jonetta rose barras: Where is the power center of the new/old political era?
DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson may not seem a Yoda doppelganger: He lacks pointy ears; he is also considerably taller and much younger than the Star Wars Jedi Master. What’s more, compared to the Galactic Republic, DC’s government is barely a blink, having hit only 50 in January 2025 — thankfully, that celebration came without a UFC cage in front of the John A. Wilson Building and 1 a.m. fireworks burning the sky over the Washington Monument.
Still, the primary election earlier this week will likely bring Mendelson closer to Yoda’s role of teacher and mentor to a cadre of unseasoned and/or unpolished political players and bureaucrats. As the Democratic nominee in deep blue DC, he is likely to win another four-year term and become the longest-serving elected official in the District’s quasi-independent government.
Before first being elected as an at-large councilmember in 1998, he worked for former Ward 3 Councilmember Jim Nathanson. Later, he joined the staff of Council Chair David Clarke, who died from a brain tumor while in office. He also served for many years as an advisory neighborhood commissioner.
No one currently holding office — nor anyone who may assume new positions in the local government in January 2027 — has the breadth or depth of Mendelson’s experience and knowledge of some of the city’s most arcane laws, rules and regulations. As evidence of his prowess in that area, during at least one previous campaign he was labeled “nitpicker” by political operatives and observers. He and the union leaders who supported him back then — including the currently controversial Joslyn Williams, the former head of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO — turned that negative characteristic into a positive one.
“Mendelson will be stronger than ever; he ran unopposed. [He] could be a power center,” said Bernard Demczuk, a civil rights activist who since the 1980s has served as a political consultant to the city’s mayors beginning with Marion Barry and continuing to Muriel Bowser.
“Historically, the person with the most institutional knowledge has the clout,” said Bill Lightfoot, a former at-large councilmember who also has been a central political figure for decades, serving as chair for Adrian Fenty’s mayoral campaign and later for each of Bowser’s elections since 2014.
“The person who has the most knowledge of the budget and the budget process has [even] greater power,” added Lightfoot.
Once upon a time, that would have been former Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans; he attempted a return to the legislature in this political cycle but withdrew when it seemed clear he had not collected the requisite number of voter signatures to qualify him for the ballot. Mendelson ran into campaign finance and ethics trouble when he used government resources to make copies of Evans’ flawed petitions for a formal challenge to get his opponent off the ballot. The Office of Campaign Finance subsequently cited Mendelson for the violation and ordered him to pay a $4,000 fine, which he did, promptly.
As of Thursday, the DC Board of Elections in its preliminary tally reported Mendelson had received 77,070 votes, which amount to 95.64% of the ballots counted so far in the Democratic Primary for chair; 24,920 ballots were not marked in that race, however. He may have cleared the bar for the primary, but he could face opposition in the November general election. Independents seeking office started picking up petitions last week, with more than a dozen individuals so far eyeing runs for delegate, mayor, at-large councilmember or council chair. The deadline to return those is Aug. 5.
At-large Councilmember Robert White, who is running to become DC delegate — the third in the city’s history since Congress approved the position in the late 1960s — likewise won the Democratic nomination in his race, with 63,691 or 62.9% of the votes counted thus far.
Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin and Ward 5’s Zachary Parker also prevailed in the Democratic primary — the former having been uncontested, the latter easily defeating two challengers. Proving the adage that “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” Ward 6’s Charles Allen — also the victor in a three-person race — is poised to become the second-longest-serving member if he wins in November.
Allen came to DC politics as chief of staff to Tommy Wells, who was elected as Ward 6 councilmember in 2006. Allen ran to fill Wells’ job when the latter left to run for mayor. Wells lost that bid, but Bowser hired him to lead the Department of Energy and Environment. He left the position to become director of the Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs in the mayor’s office. His wings were clipped by Beverly Perry, top special adviser to Bowser. Wells soon retired.
Last year, however, Wells signed on as chair of Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George’s mayoral campaign.
In the unofficial results released late Tuesday night, Lewis George had received 50,260 votes (52.79%). By Thursday, with more ballots counted, that number increased to 55,214 votes (52.85%). McDuffie was a distant second and was never able to catch up. As of Thursday he had 38,033 votes (36.42%). Unsurprisingly, he conceded that morning, announcing that he had called Lewis George and wished her well.
“The campaign may be over, but the work of building a safer, more affordable, more prosperous city continues,” McDuffie said in a statement released by his campaign.
Lewis George prevailed despite having been somewhat tainted by a scathing investigative report issued by the DC Office of Campaign Finance just a few days before the election that found her campaign violated local laws by, among other things, improperly coordinating with several unions and Safe & Affordable DC, a union-financed and -led independent expenditures committee.
Lewis George’s campaign has been fined $16,000. Safe & Affordable DC received a fine of $4,000.
“If [the unions] ever have to give up the information OCF sought, this is going to be worse than the Jeff Thompson scandal,” said Lightfoot, who is a trial lawyer by profession, referencing the campaign finance investigation widely considered responsible for then-incumbent Vince Gray’s demise in the 2014 Democratic mayoral primary.
Both Lewis George and Safe & Affordable DC, led by Williams, have decried the OCF decision as unjustified and have promised to appeal.
In the waning hours of the race, President Donald Trump threatened to “take over” the city if Lewis George is elected. In many things, he is not a man of his word — especially since his words are questionable. We’ll have to see whether he follows through on his threat. Repealing home rule would require congressional action.
The Elections Board had cautioned that, with the implementation of ranked choice voting in DC, there would be additional rounds of tabulation in races without anyone winning a majority. The next round, which only appears to be in play for the Democratic primary races for the Ward 1 and at-large council seats, is planned for Sunday, June 21. Officials will continue to update totals with mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day as long as they are received by June 26; then a final, official count will be released.
As the clear winner for the Democratic mayoral nomination, Lewis George is on her way to realizing what some had called an improbable dream; she has served on the council for little more than five years. For the first two of those, she didn’t even have a committee chairmanship, per council custom.
Wells may become one of her top advisers. That may give him some power. However, the council is where the laws are passed and where final money decisions are made.
All roads lead to Mendelson.
He sidestepped my efforts to get him to respond to assertions that he may become the prime power center. “The theory of government is that there are centers of power that can counterbalance bad stuff. They can also counterbalance good stuff.
“Those of us in office have to make sure the good stuff prevails,” Mendelson told me during the nearly three hours I spent with him on Election Day.
He and his daughter, Adelaide, a graduate of DC’s famed Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Virginia Commonwealth University who is a practicing visual artist, allowed me to ride along as he drove around the city to various vote centers, including the West End Library, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Rosedale Recreation Center, Eastern Market and Deanwood Recreation Center.
Mendelson kibitzed with poll workers, regardless of the candidates they represented. He carried campaign literature for interim at-large Councilmember Doni Crawford, whom he hoped would win the three-person special election race to serve the remainder of McDuffie’s term.
At Deanwood, a woman ignored his offer of the Crawford literature. Ironically, when Mendelson mentioned his own name as the voter was walking away, she turned slightly toward him and said loudly, “I am all in for Mendelson.”
Neither he nor I expected that reaction.
On Thursday, based on the Elections Board’s initial tabulations, 24,845 (25.09%) of the ballots had been cast for Crawford; that placed her second to former at-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, who received 54,334 votes (54.87%). Back in 2022, Silverman lost her seat to McDuffie. Jacque Patterson, the current president of the DC State Board of Education, is in third, receiving 18,689 votes (18.87%).
Silverman, who often tangled with Mendelson, is quite clearly on her way back to the Wilson Building once the election results are certified.
There is no denying the Democratic primary and special election represent a well-orchestrated far-left rout. To retain the seat beyond the end of the year, Silverman will have to run in November; Patterson and Crawford could both run for the seat as well if they’re looking for a rematch. In an email to her supporters, Silverman said Thursday that she was preparing to pick up petitions from the Board of Elections.
Can good stuff come with the return of someone seen as Mendelson’s political nemesis or the arrival of neophytes who will be responsible for a nearly $22 billion budget? Can DC achieve even a small percentage of its potential as it grapples with declining financial fortunes? Can the city fight off an overly aggressive national Republican Party and its looney titular leader?
Is Mendelson the bridge to the future over the city’s turbid, troubled waters?
“I don’t see him using his 25 or 30 years of experience any differently,” DC Auditor Kathy Patterson told me during a phone interview earlier this week. She complained about how he has managed the city’s budget process in recent years, failing to secure spending reductions.
Patterson — whose term as auditor runs through February 2029 — remembered that some of the “most productive meetings” during the control board era, when she was a councilmember representing Ward 3, happened because everyone got in the same room to make “the tough decisions.” She said Mendelson could “use his seniority to put everybody at the same table,” leading to a consensus about financial management and overall direction of the government.
She believes that “instead of convening” he will continue to rely on “one-offs. He gives people what they want in order to get seven votes.”
Patterson suggested that Mendelson could also use his clout to help restore “consensus for rebuilding downtown” and bring together DC’s new delegate and its local leaders to devise a new strategy for dealing with Congress.
Demczuk urged for the creation of a triumvirate of sorts, although he added the DC attorney general and even regional leaders into the group. “The best thing is for individuals to collaborate together, so their own centers can be protected, as well as the collective.”
Except that White, when I ran into him on Election Day, seemed to offer a different perspective about the benefits of veteran leadership and what is needed to change the city’s fortune in Congress.
“The message we are missing for the future is we have to keep with the people and not to get caught in an echo chamber, which I think was part of the problem with progressives and the business community,” he told me during an interview outside the vote center at Eastern Market.
Acknowledging this as a “season of change,” White said, “We all know what losses can be with experienced people. We can sometimes undervalue a fresh perspective.”
He made clear that he intends to be the lead for District efforts on the Hill. “With a new person as delegate, Phil does not have to play the same role.
“He can focus on the management of the council,” added White.
Lightfoot seems to see a need for greater local focus. He said the city is physically in “great shape” ” with modernized schools and recreation centers, for example — but with many crucial issues related to its residents.
“The people most in crisis are the people with children. The children themselves are in a mental health crisis.
“The whole city is still suffering from post-pandemic changes,” said Lightfoot. “In terms of politics, democratic socialists have sold people a story,” he said. It’s the familiar story of “Robin Hood taking from the rich because [of the] rich victimizing the poor.”
Whether the issue is truancy, teen crime, bus fare evasion, retail theft, or even some of the affordable housing challenges like non-payment of rent, Lightfoot said, it’s all related to “human behavior associated with the pandemic.” He laments that no one discussed that reality during the primary campaign.
Mendelson listened intently as I relayed Lightfoot’s concerns. He did not offer a response.
Without mentioning a summit or convening, he said it hasn’t always been easy to work in concert with Bowser. He said he has worked well with Lewis George on the council, although he had more interaction with McDuffie, who had several roles during his nearly 14 years in the legislature, including chair pro tempore.
“The key word is collaborative,” said Mendelson
Using his amplified power within this new regime, he said he intends to focus on congressional relations: “When I say [that], I mean us being thoughtful about what we’re doing and what Congress might do in response.” He elevated council oversight of executive agencies as critical, as he’s said before. But where he might most use Yoda-esque teaching and mentorship may be with the city’s finances. “We have to make sure people understand the budget. I’m not sure some people even read the document,” he said. He declined to say who he was referring to.
At his post-election party, held at Dupont Underground, Mendelson acknowledged the change coming to the city. “I intend to bring steady leadership to the helm of the legislative branch. There is a lot of opportunity there.”
jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.