In this edition of The Washington Informer’s Collins Council Report, the D.C. Council covered a lot of ground in the realms of housing, the environment, economic development and health. D.C. Councilmember Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7) didn’t participate in the hearing because he was undergoing in-patient physical therapy.
The council unanimously approved, on the second reading, the Healthy Homes and Residential Electrification Amendment Act of 2024 with an amendment by D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) that requires the Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) to explain the estimated difference in annual energy costs to each program participant.
The Relief for River East at Grandview Condominium Owners Temporary Amendment Act of 2024 also made it through a second reading with an amendment in the nature of the substitute by D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large) that, among other things, grants tax relief dating back to Fiscal Year 2021 instead of Fiscal Year 2024 and prioritizes condominium owners for affordable housing units and inclusionary units.
The following are a few other bills that the council deliberated on throughout much of Tuesday, May 7.
Healthcare System Standards and Practices Undergo a Revamp
The council unanimously approved, on its second reading, legislation that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) introduced to modernize the local healthcare system, align it with current professional standards and environments, and streamline administrative practices.
This development, more than a decade in the making, took place in a post-pandemic healthcare environment where health professional licensing boards couldn’t fill vacancies and healthcare professionals struggled to navigate labyrinthic labor practices.
At the behest of DC Health, the legislation, titled the Health Occupation Revision General Amendment Act of 2024, reduces the number of health professional licensing boards from 19 to 12, via the merging and repealing of the boards and membership changes within these entities.
Affected boards include the Board of Marriage and Family Therapy, the professions under which would be transferred to the Board of Professional Counseling.
The number of board members on the Board of Nursing would also be increased from 11 to 13. The legislation clarified that the board regulates nursing education and nursing assistive personnel education programs. Meanwhile, the Board of Occupational Therapy, Board of Physical Therapy, and Board of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology would also be consolidated under the newly formed Board of Rehabilitative Therapies.
Other elements of the legislation include the first-ever general guidelines for telehealth services provided by licensed healthcare professionals and updates to scopes of practice, licensure and registration intended to increase transparency, patient safety and efficacy.
As it relates to telehealth guidelines, the bill first allows for the establishment and development of a telehealth relationship between a District licensed professional and a D.C. resident or person located within the District. It also requires health professionals providing telehealth services to comply with the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program when prescribing medications while providing an exemption for health professionals in other jurisdictions who provide telehealth to an existing patient or a patient temporarily living in the District.
In the realms of transparency, patient safety and efficacy, the legislation allows the mayor to remove, without a hearing, a board member who fails to attend half of the scheduled board meetings within a 12-month period. It also adds mayoral rule making for temporary licenses while enhancing requirements for reinstatement and reactivation of licenses, allowing for applicants to apply for licensure or certification without a social security number, and updating the grounds for disciplinary action.
D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large), chair of the council’s Committee on Health, told The Informer that the legislation should address the challenges that healthcare professionals often encounter.
“I hope it would streamline processes for licensure and licensure renewal and streamline the process for disciplinary processes and investigations regarding a particular provider,” Henderson said, later pointing out what she’s heard from healthcare professionals in council testimony.
“It’s [also] just been more difficult for smaller professions within the health landscape that are all piled into the Board of Medicine,” Henderson continued. “Acupuncturists didn’t have a seat at the board [so] we’re moving acupuncture to its own board with other professions. It gives them a chance to have a voice and a bigger role in shaping policy.”
The Council Strikes a Blow to Racial Covenants
On its first reading, the D.C. Council unanimously approved the Uniform Unlawful Restrictions in Land Records Act. This bill not only nullifies racially restrictive covenants that have been imposed on District homes but allows current homeowners to eliminate covenants restricting home ownership on the basis of race, color, national origin, and religion.
The legislation, which facilitates this process without breaking the chain of a title or compromising its insurability, allows common interest communities, like homeowners associations, to record the elimination amendment without the vote of the entire association.
Decades ago, racially restrictive covenants in the District and across the nation enforced segregation by keeping Black people and other marginalized populations from purchasing homes in white neighborhoods. D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) said he could attest to this phenomenon based on a racially restrictive covenant imposed on his family home and another home he often walked past while attending Howard University.
McDuffie’s grandmother bought that family home in 1952, just four years after the Supreme Court deemed the enforcement of racial restrictive covenants unconstitutional in Shelley v. Kraemer.
Two years before Shelley v. Kramer, in 1946, two dozen white neighbors imposed the racially restrictive covenant on what would eventually become the McDuffie household. While speaking to The Informer on Tuesday, McDuffie weighed in on the historic and economic significance of that discovery, and the bill the council passed.
“With this establishment of a process to address covenants… there’s an elevation of the issue of Black homeownership in the country,” he said. “There were policies that prevented certain individuals from purchasing homes and D.C. was no exception.”
The council’s deliberation on this federally influenced legislation came amid discussion about the Chevy Chase Civic Site in Ward 3, what would eventually become a combination of new housing, a library and a community center — except a covenant predating current zoning laws that prohibits multifamily housing on that plot of land.
In January, the D.C. Uniform Law Commission requested that D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) introduce the Uniform Unlawful Restrictions in Land Records Act. Commission Chair James C. McKay, Jr. cited “broad support” from the real estate industry and approval by the National Conference on Uniform State Laws.
Mendelson acquiesced, later crafting a bill that, much to D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin’s relief included provisions eliminating the decades-long covenant that prohibited multifamily housing in the District.
Last year, Frumin, Ward 3’s council representative, introduced bills to allow for the formal rejection of racially restrictive covenants and pave the way for the overturning of covenants in Chevy Chase, and west of Rock Creek Park more broadly.
On Tuesday, he called the Uniform Unlawful Restrictions in Land Records Act as a “fluky coincidence” that furthered his efforts to address the relics of Ward 3’s segregationist past. “These by definition are covenants put in place 80 years ago,” Frumin said. “We shouldn’t be motivated by ancient covenants motivated by racial exclusion.”
Council Overrides Mayor Bowser’s Veto on Voucher Self-Certification
On its second reading, the D.C. Council approved, with a 11-1 vote, legislation that not only allows homeless and undocumented applicants for rent supplement vouchers to self-certify eligibility, but prohibits the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) from looking into their immigration status, prior arrests or convictions, or pending criminal matters.
D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) was the sole “no” vote.
The council later reversed a veto that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser previously issued for the bill, titled the Local Rent Supplement Program Eligibility Temporary Amendment Act of 2024. On this go-around, Frumin voted “no” and Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) voted “present.”
Though the D.C. Council’s Committee on Housing is exploring a permanent version of the bill, versions of the Local Rent Supplement Program Eligibility Temporary Amendment Act have been in effect since the summer of 2022. Bowser even signed one of those bills into law.
In speaking about his opposition to the temporary legislation, Frumin mentioned what he called systemic gaps, including the absence of mechanisms to address allegedly dangerous tenants who won’t voluntarily enroll in programs meant to address their underlying issues.
“What do you do when someone won’t accept services?” Frumin said. “We need to find other options for housing for disruptive people, when you have circumstances when people are threatening and disrupting. It’s not fair. I have a number of people who are in real fear for their safety.”
In her April 30 veto letter, Bowser implored the council to explore alternatives, outside of self-attestation, to lower the administrative burden for identification. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) pushed back, saying that DCHA didn’t mention safety concerns while testifying on the permanent bill, nor did the Bowser administration raise such concerns until recently.
“The housing director didn’t even testify on the legislation,” Mendelson said on Monday. “Why this rises to the level of veto is beyond me. There was quite a bit of support for the bill. It removes barriers for homeless individuals and the undocumented for whom it’s hard to produce documents.”
During the May 7 council breakfast, D.C. Councilmembers Christina Henderson (I-At large) and Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) requested more information about the number of DCHA tenants who had been self-certifying for rental supplements.
Pinto delved deeper into the issue, citing instances when self-certifying voucher holders sparked safety concerns among her constituents. D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large), chair of the council’s Committee on Housing, told Pinto in response that self certification and tenant safety are two separate concerns.
Moments earlier, White, like Mendelson, pointed out that his committee didn’t receive feedback from the Bowser administration about eligibility certification. He later told The Informer that permanent legislation, slated to go before the Committee of the Whole later this year, would be shaped, in part, by empirical data from DCHA and Department of Human Services about the number of tenants requesting self-certification.
White said he wanted to examine how those figures correlate with unsafe conditions on public housing property. His efforts, he noted, could be more impactful with specific and direct input from Bowser.
“We need to find factors and data to solve problems but we need to be clear about the problems,” White said. ”The mayor is making broad safety and abuse claims.”
The Council Mulls Over Complexities of Project Labor Agreements
On its second reading, the council unanimously approved the Revised Labor Agreement Cost Threshold Amendment Act of 2024 with D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8) voting “present.”
This legislation lowers the cost threshold for the required use of project labor agreements (PLAs) on construction contracts from $75 million to $50 million. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) introduced the bill in 2022 following President Joe Biden (D) issuance of an executive order requiring PLAs on federal construction projects costing at least $35 million.
PLAs are pre-hire collective bargaining agreements negotiated between unions and contractors to specify the terms of construction projects and prevent union strikes. Common criticisms center on exclusion of nonunion certified business enterprises (CBEs), increased costs to construction projects, and the lack of effectiveness in boosting employment of Black workers.
In the weeks, days and moments leading up to the second reading of the bill, questions also surfaced about the degree to which D.C. residents and CBEs would benefit and the legislation’s long-term fiscal impact.
D.C. Councilmembers Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) and Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) successfully introduced amendments addressing fiscal impact and representation of workers from historically marginalized backgrounds on construction projects.
Nadeau’s amendment mitigates the fiscal impact by excluding five projects already in the FY 2026-2031 capital improvement plan that cost $50-$75 million. The amendment also applies to new projects not within the capital improvement plan that cost $50 million or more, as well as existing projects that are budgeted at less than $50 million that will be modified to cost more.
Parker’s amendment requires the submission of a plan outlining how expenditures on construction projects support CBEs and equity impact enterprises. It also requires a diversity plan detailing outreach and recruitment efforts to connect members of historically marginalized groups to employment and apprenticeship opportunities on construction projects.
“The CBE law is a different freestanding policy but the PLA law cites and references CBEs and first source,” Parker said. “The amendment is an effort to hold unions [that are under] PLAs accountable to conducting outreach and supporting our local CBEs. I’ve talked with local union leaders and they are supportive of this amendment.”
Ward 8 Councilmember White unsuccessfully attempted to introduce an amendment that requires D.C. residents to constitute at least 75% of union workers on PLA construction projects and exempts CBEs from the $50 million threshold set by the legislation.
The amendment, White said, would go further in mitigating concerns he heard from union workers and CBEs about the lack of opportunities for D.C. residents.
While D.C. Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large) and Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) supported Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember White’s efforts, Nadeau, Parker, and D.C. Councilmembers Matt Frumin and Robert White (D-At large) counted among those who stood in opposition due to their concerns that it didn’t address the root causes of Black D.C. resident unemployment.
For several minutes, the Ward 8 council member pushed back against his colleagues, saying that first-source laws and the existence of CBEs don’t suffice in ensuring that D.C. residents receive employment opportunities in a city with numerous infrastructure projects.
“We have to do more to bring on D.C. residents,” White said on the dais on Tuesday. “Union reps tell me about a lot of barriers. They can’t find and keep workers. It’s happening over and over again. I’m hearing these types of stories far too often in the District.”
McDuffie echoed those sentiments, telling his colleagues on the dais that the real issue at hand is that of workforce development. “We have a ways to go to address these issues in the trades,” he said. “We have a ways to go to closing the racial wealth gap. We do that through business creation and CBEs doing that.”
D.C. Councilmember Henderson Seeks Federal Funding for Early Childhood Educators
The D.C. Council unanimously approved the Fiscal Year 2025 Federal Portion Budget Request Act of 2024, which determines how the D.C. Council wants $5.2 billion in federal dollars (25% of the Fiscal Year 2025 budget) to be allocated.
The legislation eliminated the mayor’s unilateral ability to spend contingency reserves, maximized grant amounts for the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, facilitated control of the National Children’s Museum in Downtown, and allocated $600,000 toward the D.C. National Guard. It also included allocations for inauguration-related emergency planning, the D.C. Courts, the University of the District of Columbia, and school improvements.
In what was perhaps a consequential budget season development, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) introduced an amendment requesting $5 million in federal dollars for the Early Childhood Educator Equity Fund, which D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser totally defunded in her budget proposal.
In explaining her rationale for the amendment, Henderson said that it’s a means of sustaining a program that Bowser, during her April appearance before the council, lamented would grow in costs over the next few years.
Henderson also cited a number of early childcare centers that are based in federal buildings, much to the benefit of the federal workforce.
“We intend to restore the fund,” Henderson said. “While we are requesting funds for other programs, why not this one? From a financial standpoint, D.C. taxpayers are supplementing federal salaries, so we should ask the federal government to partially contribute to the fund.”