jonetta rose barras: Doors closing to previously open meetings

In the last few weeks, the DC Council, led by Chair Phil Mendelson, has considered at least two legislative proposals that seem to deliberately diminish the agency and influence of District residents in their government, despite the fact that they finance the majority of the city’s $11 billion local budget. The legislature’s actions mimic President Donald Trump’s governing style, including his penchant for muzzling citizens and squeezing them out of the public square.

Consider the Open Meetings Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of 2025, approved 10-2 by the council this week; the bill awaits the mayor’s approval.

The measure would permit the legislature to conduct substantial business, sans an official vote, during retreats, field trips, and secret closed-door meetings with its members, Mayor Muriel Bowser or other designees — all without providing any advance notice to the public or any report about the substance of their conversations or any conclusions that may have been reached.

The council is expected to hold a hearing on a permanent version of the bill on April 22. While the public may get a chance to weigh in, I do not expect any significant changes. 

I also don’t foresee a mayoral veto. That means the emergency measure likely will be in place for 90 days — to be followed by a temporary version in effect up to 255 days, and then the permanent legislation.

Essentially, the District’s legislature will no longer be covered under the city’s 15-year-old law, aside from legislative meetings and committee sessions where votes are taking place. Good luck finding out what lawmakers are doing daily to earn the millions of dollars you are paying for them and their staff. There certainly won’t be anyone demanding a five-point memo detailing what they did during the last five days.

“The public should not be excluded from discussions which may seriously and negatively impact their lives, through public health crises and public safety (acts of terrorism),” Robert Brannum, a Ward 5 resident and former advisory neighborhood commissioner, wrote in a letter sent to every councilmember. 

“This is not just a leak in the dam of anti-open government, but rather a vast and fast river flooding the demand for transparency and public participation,” he added. 

In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, first released in 2000, acclaimed author and political scientist Robert Putnam offered critical analysis and insights about the importance of civic culture and citizen participation to the quality of government and society. “What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership but active and involved membership,” he explained.

Undoubtedly, the Trump administration isn’t concerned about citizen interaction. Deliberately operating in secret, it has deployed an outside team headed by controversial tech billionaire (and co-president) Elon Musk, whose minions have sealed off computerized systems from government executives and employees. Meanwhile, the White House has barred members of the media from White House press events and foregone any real attempt to properly inform the public about internal deliberations and decisions.

The DC Council has not taken such dramatic actions, but removing itself from the open meetings/open government regime places it on a slippery slope.

Mendelson and others have promised they are not abandoning their commitment to transparency. They have argued that the open meetings law enacted in 2010 has impeded their ability to hold conversations about important matters with each other. They have blamed the law for the cancellation of their once-monthly council-mayor breakfasts, seemingly to avoid a public display of disagreements between the executive and legislative branches. As an example of the purported need for a return to secrecy, they have cited a planned field trip that members of the Committee on Housing were warned against holding because they would have had to alert the public or open it up to the public which, once again, would somehow have intruded in the work of elected officials.

Truth be told, before the council began slashing it, the District’s law as written already permitted members to hold emergency closed-door meetings for issues related to health, public safety or confidential negotiations. Legislators recently used the law to prevent the press from attending the briefing provided by the Latham & Watkins law firm to the special ad hoc committee considering whether to expel then-Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White Sr. They also closed out the public when legislators were briefed about potential active shooter protocols.

It’s clear the council isn’t seeking flexibility or clarification. It is seeking what it gave itself: a broad exemption and the opportunity to go MIA. 

Start stamping pictures on milk cartons. 

Days before the council’s Trumpian dance, Mendelson held a public hearing on the Review of Agency Action Clarification Amendment Act of 2025 — the permanent version of emergency and temporary measures he shepherded through the legislature late last year. 

The fact that the council’s adoption of emergency and temporary versions of this significant legislation slipped by the public underscores my assertion that the council seems to be systematically cutting off the citizens from their government. Five months later, advocates and residents are just now being provided an opportunity to weigh in. 

Is that the way to advance civic culture?

The legislation’s effect is to make it more difficult for residents to challenge decisions by DC government agencies by requiring that a “reviewing court or tribunal shall defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of a statute or regulation it administers so long as that interpretation is not plainly wrong, or inconsistent with the statutory or regulatory language or legislature’s intent.”

It’s a case of the proverbial fox guarding the hen house. Equally troubling, the bill would most assuredly weaken citizens’ positions in any fight against the government or its functionaries who frequently ignore how their decisions impact the lives of ordinary residents. 

“How can an agency’s interpretation be a reasonable interpretation of a statute it administers and also be plainly wrong or inconsistent with the statutory language or the legislature’s intent?” asked Sheryl Barnes in her testimony on behalf of the Chevy Chase Voice.

“Appending the C and D word salad does not make this a good piece of legislation; it is now more opaque, not more transparent, but perhaps that is your goal,” added Barnes. 

Mendelson has cited a 2024 Supreme Court decision that overturned a 1984 ruling in the Chevron case, with the justices now declaring that courts can exercise their independent judgment when determining whether a federal agency’s actions were within its statutory authority. Like Barnes, most of the other witnesses who appeared at the council’s public hearing criticized the local legislation and raised questions about how it might impact residents.

Fran Swanson, a lawyer with Legal Aid DC, challenged Mendelson’s contention that his bill is necessary. “Nothing about the Supreme Court overruling Chevron and eliminating deference to federal agencies interpreting federal laws requires the D.C. courts to do the same — or to alter the status quo in any way — for our local agencies interpreting our local laws,” she said in her written testimony.

However, Swanson asserted that Mendelson’s bill would shift “tremendous power from the Council and the courts to the executive.”

“This shift in power is likely to harm our most vulnerable residents, by allowing executive agencies to undermine programs that the Council has created,” said Swanson. 

“There is a real risk that the Council upends this careful balance and expands deference in a way that slams the courthouse doors shut on District residents,” she added.

Even before the current assault on open government, the executive and legislative branches maintained a system filled with impediments to residents’ ability to connect with them. For example, citizens who need to speak with managers at key government agencies often have to travel miles from one office to another to seek solutions to their problems; a centrally located government square is a thing of the past.

Public hearings are frequently held during work hours and often downtown away from the most affected neighborhoods — even when the topic is public education or public health. When residents manage to make their way to the John A. Wilson Building — DC’s city hall — legislators often do not begin their sessions at the published hour, forcing some citizens with limited available time to leave before giving their testimony. And, while residents fund the government — including the salaries of elected officials — the legislature rarely takes budget discussions to community locations.

DC’s open government is neither open nor easily accessible.

In Bowling Alone, Putnam detailed the problems related to the loss of civic culture and citizen engagement: decreased voter turnout, poor attendance at public meetings, a lack of willingness to serve on community committees and commissions. Those are the consequences and challenges with which DC has been grappling even before the pending, albeit partial, demise of the open meetings act.

Interestingly during Mendelson’s monthly press briefing, held the day before the council’s standard legislative sessions, Sam P.K. Collins, a reporter with the Washington Informer newspaper, asked the chair how he might explain the weakening of the open meetings law to residents who are already suspicious of the government. Mendelson — a man who once was a community activist challenging the actions and jargon of city officials — simply repeated a version of what he had said to other media representatives who were palpably disturbed and irritated by the proposal.

Ward 5 resident Brannum never expected to hear what he thinks is the real story. “I think they are knuckling to Donald Trump,” he told me during an interview before Tuesday’s vote. He cited the recent presidential order that established a federal advisory commission, reportedly to ensure a “safe and beautiful” nation’s capital. 

“There will be backdoor communications between federal agencies and certain District agencies,” said Brannum, a longtime political operative and former DC government employee. “They are going to be negotiating away what they have, and they are going to lose it anyway.

“I’m not going to give away my freedom,” continued Brannum. “You are going to have to take my freedom.”

There should be little doubt that DC is in a fight with congressional Republicans and the White House bully. His executive order is the most recent blow. Neither the mayor nor the council will be able to win without the majority of the city’s 700,000 residents, however. 

No one should expect citizens to suit up and come on the field unless they have been fully informed. An eviscerated open meetings act diminishes the possibility of DC’s ultimate victory.

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.