With Robert White and Janeese Lewis George, respectively, elected as the District’s next congressional delegate and mayor, the D.C. Council has even fewer native Washingtonians.
That’s why, as the legislative body gears up for a new chapter, White says it’s incumbent upon newly elected council members, and those returning to council chambers in 2027, to keep their homegrown constituency at the forefront of policy decisions.
“There is something important about lived experiences, which isn’t to say that only people from D.C. can understand those experiences,” White said on Nov. 2 after resigning from the council, “but it is a context that I want people to understand. It’s the reason why I have dug into so many issues. My family had faced those issues. I have lived through those issues.”
White Heads to the U.S. House, While Henderson Fights Local Democrats for Vacant Seat
On Election Day, White became D.C. delegate-elect when he clinched 87.29% of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting, defeating Republican candidate Denise Rosado and D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate Kymone Freeman.
Weeks before his electoral victory, White outlined his vision during a D.C. delegate candidate forum hosted by The AllEyesOnDC Show on WPFW 89.3 FM. His remarks came days before he and members of his “Defend DC” caravan traveled to the 10th congressional district of Pennsylvania in support of Janelle Stelson, a Democrat who defeated incumbent Rep. Scott Perry (R).
“Making sure every single member of the House and Senate is on the record on where they stand on statehood, getting an agreement from Hakeem Jeffries to get H.R. 51 as the bill number for our statehood bill,” White said on Oct. 14. “When we get a Democratic president in two years, I believe we will pass it because of how much a change in history with the redistricting battles and the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act.”
White then touched on local affairs.
“Working with regional members to get…funding for our region because we have lost more than 60,000 government jobs, to say nothing of the private sector jobs,” White continued. “So we’re going to work to recruit private sector jobs as we rebuild the federal government and also work to get tax exemptions for businesses that relocate to D.C. because we need to backfill these jobs so that people can stay stable.”
White’s resignation stemmed from a 1970 law forbidding the D.C. delegate-elect from serving as an elected official on “the day of…election.” Rosado has since told supporters that she submitted a challenge to the D.C. Board of Elections (DCBOE), while Freeman questioned why White, if not for a news story that broke last month, didn’t resign sooner despite knowing about the law.
Before announcing his resignation, White attempted to change the law with emergency legislation, a process he said was thwarted, in part, by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson and D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large).
The controversy continued on Election Day when, amid wins by White, Lewis George, and other local and national Democrats, Henderson applied to change her party affiliation from independent to Democrat. Her move perturbed D.C. Democratic Party leadership who, in launching a selection process for an interim at-large council member, had already issued a public warning against interrupting an obligation outlined in the D.C. Home Rule Act.
As reported by WUSA9’s Lorenzo Hall, the D.C. Democrats have since appointed Jamal Holtz, president of the D.C. Young Democrats, as interim at-large council member.
On the day of his council resignation, White expressed doubt that Henderson would even vie for a Democratic at-large seat by such means.
“I think Christina Henderson knows that it would be controversial for her to switch parties, step into the seat, and undermine the Home Rule Act,” White said on Nov. 2. “I don’t think she would do that. I think she knows that would not put the city in a good light as we are fighting Capitol Hill to respect us and our laws.”
In 2020, Henderson successfully ran for the independent at-large D.C. Council seat after serving as a staffer in the office of her predecessor, D.C. Councilmember David Grosso. Six years later, as she made her Election Day surprise announcement, Henderson spoke about the circumstances of that career milestone.
“I had to change my party when I first ran for the council,” Henderson said, “as federal law limits D.C.’s representation and full participation in democracy by limiting who can serve on the D.C. Council based on party identification. This is the actual threat— one of many— to Home Rule.”
A Daughter of the District Prepares for a New Chapter
Results from DCBOE showed Lewis George victorious on election night with 84.34% of the first-round vote against D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate Robert L. Gross and independent candidate Dr. Rhonda Hamilton.
During a Democratic Party-sponsored watch party at Sycamore & Oak in Southeast, Lewis George took to the stage in celebration of her victory and that of several Democratic congressional and gubernatorial candidates who shaped midterm elections. She later rebuffed any possibility that, under those circumstances, Henderson’s party switch could become a reason for targeting the District.
“D.C. is strong right now, and I think we are seeing that strength across the country with Democrats,” Lewis George told reporters. “I had early conversations with so many of our Democratic partners and leaders, and I have a few more in the coming weeks. And I know that we have strong partners in Congress and the president can’t act unilaterally.”
That morning, after casting her vote at Ida B. Wells Middle School in Northwest, Lewis George said that her team is in communication with the White House.
“I will let you all know when the meeting is scheduled,” Lewis George told reporters. “But as always, I’ve said I’m willing to meet with the president. I’m looking forward to talking about how we can work together to benefit D.C. residents.”
In June, Lewis George defeated her former council colleague Kenyan McDuffie and a slew of other candidates just days after Trump threatened to “take over” the District should she win. Her “people first” campaign centered on: affordable child care and utilities; high-quality schools; housing for all District residents; safe communities; and reducing red tape for businesses.
“That’s always been something I care deeply about as a daughter of the District, making sure that the people who built this city have a space in this city and this city’s future,” Lewis George said. “You’re going to see me focusing a lot on job training and getting people jobs so that people can afford to stay in the city. It’s important to me that we address displacement through jobs and job training, through housing supports as well, and just doing the work that’s necessary.”
In her general election victory address, Lewis George, a D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) alumna, former youth mayor, and former D.C. State Board of Education student representative, paid homage to former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry and Congress Heights tenant organizer Shekita McBroom. She also spoke about a new day for working-class District residents, but not before acknowledging a family lineage that includes her postal servicewoman mother, her DCPS cafeteria staffer grandmother, and her domestic worker great-grandmother, whose birth anniversary fell on Election Day.
That love later extended to supporters in the space.
“Tonight, we are living proof that you don’t have to choose between loving your city and fighting to make it better,” she told audience members on the night of Nov. 3. “For too long, we have asked for a D.C. we can all afford and we got excuses. We asked for solutions, and we got half measures. Again and again, we were told [that] government doesn’t work like that. That’s impossible. But to paraphrase James Baldwin, impossible is the least we can demand of this city.”
Upon Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, tens of thousands of D.C. metropolitan area residents lost federal government jobs, and the District lost millions of dollars in revenue. In response, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) sought to diversify the District’s long-term revenue sources, primarily through the development of RFK campus and revitalization of Downtown, D.C.
On the other side, Bowser aimed to reduce spending in some areas of significance to marginalized D.C. residents. Earlier this year, the D.C. Council, on which Lewis George currently serves as Ward 4 council member, allocated one-time funding to early childhood educator support and other public programs that were on the chopping block.
Next spring, Lewis George will present the first budget proposal of her mayoralty. She will do so in the face of socioeconomic inequity, and depleting revenues that Bowser and Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee issued warnings about in recent months. Despite warnings of a fiscal cliff, Lewis George said she won’t turn District residents into a sacrificial lamb.
“In my mind, the work that has to happen is one that is connected in every single way,” Lewis George told The Informer. “When we deliver services and a basic level of living for our people, we also attract people to want to live here and stay in the city. So you will see a budget that reflects just that.”
Speaking to Some of the People
Security guard and Ward 7 resident Emily Williams called Lewis George a breath of fresh air compared to the status quo.
“The mayor [Muriel Bowser] allowed her friends to come in, and take these good-paying jobs and live somewhere else, instead of enforcing the rules and laws that you have to live in D.C. a year, when you take these high-paying positions,” Williams said.
For Williams, Lewis George’s District roots and intimate knowledge of quality-of-life issues compelled her to support her mayoral bid earlier this year. She expressed respect for what she called Lewis George’s insistence on placing working-class residents front and center.
“At RFK, she’s going to make all the jobs union, and they have to be offered to D.C. residents first preference,” Williams told The Informer. “That’s very important to have a union, because if not, these high-paying corporations will run over top of us, and we’ll be at the bottom of the barrel.”
More than six miles away, Linda Greene said she wants to see the new mayoral administration not only breathe life into Ward 8, but support the businesses attempting to do so.
“We got one drugstore that I know of, but there are a lot of things that we don’t have access to,” said Green, a Ward 8 homeowner of more than two decades. “Things like a hardware store, dry cleaners, more restaurants rather than carry-outs. We need places where people can sit down and dine and wine and, you know, and listen to music if they want.”
Next year will mark eight years since Greene opened Anacostia Organics Dispensary, one of the first stores of its kind to enter the local medical cannabis market. Years after its launch, Greene said her business continues to suffer from the activation of a recreational marijuana market in Maryland, and, by virtue of council legislation, the increase of legally operating dispensaries, and more clandestine operations, existing simultaneously and taking her clientele.
Greene, who said she’s yet to speak with Lewis George, conducted a fundraiser in October to secure funds for back rent totaling in the tens of thousands of dollars. She told The Informer that she wants to see the Lewis George administration, not only address medical cannabis-related matters in a new agency separate from the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration, but also hire experts who can create market conditions favorable to small businesses.
“Why not teach our people how to take advantage of it, how to learn the industry, how to take their wings and fly themselves,” Greene said.
In Lewis George’s stomping grounds of Ward 4, lifelong D.C. resident Denise Sadler, who didn’t say who she supported in the general election, pointed to recent cost-of-living increases as a top-line issue for young people trying to make a way.
“People coming out of college can’t afford to get a place, so we need rent control,” Sadler told The Informer. “Job skill programs do exist, but job fairs and resume-building workshops are scarce. A lot of substance abuse programs are going away. We don’t have beds, so what’s a person supposed to do? Start using again?”
In Ward 8, outgoing advisory neighborhood commissioner Jamila White told The Informer that Lewis George brings a light that will usher in a new day for D.C. residents, especially those living east of the Anacostia River.
“Janeese is a daughter of Ward 8, spiritually at least, growing up at Union Temple with so many other Ward 8 young people who also attended the church,” White told The Informer. “That right there honestly gives me hope because her campaign was different. Her process was different. And she’s still 10 steps down. She did not backtrack. She’s still beside [Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember] Trayon [White] when nobody else politically would come anywhere near him.”
However, as Black residents navigate life under federal occupation and with the necessities increasingly out of reach, Commissioner White says the level of change that Lewis George makes depends on the organizing power of Black D.C. residents.
“We’re going to have to come back together in ways that we have not been forced to… since integration has happened,” the commissioner continued. “That means that a lot of us are going to have to relearn. We’re going to have to do some retraining, and we’re going to have to re-educate ourselves.”
More Winners, and a New Council
If Lewis George and White stick to their campaign promise, they will be collaborating with newly re-elected D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb to defend home rule. They will also have as their partner a D.C. Council on which Mendelson, Councilmembers Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) and Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) are serving another term.
D.C. Councilmembers Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) and Trayon White (D-Ward 8), the latter of whom faces a retrial in his federal bribery case, will count as the sole members of the council’s all-but-in-name native Washingtonian caucus.
The council will also bring two newbies: Democratic socialist and Ward 1 D.C. council member-elect Aparna Raj and at-large D.C. council member-elect Dr. Oye Owolewa. Per DCBOE, Owolewa garnered nearly 70% of the vote, clinching the Democratic at-large seat currently held by outgoing D.C. council member Anita Bonds.
D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At-large) placed second with 20% of the vote, still securing a full council term since returning to the Wilson Building earlier this year.
Owolewa, a former Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner and current shadow U.S. delegate, kept the fight in his home ward throughout much of the campaign season.
“My campaign has embodied our mission to fight for the D.C. you deserve,” Owolewa told reporters on Nov. 3. “My entire campaign was centered on having a principled fighter in office. Whether it’s for a better budget, fighting back against ICE and Trump, …even rebuilding a better health care system. In essence, we’ve been fighting for a better D.C.”
On election night, Owolewa hosted his general election watch party at Solly’s U Street Tavern in collaboration with Pro-Animal DC, a group that utilizes ballot initiatives to advance farm animal-friendly policy. Earlier this year, DCBOE deemed Initiative 86 a proper subject matter, a ballot initiative advanced by Animals Group DC to ban foie gras, a delicacy made through the force-feeding of birds.
More than 70% of voters cast votes in support of the initiative.
“D.C. residents rose up and put this initiative on the ballot and are now voting for it,” Owolewa told The Informer earlier in the day on Nov. 3. “The message is clear: D.C. residents are ready to live in a cruelty-free District. I’m excited to see this initiative pass and just as excited to implement the wishes of the people. I’m honored to share this shared win with the community.”
