Local
Graham, Nadeau fight for LGBT votes in Ward 1 race
Gay incumbent stresses importance of keeping ‘seat at table’
Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham and challenger Brianne Nadeau face off in the Ward 1 Council seat primary April 1. (Washington Blade photo of Graham by Jeff Surprenant; Blade photo of Nadeau by Michael Key)
Gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and challenger Brianne Nadeau are attracting citywide attention as the two battle over the LGBT vote and the vote from other diverse population groups in Ward 1 in a hotly contested race in the city’s April 1 Democratic primary.
Most political observers say Graham is facing his toughest re-election campaign since first winning the Ward 1 Council seat in 1998 as an openly gay man.
Nadeau is a former advisory neighborhood commissioner and vice president of a local public relations firm that specializes in promoting progressive causes. She’s an outspoken supporter of LGBT rights and has vowed to be a champion for the LGBT community if elected to replace Graham.
Graham has argued that his status as one of two openly gay members of the Council brings an important insight and sensitivity into his work on behalf of the LGBT community that straight allies, no matter how committed, don’t have. He also notes that his out gay colleague, David Catania (I-At-Large) is giving up his Council seat to run for mayor.
Thus if he were to lose his re-election bid, Graham has said, it would leave the Council without an openly gay member for the first time in 16 years.
In addition to his role as a strong advocate for LGBT equality, Graham has long been viewed as a champion of progressive causes such as tenants’ rights, low-income workers, and the needs of the highly diverse immigrant population of Latinos, Asian-Pacific Islanders and Ethiopians, among other immigrant groups, that have settled in Ward 1.
He has had longstanding support from these demographic groups as well as support among longtime black residents of the eastern part of the ward. Combined with past support from younger professionals moving into refurbished neighborhoods Graham says he helped bring about normally would have made him the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination for a fifth term in office, according to Ward 1 political activists.
But the same activists and Ward 1 observers now say all bets are off due to a flurry of negative media reports about Graham over the past several years stemming from an allegation in 2008 that he interfered with the contract approval process for a Metro development project while serving on the Metro board.
Based on findings of an investigation by Metro, the D.C. Council voted 11-2 in February 2013 to reprimand Graham for violating a city ethics rule by improperly mixing his role as a Council member and Metro board member.
The investigation concluded that Graham favored one developer over another to receive a contract to develop a residential and commercial complex in his ward. He then urged the developer he didn’t favor to withdraw in exchange for Graham pushing for that developer to receive an unrelated city lottery contract, the investigation found.
Graham has long asserted he did nothing wrong, saying the developer he opposed was unqualified for the project and he acted in what he believed to be in the best interest of his constituents. He told the Blade he never favored the other developer and noted that ultimately a third developer emerged to carry out the project.
“If you look at the facts, there was no crime committed, there was no law broken, there was no money exchanging hands,” Graham told the Blade. “And what we have is a conflict between two roles of a Metro Board member and Council member.”
Graham points out that the Metro contract matter happened nearly six years ago and that he was re-elected in the interim.
Nadeau has attacked Graham over the ethics issue since entering the Ward 1 race last year, saying the Council’s decision to reprimand Graham has decreased his effectiveness as a Council member.
She raised the issue again on Monday in a debate with Graham on News Channel 8’s Bruce DePuyt Show, saying Graham’s actions were another in a series of ethical lapses by D.C. Council members over the past four years that resulted in the criminal prosecution of three of Graham’s colleagues on corruption charges.
Her candidacy received a boost last week when the Washington Post endorsed her following earlier endorsements she received from the Current newspapers and Council members David Grosso (I-At-Large) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who’s running for mayor. She also received an endorsement from former Ward 6 Council member Sharon Ambrose, the prominent feminist group Emily’s List, the Women’s Campaign Fund and the D.C. Association of Realtors.
The Post endorsement of Nadeau was expected because it came on the heels of a series of Post editorials criticizing Graham over the Metro contract and ethics allegation.
Graham, meanwhile, has received endorsements from prominent labor organizations including the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (ASCME); the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union; the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); National Nurses United, and the Teamsters. The Hotel Association and the Sierra Club also endorsed Graham.
Graham has also received the backing of Ron Simmons, president and CEO of the Ward 1-based AIDS advocacy and service organization Us Helping Us, which reaches out to black gay men; and of Kurt Schmoke, the former Baltimore mayor who since 2003 has served as an administrator at Howard University in D.C.
Schmoke, who currently holds the position of Interim Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Howard, told the Blade he contributed to Graham’s campaign as an individual, not in his official capacity, to express his “thanks” for Graham’s support of Howard.
“My perception is that Councilman Graham has been very supportive of the university on a variety of issues that have arisen” over the past decade, he said.
Graham has said he believes his support remains strong among LGBT voters. But doubts over that assumption surfaced last month when Nadeau finished ahead of Graham at the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club’s endorsement meeting by a vote of 70 to 64. She didn’t receive the endorsement of the Stein Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, because she fell short of capturing a required 60 percent of the vote needed to endorse.
However, her strong showing raised eyebrows among LGBT activists, who view Graham as a leader on LGBT issues for more than 30 years as a Council member, attorney, and past executive director of the city’s Whitman-Walker Clinic during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
Graham’s supporters say the Stein Club members voting in the Feb. 27 meeting aren’t representative of the LGBT community in Ward 1, which they predict will turn out for Graham in large numbers on Election Day.
Graham supporters also point out that Graham received a higher rating from the non-partisan Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. GLAA gave Graham a +7.5 on a rating scale of -10 to +10. The group gave Nadeau a rating of +5.
Nadeau supporters, however, say the Stein Club vote reflects the view by many in the LGBT community that Nadeau would be a strong advocate for LGBT equality on the Council and that LGBT voters are now focusing on a wide range of non-LGBT issues on which to base their vote. They argue that just like all other Ward 1 residents, LGBT residents are also troubled over Graham’s alleged ethics breach.
Nadeau disputes arguments by Graham supporters that Graham’s motive in intervening in the Metro contract matter was to push for the best possible deal for his Ward 1 constituents, which boosted his reputation as a fighter for the interests of his ward.
Some Graham supporters have said Nadeau would be far weaker than Graham on constituent services issues because, unlike Graham, she wouldn’t be as aggressive and unafraid to step on toes to get things done as Graham is. Nadeau bristled over that claim in an interview with the Blade earlier this month.
“I will tell you, I will throw elbows,” she said. “I will fight. I will be tough. But I will never cross the lines that he has crossed,” she said. “And I will never – you will never, ever read about me for ethical lapses, quote unquote, which, by the way, are politician-speak for corruption.”
Graham’s supporters say the ethics matter, in which no law was violated, is being used by Graham’s critics to unfairly put him in the same category as three former Council members – Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) and Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5), who were forced to resign after facing criminal prosecution on corruption related charges, and Michael Brown (I-At-Large), who was prosecuted on bribery charges after losing his re-election bid in 2012.
“This is the only plank in my opponent’s platform,” Graham said in an interview with the Blade. “She is unable to point to anything that is significant that she’s accomplished in the ward. And so this is what I expect her to take advantage of.”
Graham also challenged Nadeau’s stated record of accomplishments for Ward 1 residents as an ANC commissioner.
“She has been an ANC member, but I went over my email during her time of service and it’s just email after email after email from her,” he said. “Council member, will you help me with this? Council member, will you set up this meeting? Council member, will you intervene on this matter?”
According to Graham, Nadeau benefitted personally from his constituent service work when she sought his help in obtaining a city subsidy under the D.C. Home Purchase Assistance Program, known as HPAP, to assist in her purchase of a condo. Graham said she encountered a bureaucratic “roadblock” that his office helped her resolve.
“I was happy to do it because I always respond that way to everybody who contacts me,” Graham said. “But she’s never acknowledged all the help she got from me as an ANC commissioner, which was very substantial and frequent.”
Nadeau fired back when asked to respond to Graham’s comments.
“It’s the job of a Council member to respond to constituent service requests and to work with ANCs to resolve issues in the community, and I’ve never suggested that Jim hasn’t done that,” she said.
“But we deserve to have a Council member who can deliver constituent services while also behaving ethically in office,” she added. “Jim has demonstrated his inability to behave ethically and his corrupt behavior led his colleagues to reprimand him and strip him of a leadership role that is important to our community.”
She was referring to a decision by Council Chair Phil Mendelson to remove from the portfolio of the committee that Graham chairs jurisdiction over of the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) at the time Graham was reprimanded. Nadeau said losing direct jurisdiction over ABRA reduced Graham’s ability to have a say over issues involving liquor licenses, which directly impacts Ward 1.
Graham has said he has continued to play a key role in ABRA matters as an individual Council member with years of experience working on liquor-related issues.
Prominent LGBT advocates have lined up behind both Graham and Nadeau, and without polling data measuring the gay vote it’s impossible to predict which of the two will capture a majority of that vote or whether the LGBT vote will split evenly between them.
Veteran lesbian activist and Ward 1 resident Barbara Helmick, who supports Nadeau, and gay businessman and Latino community advocate Jay Haddock, who is backing Graham, appear to represent the view of many in the opposing camps within the LGBT community over the Graham-Nadeau race.
Helmick is among those who believe Nadeau’s overall qualifications and strong commitment to LGBT equality outweighs the loss of an openly gay Council member if she wins her race for the Ward 1 Council seat.
“Brianne will bring a fresh new energy that the Council desparately needs,” she said in a statement to the Blade.
She notes that when Graham successfully challenged 16-year Council veteran Frank Smith in 1998 he argued that 16 years was a long time to serve and that it would benefit the ward to have a new face on the Council.
“I thought Jim was right then and now that Jim has served 16 years, I think it is apt today,” Helmick said. “Sometimes after so long, some politicians become more of the system than of themselves.”
Haddock, a native of Puerto Rico who serves as president of Capital Hotels and Suites, said he witnessed first-hand Graham’s dedication and effectiveness in the fight against AIDS during Graham’s tenure as head of Whitman-Walker Clinic. At the time, Haddock, among other things, served as chair of the city’s Latino Commission under then Mayor Anthony Williams.
“The Jim Graham I know would run to people’s side to do a will because they were dying,” he said. “The Jim Graham I know has really been on the first line of defense for minority communities.”
Graham was especially helpful to Latino community projects during his tenure on the Council, Haddock said, including with La Clinica del Pueblo, a health clinic that treats many LGBT clients.
“If some people don’t feel he should be around any longer in his ward, that’s entirely up to them,” said Haddock. “But I completely feel that he is very effective, very dependable and a good friend to the minority communities of Washington, D.C. And it’s very important to have that representation on the Council.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Council gives first approval to amended PrEP insurance bill
Removes weakening language after concerns raised by AIDS group
The D.C. Council voted unanimously on Feb. 3 to approve a bill on its first of two required votes that requires health insurance companies to cover the costs of HIV prevention or PrEP drugs for D.C. residents at risk for HIV infection.
The vote to approve the PrEP D.C. Amendment Act came immediately after the 13-member Council voted unanimously again to approve an amendment that removed language in the bill added last month by the Council’s Committee on Health that would require insurers to fully cover only one PrEP drug.
The amendment, introduced jointly by Council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), who first introduced the bill in February 2025, and Christina Henderson (I-At-Large), who serves as chair of the Health Committee, requires insurers to cover all U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved PrEP drugs.
Under its rules, the D.C. Council must vote twice to approve all legislation, which must be signed by the D.C. mayor and undergo a 30-day review by Congress before it takes effect as a D.C. law.
Given its unanimous “first reading” vote of approval on Feb. 3, Parker told the Washington Blade he was certain the Council would approve the bill on its second and final vote expected in about two weeks.
Among those who raised concerns about the earlier version of the bill was Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, who sent messages to all 13 Council members urging them to remove the language added by the Committee on Health requiring insurers to cover just one PrEP drug.
The change made by the committee, Schmid told Council members, “would actually reduce PrEP options for D.C. residents that are required by current federal law, limit patient choice, and place D.C. behind states that have enacted HIV prevention policies designed to remain in effect regardless of any federal changes.”
Schmid told the Washington Blade that although coverage requirements for insurers are currently provided through coverage standards recommended in the U.S. Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, AIDS advocacy organizations have called on D.C. and states to pass their own legislation requiring insurance coverage of PrEP in the event that the federal policies are weakened or removed by the Trump administration, which has already reduced or ended federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs.
“The sticking point was the language in the markup that insurers only had to cover one regimen of PrEP,” Parker told the Blade in a phone interview the night before the Council vote. “And advocates thought that moved the needle back in terms of coverage access, and I agree with them,” he said.
In anticipation that the Council would vote to approve the amendment and the underlying bill, Parker, the Council’s only gay member, added, “I think this is a win for our community. And this is a win in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”
During the Feb. 3 Council session, Henderson called on her fellow Council members to approve both the amendment she and Parker had introduced and the bill itself. But she did not say why her committee approved the changes that advocates say weakened the bill and that her and Parker’s amendment would undo. Schmid speculated that pressure from insurance companies may have played a role in the committee change requiring coverage of only one PrEP drug.
“My goal for advancing the ‘PrEP DC Amendment Act’ is to ensure that the District is building on the progress made in reducing new HIV infections every year,” Henderson said in a statement released after the Council vote. “On Friday, my office received concerns from advocates and community leaders about language regarding PrEP coverage,” she said.
“My team and I worked with Council member Parker, community leaders, including the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute and Whitman-Walker, and the Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking, to craft a solution that clarifies our intent and provides greater access to these life-saving drugs for District residents by reducing consumer costs for any PrEP drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” her statement concludes.
In his own statement following the Council vote, Schmid thanked Henderson and Parker for initiating the amendment to improve the bill. “This will provide PrEP users with the opportunity to choose the best drug that meets their needs,” he said. “We look forward to the bill’s final reading and implementation.”
Maryland
4th Circuit dismisses lawsuit against Montgomery County schools’ pronoun policy
Substitute teacher Kimberly Polk challenged regulation in 2024
A federal appeals court has ruled Montgomery County Public Schools did not violate a substitute teacher’s constitutional rights when it required her to use students’ preferred pronouns in the classroom.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision it released on Jan. 28 ruled against Kimberly Polk.
The policy states that “all students have the right to be referred to by their identified name and/or pronoun.”
“School staff members should address students by the name and pronoun corresponding to the gender identity that is consistently asserted at school,” it reads. “Students are not required to change their permanent student records as described in the next section (e.g., obtain a court-ordered name and/or new birth certificate) as a prerequisite to being addressed by the name and pronoun that corresponds to their identified name. To the extent possible, and consistent with these guidelines, school personnel will make efforts to maintain the confidentiality of the student’s transgender status.”
The Washington Post reported Polk, who became a substitute teacher in Montgomery County in 2021, in November 2022 requested a “religious accommodation, claiming that the policy went against her ‘sincerely held religious beliefs,’ which are ‘based on her understanding of her Christian religion and the Holy Bible.’”
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in January 2025 dismissed Polk’s lawsuit that she filed in federal court in Beltsville. Polk appealed the decision to the 4th Circuit.
District of Columbia
Norton hailed as champion of LGBTQ rights
D.C. congressional delegate to retire after 36 years in U.S. House
LGBTQ rights advocates reflected on D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s longstanding advocacy and support for LGBTQ rights in Congress following her decision last month not to run for re-election this year.
Upon completing her current term in office in January 2027, Norton, a Democrat, will have served 18 two-year terms and 36 years in her role as the city’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. House.
LGBTQ advocates have joined city officials and community leaders in describing Norton as a highly effective advocate for D.C. under the city’s limited representation in Congress where she could not vote on the House floor but stood out in her work on House committees and moving, powerful speeches on the House floor.
“During her more than three decades in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton has been a champion for the District of Columbia and the LGBTQ+ community,” said David Stacy, vice president of government affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, the D.C.-based national LGBTQ advocacy organization.
“When Congress blocked implementation of D.C.’s domestic partnership registry, Norton led the fight to allow it to go into effect,” Stacey said. “When President Bush tried to ban marriage equality in every state and the District, Norton again stood up in opposition. And when Congress blocked HIV prevention efforts, Norton worked to end that interference in local control,” he said.
In reflecting the sentiment of many local and national LGBTQ advocates familiar with Norton’s work, Stacy added, “We have been lucky to have such an incredible champion. As her time in Congress comes to an end, we honor her extraordinary impact in the nation’s capital and beyond by standing together in pride and gratitude.”
Norton has been among the lead co-sponsors and outspoken supporters of LGBTQ rights legislation introduced in Congress since first taking office, including the currently pending Equality Act, which would ban employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Activists familiar with Norton’s work also point out that she has played a lead role in opposing and helping to defeat anti-LGBTQ legislation. In 2018, Norton helped lead an effort to defeat a bill called the First Amendment Defense Act introduced by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), which Norton said included language that could “gut” D.C.’s Human Rights Act’s provisions banning LGBTQ discrimination.
Norton pointed to a provision in the bill not immediately noticed by LGBTQ rights organizations that would define D.C.’s local government as a federal government entity and allow potential discrimination against LGBTQ people based on a “sincerely held religious belief.”
“This bill is the latest outrageous Republican attack on the District, focusing particularly on our LGBT community and the District’s right to self-government,” Norton said shortly after the bill was introduced. “We will not allow Republicans to discriminate against the LGBT community under the guise of religious liberty,” she said. Records show supporters have not secured the votes to pass it in several congressional sessions.
In 2011, Norton was credited with lining up sufficient opposition to plans by some Republican lawmakers to attempt to overturn D.C.’s same-sex marriage law, that the Council passed and the mayor signed in 2010.
In 2015, Norton also played a lead role opposing attempts by GOP members of Congress to overturn another D.C. law protecting LGBTQ students at religious schools, including the city’s Catholic University, from discrimination such as the denial of providing meeting space for an LGBTQ organization.
More recently, in 2024 Norton again led efforts to defeat an attempt by Republican House members to amend the D.C. budget bill that Congress must pass to eliminate funding for the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and to prohibit the city from using its funds to enforce the D.C. Human Rights Act in cases of discrimination against transgender people.
“The Republican amendment that would prohibit funds from being used to enforce anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination regulations and the amendment to defund the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs are disgraceful attempts, in themselves, to discriminate against D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community while denying D.C. residents the limited governance over their local affairs to which they are entitled,” Norton told the Washington Blade.
In addition to pushing for LGBTQ supportive laws and opposing anti-LGBTQ measures Norton has spoken out against anti-LGBTQ hate crimes and called on the office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. in 2020 to more aggressively prosecute anti-LGBTQ hate crimes.
“There is so much to be thankful for Eleanor Holmes Norton’s many years of service to all the citizens and residents of the District of Columbia,” said John Klenert, a member of the board of the LGBTQ Victory Fund. “Whether it was supporting its LGBTQ+ people for equal rights, HIV health issues, home rule protection, statehood for all 700,000 people, we could depend on her,” he said.
Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, called Norton a “staunch” LGBTQ community ally and champion for LGBTQ supportive legislation in Congress.
“For decades, Congresswoman Norton has marched in the annual Capital Pride Parade, showing her pride and using her platform to bring voice and visibility in our fight to advance civil rights, end discrimination, and affirm the dignity of all LGBTQ+ people” Bos said. “We will be forever grateful for her ongoing advocacy and contributions to the LGBTQ+ movement.”
Howard Garrett, president of D.C.’s Capital Stonewall Democrats, called Norton a “consistent and principled advocate” for equality throughout her career. “She supported LGBTQ rights long before it was politically popular, advancing nondiscrimination protections and equal protection under the law,” he said.
“Eleanor was smart, tough, and did not suffer fools gladly,” said Rick Rosendall, former president of the D.C. Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. “But unlike many Democratic politicians a few decades ago who were not reliable on LGBTQ issues, she was always right there with us,” he said. “We didn’t have to explain our cause to her.”
Longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein said he first met Norton when she served as chair of the New York City Human Rights Commission. “She got her start in the civil rights movement and has always been a brilliant advocate for equality,” Rosenstein said.
“She fought for women and for the LGBTQ community,” he said. “She always stood strong with us in all the battles the LGBTQ community had to fight in Congress. I have been honored to know her, thank her for her lifetime of service, and wish her only the best in a hard-earned retirement.”
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D.C. Council urged to improve ‘weakened’ PrEP insurance bill
