For at least the rest of the calendar year, Elissa Silverman will serve as one of the D.C. Council’s non-party affiliated members, a role she had for eight years before her defeat at the hands of then-Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie in 2022.
As she prepares to, once again, weigh in on legislation and conduct oversight, Silverman has people in her corner prepared to allay concerns about her brand of white progressivism.
“You just can’t put in new bath water with old bath water, or vice versa, but you can mix it,” said Ward 7 resident and Silverman supporter Kimberly Mitchell. “We have to be willing to work together…Other folks are using the trick of words [but] I like to educate people, so they feel comfortable and not afraid.”
On June 16, Silverman defeated then-interim D.C. Councilmember Doni Crawford and D.C. State Board of Education President Dr. Jacque Patterson in the first-round of D.C.’s first-ever ranked-choice voting elections. She did so with the help of Mitchell, a retired make-up artist who appeared in a campaign ad espousing support for the then-former council member.
Mitchell’s selling point: the universal paid family leave legislation that Silverman successfully championed in 2016. As Mitchell recounted, she supported Silverman’s uphill battle against moderate council members, the Bowser administration and the local business community after struggling to balance work and family obligations in the months leading up to her mother’s death from cancer.
By April, when she retired from Macy’s and dedicated more time to supporting Silverman’s electoral ambitions, Mitchell leveraged her rapport with neighbors to make the case for a politician she believed would benefit Ward 7.
“When they actually saw the commercial that I did for her, they were like, ‘Oh man, Kim…tell me about this person.’” Mitchell told The Informer. “People said to me afterwards, ‘I voted for that person because you supported that person, and I believe in you.’”
Mitchell said, however, that’s not enough.
“I don’t want people to see me,” she told The Informer. “I want you to know what she’s about.”
In 2024, nearly a decade after the council’s passage of the Universal Paid Leave Amendment Act, Mitchell reaped the benefits of the policy when, following a near deadly hit-and-run accident, she lost her union benefits and source of income.
“It was unbelievable how easy it was,” Mitchell told The Informer about the process to apply for universal paid family leave. “It got me through those 12 weeks…around Christmas time. I was able….to pull off a season we all enjoy. You would have never known it, but it was because of the paid family leave.”
On the afternoon of July 17, Mitchell counted among those who sat in council chambers as Silverman took her oath of office and, later, reflected on her return to electoral politics during one of the District most turbulent times in recent history.
Mitchell later spoke about lessons she learned during Silverman’s nearly three-year absence on the council, and what’s required of her as a constituent.
“This is a new day, and I want to be more supportive because I realized I need to do my part,” Mitchell said. “I did my speeches and whatever, but I need to be in touch and contact to not only just get the vote, but now to do the work.”
Elissa 2.0: A White Progressive Aiming for More Collaboration
Silverman, the journalist-turned-politican who first won election in 2014 with then-D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry’s endorsement, currently sits in the seat that Crawford occupied after McDuffie resigned from the council earlier this year to run for mayor.
In her brief remarks on July 17, she evoked Barry’s legacy.
“Mayor Barry was known for saying, and I paraphrase, ‘It’s not how you get knocked down, it’s how you get back up,’” Silverman said. “He advised to get knocked down on your back because that way you can look up. And he always said…‘If you can look up, you can get up.’”
Moments earlier, while getting sworn into office, Silverman repeated words uttered by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, with her parents Jack and Ruth Silverman in the audience, and surrounded by: her older brother Jonathan Silverman, campaign treasurer Bob Price, her partner Dusty Horwitt, and longtime friends Jeff Francer and Lori Bettinger.
Members of the council who were in the room included: D.C Councilmembers Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7), and Trayon White (D-Ward 8). Others who made an appearance on July 17 included Lisa D.T. Rice of Make All Votes Count DC, Aparna Raj, the Democratic nominee for the Ward 1 D.C. Council seat, and former Ward 6 D.C. council member Tommy Wells.
Them, along with a handful of council staffers, campaign supporters, government affairs personnel, and reporters, looked on as Silverman, in her remarks, paid homage to those who held it down for her during a period of struggle and personal reflection.
“I look around this room and I see the people who lifted me up,” Silverman said. “And I’m thinking of others who helped me from near and from far who can’t be here today. It was in acts that were very big and small, helping me put one foot in front of the other.”
In 2022, McDuffie, who unsuccessfully attempted to run for D.C. attorney general, unseated Silverman with the support of Black Washingtonians skeptical about her enthusiasm for helping communities east of the Anacostia River. Years later, during the recent special at-large race, some of the women in that number similarly coalesced around efforts to discourage voters from ranking Silverman.
After leaving the council, Silverman spent time in Maryland state government and, as she has often said, applied for local unemployment benefits. Upon McDuffie’s resignation, she, Crawford, Patterson and several others vied for the appointment that Crawford eventually garnered.
Weeks later, Silverman announced her candidacy in the June 16 special election, writing candidly on Substack about how her experiences outside of the Wilson Building mirrored that of other D.C. residents living under the thumb of the Trump White House and Republican-dominated Congress.
As Silverman recalled in her remarks, she met D.C. residents on the campaign trail affected by DOGE cuts and unsure about their future in the nation’s capital. Such encounters, she said in part, inspired what she calls “Elissa 2.0.”
“I am here to remind you we are a city of very talented residents, of unique and incredible local businesses, creative entrepreneurs, public policy experts, even a few lawyers, of compassionate and caring people who know that our strength is in our growing diversity, in our mix of people who grew up in this city, like Mayor Bowser, like our likely future Mayor Janeese Lewis George, and like some of you sitting here today, at least two [Felder and T. White] in the front row,” Silverman said. “And then there are others, like me, like Marion Barry, who came to this city because of its promise, like Frederick Douglass, like Jose Andres, like many of you as well, and we cannot do this work alone. We need to do it together. And when we disagree, we need to find common ground to move forward together.”
Silverman said she’s embarked on that journey, so far, in conversations with Crawford and Patterson, both who entered a cross-endorsement during a special election. Another person of significance who Silverman will interact with this fall is Mendelson, who attempted to tip the scales in the special election with an endorsement of Crawford.
“She and I haven’t talked about that,” Mendelson told The Informer.
In years past, Mendelson and Silverman have clashed on various issues, including the latter’s paid family leave expansion, which she accused the chair of stalling. Other quarrels have centered on Silverman’s pandemic-era proposal to allow council staffers to take home office equipment and furniture; and the at-large representative’s scrutiny of sports betting contracts.
With much of the focus on tax policy later this year, Mendelson said he has his eye on policy, and less so the schisms between him and Silverman.
“I’ve been on the council a long time, and legislators have to learn that there’s always another issue around the corner,” Mendelson told The Informer, “and that we have to be forward-looking and not spending our time looking in the rear-view mirror. So, the campaign is ancient history, and I’m looking forward to the fall.”
Dr. Jacque Patterson Speaks, While a Longtime Ally Stands Firm
On the day following her return to council, Silverman traversed through the District, showing face at the D.C. Democrats’ unity breakfast with petitions in hand to collect signatures that will get her name on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
Also in the building known as STATION DC in Union Market that July 18 morning was Patterson, who, just one day prior, took to social media and, in response to a post documenting Silverman’s swearing in remarks, revealed that his meeting with the independent council member didn’t inspire confidence in her ability to prioritize Wards 7 and 8.
“She’s disrespectful to the Black community,” Patterson later told The Informer. “She can say she’s the new Silverman 2.0 or whatever the case may be, but I don’t see that change. I don’t see her wanting to be any more empathetic than she was before. I don’t see her wanting to say, ‘Okay, let me consider your views in a certain type of way that I previously didn’t.’”
Points of contention for Pattterson include Silverman’s scrutiny of funding for the CareFirst Arena on St. Elizabeths East Campus, compared to what he called her lax attitude toward Audi Field in Ward 6, where she lives. Patterson also questioned Silverman’s posture toward the small business community and whether the at-large council member appreciates the circumstances that spur families’ enthusiasm for public charter schools, especially in communities east of the Anacostia River.
Such a mindset, he said, is dangerous for the District’s most marginalized residents.
“The first thing that we’re talking about is to understand the difference between equality and equity to the point where you’re making sure those communities who have been left out for a long period of time are getting what they need at the amount that they need,” Patterson told The Informer. “While we see the federal government cutting a lot of safety net programs, how are we going to balance budgets? It’s time… that we make a difference in how we fund communities that have been underserved, and I don’t think Elissa Silverman understands the difference between equality and equity.”
As he continues to make his case to District voters, Patterson is positing himself as a champion of equity.
“I don’t care where your community is,” Patterson said. “I’m coming…and talking to you because I know that to truly grow our city, we have to understand the nuances. That looks like going into a community and say, ‘This may work in this community, but it may not be right for this community, so let me talk to you about what this policy means for your particular community and why you support it or oppose it.’”
Meanwhile, longtime Silverman supporter Sharon Gang is expressing a different point of view about the council member, holding in high esteem what she called Silverman’s transferable journalism skills.
“She always asks follow-up questions,” said Gang, a retired communications official who lives in Tenleytown in Ward 3. “She does her homework, she’s smart, and she’s effective. I think she’ll be an asset to the new members who are coming on, and I think she has a clear vision of how she can help people of our city.”
For Gang, Silverman can also embolden what she calls a legislative branch bashful about combatting President Donald J. Trump and congressional Republicans.
“There’s just been a lack of fire, a lack of voice, a lack of agency,” Gang told The Informer. “I understand Mayor Bowser, how she had to walk a fine line with our president, with our administration, and not piss anybody off, but I feel like the council could have stepped up in a number of ways, and they just didn’t.”
Gang, whose professional experience includes a stint as a public information officer in Mayor Anthony Wlliams’ administration, has a relationship with Silverman going back to the council member’s days as a Washington City Paper reporter.
By 2018, when Gang became a member of Silverman’s campaign team, both women had long stood on the same side. She renewed her role as a campaign staff member in Silverman’s unsuccessful 2022 bid, and more recently, served as a volunteer coordinator during the special at-large council race.
Gang said she’s still on the ground, fighting to ensure Silverman stays on the council in 2027.
“She can help our new mayor in a lot of different ways, providing good counsel,” Gang said. “She’s not the same person she was four years ago, but she’s better. She’s the improved version, and I think she’s very, very, very willing to talk to everybody and hear what they have to say.”
I don’t believe that Elissa Silverman can transform herself into “Elissa 2.0.” She has far too much baggage in my opinion. That includes what I saw as her conduct during the Ward 3 Democratic primary and her social media posts criticizing OCF officials, journalists, and private citizens. Adversity tends to show people’s true colors. Silverman certainly showed hers.