Our city’s people are overwhelmingly progressive. We support strong, effective, transparent government that spends appropriately to support people and communities held back by systemic racism and racialized poverty. We want fair policing, accountability for police violence in our neighborhoods, and public safety that doesn’t compromise the rights of Black and brown people.We don’t want wealthy donors driving local policy and steering multi-million-dollar contracts funded with our taxpayer money into their corporate coffers. We want elected officials who listen to regular people and we want to vote for leaders who understand and represent us.
This category covers seven votes reflecting whom our government serves: regular people, or wealthy donors.
To move the District in the right direction, Councilmembers needed to vote to:
Support delaying tax cuts for millionaires and huge corporations
In 2014, the DC Council passed sweeping tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the District. This decision meant millions of dollars less, every year, for our city to spend on programs and services for the rest of our residents. Every time there “isn’t money” for a crucial priority, taxpayers should think back to these giveaways to the rich. In the following three years the Council then rejected three efforts to delay these cuts. The three votes tracked here are:
- Support a 2015 slow down of tax cuts for multi-millionaires and huge corporations [B21-0158 Amendment 48]
- Support a 2017 amendment to delay the millionaires’ tax cut [B22-0244 Amendment 42]
- Support a 2017 amendment to delay the corporate tax cut [B22-0244 Amendment 41]
Support the NEAR Act, to prevent violence through a public health approach
DC has serious problems with racially biased policing and racist police brutality, in particular, towards Black people and in Black communities. The Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act treats violence prevention and policing as matters of public health. Its community engagement strategies are designed to keep residents safe and to address the abuse of residents by the police. DC Council passed the NEAR Act in 2016. [B21-0360]
Support Fair Elections, to encourage candidates for office to rely on small donations, instead of large corporate donations
In 2018, the DC Council unanimously approved the Fair Elections Act. This program provides matching funds to candidates for office who rely on small donors instead of large corporate donations. Under Fair Elections, candidates can better reflect the needs of the community, not the needs of those who hold their purse strings. The Mayor and the Council have an opportunity to allocate funding for this policy in the upcoming budgeting process. [BR22-0192]
Oppose contracts for connected insiders
Lucrative government contracts should go to qualified vendors who will serve residents, not to political insiders who curry favor with government officials. The DC Council voted in 2017 to reject a contract renewal for Veritas, the politically connected firm that operated United Medical Center. During Veritas’ contract, patients received substandard care and the maternity ward – the only place for expecting parents to deliver babies east of the Anacostia River – had to be shut down [PR22-0553]. In 2015, the Council voted to reject a contract with Corizon, a politically connected for-profit company that operates prison health systems. Corizon has been sued hundreds of times by incarcerated people and their families for negligence, malpractice, criminal neglect, and abuse, and was held legally responsible for the deaths of multiple patients. [PR21-0108]