elected, they don’t understand.”
March 18 is the deadline for candidates to file nominating petitions, petition supplements, and other forms needed for placement on the June 16 primary ballot and D.C. Council independent at-large special election.
Three days later, on March 21, the 10-day nominating ballot challenge period starts.
By the time D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) announced in December that she wouldn’t run for reelection, she already had challengers in U.S. Shadow Representative Dr. Oye Owolewa, former staffer Leniqua’dominique Jenkins, and D.C. Democratic Party leader Candace Tiana Nelson.
The field has since expanded to include: former Bonds staffer Kevin B. Chavous, gun violence prevention organizer Greg Jackson, go-go industry advocate Joe Jackson, education leader Lisa Raymond and community advocate D’yana Forester.
Amid Bonds’ announcement, and that of Bowser and D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), the Democratic at-large race counts among a number of electoral contests that will reshape D.C. government. After the year that was federal government hemorrhaging, downtown revitalization, RFK stadium deal finalization, and budgetary concerns, Lightfoot said the next crop of District leaders need to help take the nation’s capital to another level.
“The District has an opportunity to shine as probably the best, the brightest, the most accomplished city on the planet,” Lightfoot told The Informer. “It’s a great opportunity for advancement of knowledge, business, making money, and culture. People from all over the world want to come, and the people that are here are living a fabulous life. There are people struggling, don’t get me wrong, but there are also a large number of people that are doing very well….and they’ll continue to do well.”
Kevin B. Chavous: A Son of Ward 7 With Council Experience
Since jumping into the Democratic at-large race on Jan. 13, Chavous has traversed the District, attending community meetings and candidate forums. That’s where he’s touted his experience, the latest of which was four years as Bonds’ committee and policy director.
He said he can leverage that know-how to District residents’ benefit if elected.
“We need people who can join the council in January 2027 and be ready on Day One,” Chavous told The Informer. “I understand the legislative process. I understand how to move bills through committee and through the full council. I’ll be able to deliver results because I know how to write legislation and I have relationships in the Wilson Building that will allow me to get legislation passed.”
Long before working with Bonds, Chavous, son of former Ward 7 D.C. Councilmember Kevin P. Chavous, worked at Housing Counseling Services and AARP where he respectively advocated for low-income tenants and helped elders facing foreclosure. In the years leading up to his electoral bid, Chavous served as president of D.C. Young Democrats and a board member of the United Planning Organization.
He’s currently a member of the D.C. Democratic State Committee and the District’s national committeeman on the Democratic National Committee.
In his role as director of the council’s Committee on Housing, Chavous engaged key players in the local housing ecosystem about housing finance and rental issues. When Bonds took over the council’s Committee on Executive Administration and Labor, Chavous often conferred with various agencies, including the Executive Office of the Mayor, D.C. Board of Elections, D.C. Department of Employment Services, Workforce Investment Council, and the Department of Aging.
Chavous told The Informer that, as committee director, he’s often leaned on his legal training to tackle complex problems. He noted that he stands above other candidates for no reason other than his ability to carry out more of the mundane parts of the job.
“We have a lot of different thorny issues that require sort of an analytical approach, and the willingness and the interest to really read reports, read the laws, read the studies that support the laws,” Chavous said. “By the end of the day, the council members are legislators, and they are tasked with drafting and voting on laws that impact the way we live.”
Chavous’ platform focuses on: public safety, affordable housing, early childhood education, workforce readiness, senior support, and government operations. Though he commended the council for its work on public safety and housing, Chavous said he wants to help the legislative body better manage finances and help D.C. residents who, despite not qualifying for government-funded services, still struggle to make ends meet.
“I’m not criticizing the fact that we are taking care of the unhoused population, but there should be some resources available for those who are in the middle,” Chavous told The Informer. “There has not been enough attention to people in the middle, because it’s the people in the middle who oftentimes are working the hardest, they’re paying their taxes, they’re contributing to the city and our coffers, but feel as though there’s nothing being done for them.”
Meeting that need, Chavous said, requires “bridge services.”
“Not quite wraparound services that last for a longer time, but these bridge services that are temporary that can help people get that little boost they need to start their career or to get themselves going,” he told The Informer. “My focus will be on trying to tweak some of the programs we have or some of the funding that we have in order to provide that boost to the working people and working families who want to stay in D.C. but just need some support from the government.”
Though he acknowledged legislation as the primary method of effecting change, Chavous noted that the most detail oriented lawmakers can find the funds needed to meet residents’ needs.
“In D.C., we have to fund things over the financial plan because we’re required to have that balanced budget by Congress,” Chavous told The Informer. “There are vacant positions that we have to put the money in. If it’s a high-level position, that could be $500,000 that is allocated but never spent, or if it is spent, we don’t really know how it’s spent in the agency.”
With the next Democratic at-large council member to jump in not long before performance oversight season, and budget deliberations soon after, Chavous said he has the experience to manage time effectively and bring his goals to fruition.
“We do a lot of things well,” Chavous said, “but when you’ve got $22 billion, a size of a budget that’s bigger than 10 states right now for 750,000 people, we’ve got to better understand how that money is being spent and is it being spent effectively. It takes a lot of work, it takes dedication, and I’m dedicated to do it.”
Candace Tiana Nelson: An At-large Candidate Focused on Oversight and Unity
Nelson, a policy analyst and civic leader, said she has the experience and wherewithal to unite a council of various political ideologies. As far as she’s concerned, the council, and other branches of local government for that matter, would’ve benefitted from her insight at the beginning of President Donald J. Trump’s second term.
“If we had that unity and a unified approach to how we fight, that could have been extremely helpful,” Nelson, head of the D.C. Democratic Black Caucus, told The Informer. “I really do love how residents stood up, and went down to Congress to advocate. The more we do that, it’s better for us because [Congress] can see we’re actually human beings here that pay our taxes, serve in the military, and follow the law.”
For two decades, Nelson, a native of Winchester, Virginia, has immersed herself in the D.C. government. Her experiences include her recommendation of what’s now the D.C. Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs. As a staff member in the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Women’s Policy and Initiatives, Nelson helped establish a relationship with WorkSmart Systems to assist women in salary negotiations.
Other feats include a stint at D.C. Department of Health Care Finance, where Nelson managed a $110 million contract for the creation of the public benefits portal known as District Direct.
If elected, Nelson will utilize lessons learned at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, stints as chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4A and Ward 4 Democrats, and more recently her stewardship of the “Reimagining the Future of Georgia Avenue” advisory group.
“That is the way to do it— just being accessible,” Nelson told The Informer. “Accessible leadership and being collaborative. That’s what I believe in.”
Earlier this year, the advisory group released a report that provided an overview of community feedback gathered throughout much of last year. The document touched on: blighted property enforcement, local business support, and public safety coordination, among other topics.
Nelson said her role required her, in part, to collect survey data and verbal input from constituencies of various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
“To do the work, you have to be humble enough to know that you’re not always right, but curious enough to understand the reasoning and the thoughts of folks who are on the other side,” she told The Informer. “Once you reach that common ground, you can squash the [beef] and move on to a new meal. I look forward to being able to do that work on the council.”
Nelson’s campaign platform focuses on good governance, protecting and expanding home rule, quality affordable housing, education, and workers’ protections. In speaking about housing, Nelson told The Informer that she would aim to protect this human right through: expansion of rent stabilization, strengthening the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, increasing funding for housing programs, supporting homeowners, and holding DC Housing Authority accountable.
For Nelson, accountability is where the rubber meets the road.
“When we focus on government agencies, and truly look at their performance plans,” Nelson said, “look at their key performance indicators (KPI), see where they have unmet KPI, and focusing on that, then having that inform the next part, which is your budget, and ensuring that we are funding programs that work, and we are not funding things that do not work.”
Nelson told The Informer that, under her leadership, the council and its constituents will hold D.C. government agencies accountable in real time. She expressed a desire to create a “civic tech platform” through which residents track bills, propose amendments and engage in public comment more easily.
She also hinted at the launch of a front-facing platform that measures KPIs.
“I’ve worked on dashboards at a couple of different agencies and had details at the Department of Human Services [and] at the Department of Employment Services,” Nelson said, “taking their key performance indicators and putting them in dashboards. Those dashboards should be made public so that if the public wants to see, they should be able to see. That helps with accountability.”
As part of an effort to further connect D.C. residents to the council, Nelson said she will take her cues from the late Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham, who she saw in action while working as an analyst at what was then D.C. General Hospital.
“Back then…we had hearings in D.C. General where people could come down from their rooms, testify, go back home,” Nelson said. “Making the hearings more accessible, even changing the hours. You could have a hearing from 7 to 11, or even having hearings on Saturdays, from 10 to 2, or all day on a Saturday, or however it may be. But I think that helps to bring government to the people.”
Greg Jackson: A Gun Violence Prevention Guru Eyes a Return to Local Government
As dozens of bills infringing on District laws make their way through Congress, Greg Jackson continues to position himself as the Democratic at-large D.C. Council candidate ready to bridge the gap between council chambers and the Capitol Rotunda.
“A lot of that relationship building can happen now, recognizing that the folks on Pennsylvania Avenue, the folks on Capitol Hill are our neighbors too,” Jackson told The Informer. “As a council member, that would be a huge priority: to continue to build relationships and make sure that [Congress] is a priority group of stakeholders that understand, support, and can help us protect some of the key resources and policies that make the District great.”
Jackson, a Congress Heights resident who formerly served as special assistant to President Joe Biden on gun violence prevention, launched his electoral bid during the earlier part of February with a focus on community safety, housing affordability and educational resources.
As a Biden administration official, Jackson developed and implemented 54 executive actions, coordinated federal responses to mass shootings, and facilitated the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. He said that experience highlighted the need for local transparency and accountability for how the District handles federal gun violence prevention funds.
“When I was in the White House, we had an actual $1 billion that was moved down the school systems to help fund the programs to prevent violence,” Jackson said. “When I spoke with teachers here in D.C., they were unaware. Come to find out, a lot of those dollars were absorbed into overhead when they were literally programmed or designed to go to programs to prevent violence.”
If he wins the June 16 primary, Jackson would return to the same government where he served as director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services, and carried out community engagement for D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation. In those roles, he addressed thousands of constituent concerns and launched FitDC.
In speaking about his experience, Jackson said he saw firsthand the perils of responding to problems rather than anticipating and preventing them.
“Our employment services division shouldn’t operate like a hospital,” Jackson said. “We should have goals and metrics of how we are getting to communities and neighborhoods that are struggling with employment. With all the services that we have, how do we get our small business administration proactively engaging businesses with goals and metrics?”
Jackson’s gun violence prevention strategies center on: holding gun traffickers accountable and adopting a public health approach similar to what Baltimore, Boston, Detroit and Miami adopted. He told The Informer that all the District needs is a chance to flourish in this arena. He said it’s inspired, not only by his work at the federal level, but his 2012 near-death experience and loss of several young people he’s had under his wing as anti-violence organizers.
“These are the kids who organized their own stop the violence rallies,” Jackson said as he spoke about the “Young Kings.” “We marched through every neighborhood that they lived in and, and chanted ‘stop the violence’ and ‘spread the love’”
With the D.C. Police Union and other parties expressing skepticism about the effectiveness of violence interruption, Jackson counts among those who argue that the District should pour more into those resources.
“Our ecosystem here is really young. We’ve seen some pretty dark spots and how things have been organized, but it doesn’t mean that the strategies don’t work,” Jackson told The Informer. “We’ve seen every city that has adopted cognitive behavioral therapy, street outreach, and hospital intervention see tremendous reductions, but it can’t be investments alone. We need a city that’s… also working with the organizations through training, oversight and accountability.”
Jackson said it will take all hands on deck.
“We still have a ways to go on implementing hospital-based strategies, victim support and cognitive behavioral therapy, all of which we know can prevent violence,” he said. “Looking beyond the community-based work, our law enforcement approach has to be focused on more than surveillance than patrol.”
Joe Jackson: A Go-Go Advocate Who Wants to Bring the Real
On the evening of March 17, Issa Recap hosted a candidate meet-and-greet focused on the “Go-Go People’s Plan” a document conceptualized to guide the District in supporting, preserving and archiving go-go music and history.
Democratic at-large D.C. Council candidate Joe Jackson counted among those at 1865 Steakhouse and Seafood in Northeast, collecting ballot petition signatures and discussing his vision for preserving go-go culture. It’s a cause that’s not only taken him to the Wilson Building, but inspired a council run anchored in demanding accountability and oversight.
“We have one spot right here in Ward 8 that is getting …donations or [money from] the D.C. government to do events,” Joe Jackson said in reference to the Go-Go Museum & Cafe in Anacostia. “I don’t know what they’re doing down there, but it’s not a reflection on the community. I don’t think not one entity in this area that is not providing consistent employment or education deserves that type of money.”
Last year, Joe Jackson, a rapper in Urban Rhythm Band and founder of go-go distribution company Go-Go Ventures, launched the United Go-Go Association out of concern about how the D.C. government doled out funds earmarked for go-go programming. Since the association’s inception, Jackson has used his social media following to organize community meetings.
He’s also taken his qualms to the people in power.
“We hold regular meetings to devise plans on how to combat this stuff,” Joe Jackson said. “We met with the Office of Cable Television and Martin Luther King Library to try to see how we can move forward in a positive manner. But I think that the most important thing I can do, which is what I’ve done, is use my visibility to speak for what’s right.”
The artist, organizer and entrepreneur said he wants to expose what he’s identified as a problem across other sectors of D.C. government.
“This is an example of what happened on Talbert Street,” Joe Jackson told The Informer. “The city pays out money to a company to build these condominiums. No oversight, nobody’s looking, they’re allowing these people to self-certify, which is basically a person just saying, ‘Hey, I did a good job,’ and we’re signing off on it and saying, ‘Hey, that’s okay.”
If elected, Joe Jackson’s vision includes: proper stewardship of funds, creation of education and employment opportunities for District students, and greater collaboration with grassroots organizers to oversee communities experiencing crime. He said his goal centers on inspiring marginalized D.C. residents to take matters into their own hands.
“Killing each other has to stop. Being violent to one another has to stop. That is monumental to our survival” Joe Jackson said. “We have been so taught to not like ourselves and to hate ourselves that every time we see somebody that looks like us, we want to attack them. We have to have men and women stand up and say, ‘Hey man, that’s not okay’ and we have to find a way to heal together as a community.”
A father of five who lives in the Fort Davis community of Ward 7, Joe Jackson also has experience as the general manager of a local club, and go-go band manager. He considers his more-than-a-decade stint in prison as a turning point in his life, as it inspired his pursuit of his GED, his paralegal studies, and eventually an early release on appeal.
He also considers his bouts with housing insecurity as an indication of what he’s willing to do on behalf of District residents if elected.
“People are sick of the fake stuff,” Joe Jackson told The Informer. “I’m not those other guys. I don’t have 50 college degrees. I haven’t been in politics for 20 years, running the same game on everybody. People want people that are going to just show up and tell the truth. That have gone through the stuff that they have gone through.”