jonetta rose barras: The haunting in the Ward 2 DC Council race

Jack Evans resigned his post as Ward 2 DC Council member in January in advance of being formally expelled, and he was soundly defeated when he circled back in the June Democratic primary, seeking to reclaim his previously discarded seat. That reality seems to have eluded the challengers hoping to kick out his temporary replacement and lay permanent claim to a seat Evans held for nearly 30 years. 

As I listened to each person during telephone interviews, I was struck by their direct or indirect references to Evans — his term, his legacy or his style of politics. They have sought to stitch the worst part of all that to his successor, Brooke Pinto. 

After winning the special election held two weeks after her victory in the Democratic primary, Pinto was sworn into office to complete the unexpired portion of Evans’ term. That technically makes her the incumbent. She’s running in the November general election for a full four-year term as the Democratic nominee.

Her opponents are Statehood Green Party nominee Peter Bolton and Randy Downs and Martín Miguel Fernandez, both of whom are running as independents. (Republican nominee Katherine Venice pulled out of the race earlier this month, saying she would be devoting her time to battling President Donald Trump’s “authoritarian takeover” by helping prevent a second term.) 

To the remaining candidates, Pinto is Evans reincarnated.

“[Pinto] represents a continuation of everything that was wrong with Evans’ tenure. Residents of Ward 2 and the wider city deserve better,” said Bolton, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K. He is a journalist who mostly reports on international issues. He doesn’t bite his tongue when criticizing what he calls the “center-right” of the Democratic Party and prides himself on being a “socialist.”

“Pinto represents the continuation of pay-to-play politics. [She] represents buying political power with generational wealth,” said Fernandez, who was born in Lima, Peru, but moved to DC as a young child; Evans was a council member during most of Fernandez’s childhood and youth. Fernandez sometimes works as a DJ. But he is employed full-time at a local nonprofit science organization. By training he is a medical anthropologist.

“We’re trying to move on from controversies and unethical lapses. We need a bold, ethical leader,” said Downs, a popular Ward 2 advisory neighborhood commissioner in the Dupont Circle neighborhood and an active member of the LGBTQ community. He grew up “poor” in Missouri and came to DC in 2011 to take a job with the Sierra Club.

The Ward 2 race has become a slugfest. No one is wearing gloves. 

The pounding of Pinto by her political opponents and their allies may be as vigorous as it has been because she wasn’t supposed to win the primary election. After all, none of the people politically active in the ward even knew who she was. Moreover, she hadn’t voted in a local election and only registered to vote here in DC in 2019. 

With endorsements from DC Attorney General Karl Racine and The Washington Post’s editorial board, Pinto won 28% of the 11,926 votes cast in the Democratic Party’s Ward 2 primary, besting advisory neighborhood commissioner Patrick Kennedy by 300 votes. Jordan Grossman, who had been the hope of far-left Democrats, came in third. After Pinto’s primary win, her Democratic challengers essentially ceded the subsequent special election, where she prevailed with 43%. The Statehood Green Party had no candidate on the ballot for the Ward 2 primary or the special election.

“I have my concerns about people working for the AG, then coming out and running for office,” said Fernandez. “It’s a form of nepotism.”

I had similar concerns. There’s no law against it, however. Racine has doubled down on Pinto. It would be a surprise if the Post’s editorial board decided against renewing its support. 

Pinto also has angered some folks because she refused to participate in the public campaign-financing program and received a bunch of money from folks outside the city, including her home town of Greenwich, Connecticut — perceived by some as land of America’s richest 1%. Pinto told me that she “reached out to [the Office of Campaign Finance] in April and asked if there was any chance of switching.” She was told the rules didn’t permit changing in the middle of the cycle; that prohibited her from even enrolling for the general election.

The Evans labeling began in earnest after a Kennedy supporter, Lauren Wolfe, filed a complaint with OCF, claiming that Pinto had not disclosed in-kind campaign contributions related to the use of a $1 million Dupont Circle home. Allegations have been made in the community and elsewhere that the property may have been purchased by her mother to serve as her daughter’s campaign headquarters. “It raised a lot of questions in the community,” said Downs.

The matter remains before the OCF. However, Pinto told me what she has repeatedly told everyone: Her mother only rented the house. Pinto’s campaign had intended to sublease the first floor for its headquarters. The pandemic slammed the District and forced everyone inside their homes based on mayoral order. Consequently, Pinto said she was never able to implement that plan. 

The complaint also thwarted the campaign’s ability to repay a loan she had made to it: ‘’[Instead] I had to use that money to pay legal expenses,” Pinto said.

“I am very troubled that people would question my ethics,” she added.

Ward 2 residents will have to wait until the OCF completes its investigation. However, as someone who reported on the council during Evans’ entire tenure, I know this much:  Pinto is no Jack Evans. As partial evidence, consider these facts: She does not have outside employment or a council constituent services fund. She said she has forsworn donations from corporations and political action committees. 

Pinto’s problem is that she is not the progressive some local political operatives were hoping to elect as the Ward 2 representative. After reviewing their positions on various issues, I would say that Downs, Fernandez and Bolton are certainly left of Pinto.

For example, Bolton has been advocating for municipal ownership of utilities, a local Green New Deal, and the elimination of all Metro fees — buses and subways. He said the city should adopt the Finnish public education model.

Fernandez has a 14-point public safety platform that includes “defunding” the police and forcing the resignation of DC Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham. “l don’t believe there will be any reimagination of the police when Brooke Pinto is in charge,” he said.

He also has called for installation of a public municipal broadband service, arguing that it is not a “niche issue” but intersectional, with the digital divide having multiple inequitable consequences. He raised concerns that primary candidates didn’t do enough to reach voters who live in the eastern section of Ward 2, noting there are 9,000 Black and 11,000 Latino residents and that 62% of the ward’s residents are renters.

“I am the only candidate who has bothered to build a website in Spanish,” continued Fernandez. “It’s not just that I am focusing on these people; it’s that they have been neglected.”

Not unlike other opponents, Downs believes funds should be routed from the police department to prevention programs that might be more successful in stemming the rise of crime. He wants to replace the current student testing evaluation system for something “less punitive.” Further, Downs supports creating more dedicated bus lanes in high-congestion areas, which could ignite controversy in neighborhoods like Georgetown, and has called for reducing transit fees, particularly for low-income residents. 

While her rivals may want to cast Pinto as center-right, her queries during legislative sessions and oversight hearings, along with her votes, suggest she is more center-left. Consider that while serving as a deputy attorney general at the DC Office of the Attorney General, she helped supervise its Cure the Streets violence prevention programs; she said she believes more funds should be devoted to such efforts. She has pushed back against the Office of the Chief Financial Officer levying penalties when businesses were late paying sales taxes; announced support for legislation that would expunge certain criminal charges from individuals’ records; and advocated for greater access to affordable housing, particularly among people who are homeless.

“At the end of the day [constituent services] is the most important component of the job; my services background has helped me so far,” said Pinto. That work has included, she said, traveling to all sections of the ward, especially “neighborhoods that had been left out.”

Pinto said that she strives to be “reasonable on every issue, considering all sides, not only what works in theory but what works in practice.”

“I’m trying to do what’s right,” she added.

There are 47,756 registered voters in Ward 2; 31,931 of them — 70% — are Democrats, according to recent data from the DC Board of Elections. With a general election expected to be dominated by Democrats and only three opponents, Pinto’s odds of winning are favorable — unless Ward 2 voters have shifted demonstrably to the left or don’t favor a “reasonable” approach to governing and public policymaking.

This post has been updated to clarify the claims in Lauren Wolfe’s complaint with the Office of Campaign Finance, as well as to clarify an earlier statement that Brooke Pinto had intended to donate unspent campaign funds to Black Lives Matter. Rather, Pinto said she suggested to her supporters in June that they donate to BLM and other anti-racist organizations instead of to her campaign.

---

jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.