Name: Streetcar, soda tax, football subsidies? D.C.’s at-large council candidates debate.
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Streetcar, soda tax, football subsidies? D.C.’s at-large council candidates debate.

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This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift ShareSeventeen of the candidates running for the D.C. Council’s hotly contested at-large seats staked out a wide range of positions during more than four hours of debate this week about how the city should confront its months-long public health emergency, the budget crunch resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, and a public outcry over policing practices and racial inequity.Some candidates vying for attention in the crowded field proposed that the District save money by canceling recently established programs including paid parental leave and . Some wanted to spend more on public housing or fund subsidies to bring the Washington Football Team back to the District. They disagreed about whether the city should levy new taxes on , and , and about whether to legalize, decriminalize or ban and “.”In contrast with the presidential debate Tuesday, the three debates on — with five to seven candidates in each slot — were mostly earnest and cerebral, with candidates taking the time to explain their qualifications and policy ideas.AdvertisementOnly occasionally did they directly confront or criticize one another, including a few brief, heated exchanges between Marcus Goodwin and Ed Lazere, two of the highest-profile candidates of the 23 running for just two spots.One seat is being vacated by retiring council member David Grosso (I), and the other is held by council member Robert C. White Jr. (D), who is running for reelection and considered a favorite to keep his seat. White is the only Democrat in the field, though many are former Democrats who registered as independents to run this year; at least one of the two at-large seats must go to a non-Democrat.Lazere, a longtime advocate of government programs to help the needy and founder of the left-leaning D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, is a favorite of liberal activists. Goodwin, a real estate developer, argued during the debate Wednesday that he would help balance a council that already tilts too far toward the free-spending left: “We need legislators who understand basic economics, and frankly, we haven’t had that lately,” he said during the debate.AdvertisementChristina Henderson, a congressional staffer who once worked for Grosso and who has been endorsed by him, said the council should raise taxes on high-earners, an idea that was voted down this summer. But, she added, “I don’t feel the budget is always the answer, or spending more money is always the answer to problems.”Some of the sharpest differences among the candidates arose during discussions of whether to modify the city’s approach to policing in light of national protests and local outrage over the recent police shooting of in Southeast Washington.Goodwin said he would not reduce the police budget. “We don’t necessarily need to cut from public safety, because frankly, we are on track to have more homicides than we have over the past 12 years, since 2008,” he said. “I want to ensure we have public safety officers in communities,” he said.White advocated for spending less on policing: “Our only response to crime for decades has been to increase the police budget, and it hasn’t worked.”When nonprofit professional Jeanné Lewis called for the ouster of police Chief Peter Newsham, saying his handling of Kay’s death and of recent protests was “callous and somewhat dismissive,” shadow representative Franklin Garcia defended Newsham, saying policing in the District is “different from what happened in some of these other places — those practices have been long gone in the District of Columbia.”AdvertisementVincent B. Orange, a former council member who was and is seeking to rejoin the council, agreed that the District’s police are not troubled like other cities’ forces. “I would be shocked if the District of Columbia had a George Floyd incident, a Breonna Taylor incident,” he said.Lazere shot back, saying, “I also would say the police killing of Deon Kay was very much like the Breonna Taylor killing,” and arguing that police acted rashly in both cases and did not need to shoot. In Kay’s case, an officer saw a gun in the teen’s hand and appears to have fired at nearly the same moment that Kay was throwing the gun to the ground.Washington Post reporter Fenit Nirappil, who moderated the debates, polled the candidates on their positions on several issues that might come before the council. Of nine candidates asked about a soda tax, only Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Alexander Padro was in favor. Congestion pricing, which would charge cars for entering downtown streets, was more popular, with Padro, White, Statehood Green Party candidate Ann Wilcox and ANC Commissioner Chander Jayaraman expressing interest in the idea. Lewis, Garcia, Board of Education member Markus Batchelor and longtime D.C. government employee Eric Rogers said they were against congestion pricing.AdvertisementLazere gave the most full-throated defense of decriminalizing sex work, an idea that so far has not had enough support to advance to a council vote and on which the candidates were split. “I support decriminalizing sex work because sex workers support decriminalizing sex work,” he said. “Decriminalizing would make them feel more safe. In countries where sex work has been decriminalized, sex workers are more likely to refuse a client, more likely to report someone else who is trafficking.”Almost every candidate said the city should save money by delaying or canceling the extension of the streetcar into Ward 7, an idea that White has championed on the council. Goodwin, who previously said he would “” cancel plans to extend the streetcar across the Anacostia River, took a different position on Wednesday, becoming the only supporter of the streetcar in these debates. “We need to ensure investment east of the river is a first and top priority,” he said.Lazere criticized Goodwin for seeming to shift his stance on a different issue, how long to extend the eviction moratorium put in place at the start of the pandemic.Garcia, Padro and Monica Palacio, who ran the District’s Office of Human Rights, all noted that, if elected, they would be the first Hispanic member of the council.Orange argued that his “institutional knowledge and sound judgment” from 13 years of service on the council are needed to steer the city through this budget crunch. Asked about the ethics complaint that led to his early resignation after he lost his reelection race in 2016, he defended himself poetically, paraphrasing verses from AdvertisementRepeating the refrain, “Stop giving our money away,” Orange said he’d like to repeal the District’s paid family leave law, which took effect this year. Marya Pickering, the Republican nominee in a field full of independents, castigated the District’s recent leadership and many of the liberal ideas of her competitors, including the public financing law — enacted this year — that helped lead to such a large slate of candidates.“I’d like to note I am one of the few candidates who is not participating in the so-called Fair Elections Program,” she said in her opening statement. “I see nothing fair about taking taxpayer money for a candidate’s campaign.”Goodwin said the same: “I don’t want to take money from our D.C. budget. Other candidates have made different choices.”White, the incumbent, was left out of the most contentious of the three debates, in which Henderson, Orange, Lazere and Goodwin sparred.AdvertisementWhite seemed at times to be competing less with the other candidates than with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), whom he might challenge in the 2022 mayoral election. “There’s an overreliance on slogans as opposed to real results,” he said of Bowser. “It’s not a bad thing to admit that students of color are not doing well enough in our public schools. We can’t fix things if we won’t admit our problem.”Asked to rate the mayor’s job performance, candidates’ opinions of Bowser ranged from a three out of 10, from Pickering, to an eight from Rogers and Garcia. White gave her a six.Map: Voting guides: | | • How to vote: | | D.C.: | | Maryland: | Virginia: | | Are you running into voting problems? 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This article was published more than&nbsp;2 years agoCommentGift ShareSeventeen of the candidates running for the D.C. Council’s hotly contested at-large seats staked out a wide range of positions during more than four hours of debate this week about how the city should confront its months-long public health emergency, the budget crunch resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, and a public outcry over policing practices and racial inequity.Some candidates vying for attention in the crowded field proposed that the District save money by canceling recently established programs including paid...

Streetcar, soda tax, football subsidies? D.C.’s at-large council candidates debate.

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