In what LGBTQ activists consider a highly positive development, all serious candidates running for mayor, D.C. Council, Attorney General, and the city’s congressional delegate seat and “shadow” U.S. House seat in the city’s June 21 Democratic primary have either expressed strong support for LGBTQ issues or have long records of support on those issues.

Activists following the election say they expect LGBTQ voters — like all D.C. voters — to decide who to vote for based on a number of other issues, including public safety, affordable housing, and whether the city’s public schools should remain under mayoral control or return to the previous system of an independent school board, among other issues.

“We are fortunate to live in a city where all candidates support the LGBTQ community, so it is other issues our community is focused on,” said gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, who is supporting Mayor Muriel Bowser’s re-election bid for a third term in office.

Other LGBTQ activists, including former Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance President Rick Rosendall, are backing D.C. Council member Robert White (D-At-Large) for mayor. Like Bowser, Robert White has a long record of support on LGBTQ issues.

Ward 8 Council member Trayon White (D-Ward 8) and community activist and former Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner James Butler are also running for mayor in the Democratic primary. Trayon White has supported LGBTQ issues on the Council and Butler has expressed support for those issues.

The other races on the primary ballot on June 21 include D.C. Council Chair; At-Large D.C. Council member, Council members for Wards 1, 3, 5, and 6; D.C. Attorney General; D.C. Congressional Delegate; and U.S. Representative, also known as the city’s “shadow” House member with no voting powers in Congress.

In an action that surprised some in the LGBTQ community, the Capital Stonewall Democrats, the city’s largest LGBTQ political group, has endorsed Robert White over Bowser in the mayor’s race and Democratic challenger Erin Palmer over incumbent longtime LGBTQ rights supporter Phil Mendelson for the D.C. Council Chair position.

Capital Stonewall Democrats has also endorsed incumbent Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau over her out gay challenger, former D.C. police officer Salah Czapary, who has been endorsed by the Washington Post and by former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams.

The LGBTQ Democratic group has endorsed the second out gay D.C. Council candidate running this year, D.C. Board of Education President Zachary Parker, who is among seven candidates competing for the open Ward 5 D.C. Council seat. Incumbent Ward 5 Council member Kenyan McDuffie is not running for re-election.

Parker has been endorsed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, the Washington Teacher’s Union, and the Sierra Club among other local political groups. Both Czapary and Parker were endorsed by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that raises money to help elect LGBTQ candidates for public office.

The other candidates competing with Parker for the Ward 5 Council seat include former At-Large and Ward 5 Council member Vincent Orange and community activists Faith Gibson Hubbard, Gary Johnson, Art Lloyd, Gordon Fletcher, and Kathy Henderson.

In other races, Capital Stonewall Democrats voted to endorse D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who is running unopposed in the primary; D.C. Congressional Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is favored to win re-election against two lesser-known challengers; and D.C. shadow U.S. Rep. Oye Owolewa, who’s also favored to win over a lesser-known opponent.

The LGBTQ group did not make an endorsement in the Ward 3 and At-Large D.C. Council races and in the D.C. Attorney General’s race because no candidate received a required 60 percent of the vote from group’s members under its longstanding rules for endorsements.

Eight candidates are running for the Ward 3 Council seat for which incumbent Council member Mary Cheh is not seeking re-election. A ninth candidate, Tricia Duncan, dropped out of the race earlier this week and endorsed candidate Matthew Frumin. Some political observers say Frumin and former city budget director Eric Goulet are the two frontrunners in the race. The other candidates include Henry Cohen, Ben Bergman, Beau Finley, Monte Monash, Deirdre Brown, and Phil Thomas. All have expressed strong support for LGBTQ equality.

Also expressing support for the LGBTQ community are the three candidates running for Attorney General — Brian Schwalb, Ryan Jones, and Bruce Spiva. Each is a practicing attorney at separate D.C. law firms.

In the At-Large Council race, three candidates are challenging incumbent and longtime LGBTQ rights supporter Anita Bonds – Lisa Gore, Nate Fleming, and Dexter Williams, each of whom also expressed support for the LGBTQ community.

In the D.C. Congressional Delegate race challenger Rev. Wendy Hamilton served as minister for the LGBTQ supportive Metropolitan Community Church in suburban Maryland and describes herself as a strong LGBTQ ally. The second challenger to incumbent Eleanor Holmes Norton is community activist Kelly Mikel Williams, who also expressed support for the LGBTQ community.

Jatarious Frazier, the Capital Stonewall Democrats president, said Norton’s years of acting as a champion for LGBTQ rights on Capitol Hill made her an easy choice for the group’s endorsement for re-election.

Political observers have said the current “dividing line” between the city’s Democratic candidates who run against each other in the primaries historically has been whether they position themselves as moderates or left-leaning progressives. Democratic voters, including LGBTQ voters, also fall into those two ideological camps, according to observers.

But some political observers say the Ward 1 and Ward 5 D.C. Council races, where openly gay candidates are running, have raised the question of whether LGBTQ voters should vote “gay” rather than follow their ideological leanings, to bring back LGBTQ representation on the Council for the first time in eight years.

The late gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) left the Council in January 2015 after losing his 2014 re-election bid to incumbent Ward 1 Council member Nadeau. Gay former D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) left office in 2015 after an unsuccessful run for mayor in 2014.

Supporters of Czapary and Parker have said a member of the LGBTQ community on the D.C. Council would offer important representation for the LGBTQ community that a straight ally cannot necessarily provide on issues such as homeless LGBTQ youth and persistent hate violence to which the LGBTQ community, especially transgender women, are faced with.

In addition to being endorsed by AG Racine, the Teacher’s Union, and the Sierra Club, Parker received the endorsement of Ward 4 D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George, who’s considered one of the Council’s left-leaning progressives, as well as the endorsement of the left-leaning groups Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party.

Parker told the Washington Post he doesn’t view his race for the Ward 5 Council seat as being one of moderate versus liberal left.

“You will see a range of people that span ideology [supporting me],” the Post quoted him as saying. “And that is what we need more of in our political system,” he told the Post.

Czapary, who states on his campaign website that he supports progressive values, says he holds positions on key issues as a moderate Democrat, including issues related to public safety. He has supported Bowser’s call for the Council to increase the police budget to restore funds the Council cut from the police budget two years ago. He points out that Nadeau was among the Council members that voted to cut the police budget.

Nadeau has said she has taken strong action in support of public safety policies, including violence interruption programs that Czapary also supports.

Czapary’s supporters, including the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which endorsed him, say he too would transcend ideology to work for solutions to the problems facing Ward 1 and the city. As the son of a Palestinian refugee and a Hungarian immigrant, he would become the first Arab American to serve on the D.C. Council, his supporters point out.

“D.C. boasts the highest percentage of LGBTQ+ individuals per capita of any large U.S. city,” Czapary told the Blade. “Our city’s policies must respond to the needs of these communities and support the most vulnerable within them,” he said.

Less than a week before the June 21 primary, it couldn’t be determined whether “progressive” LGBTQ voters in Ward 1 would back Czapary or whether “moderate” LGBTQ voters in Ward 5 would back Parker.

With many political observers saying both Parker and Czapary have a shot at winning, supporters of their opponents have stepped up their opposition campaigns against the two, with Czapary being singled out as a “closet” Republican, an allegation he strongly denies.

Nadeau has pointed out that he did not become a registered Democrat until he filed for his candidacy for the Ward 1 Council seat earlier this year. Czapary says he has been a Democratic leaning independent based on his and his parents’ adherence to the Bahai faith, which shuns political parties.

He told the Blade his parents were far more accepting of him when he came out as gay than when he came out to them as a Democrat. But he said they understood his political beliefs were fully aligned with the Democratic Party.

Nadeau has also cited a Washington City Paper report in May that Czapary earlier this year named as his honorary campaign chairperson the son of a Trump supporter who was associated with a right-wing group that supported Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and that Trump was the true winner.

Czapary told the Blade he immediately dismissed Will Pack as his campaign chair after learning that Pack played a brief role with the ultra-conservative Claremont Institute. He said he met Pack when Pack was a volunteer firefighter and volunteer police officer at the time Czapary worked as a special assistant to D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee.

“My team is very much rooted in the Democratic Party,” said Czapary. “My campaign manager is Steve Schwab who Speaker Pelosi has called an ‘incredible leader,’ who has run a dozen Democratic campaigns,” Czapary told the Blade. “My field director worked for Bernie Sanders and my committee leader worked on both the Obama and Clinton campaigns.”

Observers of the Ward 1 race say Czapary has a shot at winning but his campaign is facing the dilemma that a third candidate running for the Ward 1 seat, ANC Commissioner Sabel Harris, could take away just enough votes from Czapary to enable Nadeau to win with less than 50 percent of the vote, which is what happened when she won her re-election race in 2018.

Nadeau has said LGBTQ issues have been among her highest priorities since taking office in 2015. She told members of Capital Stonewall Democrats at an event for the group’s endorsed candidates last week that she would continue her role as a committed LGBTQ ally.  

The D.C. Board of Elections’ candidates list shows there are just six Republican candidates running in the city’s Republican primary, each of whom is running unopposed. There are no candidates running under the city’s two other political parties – the Statehood Green and Libertarian Party.

Following are the Republican Party candidates:
• DC Congressional Delegate – Nelson Rimensnyder
• DC Mayor – Stacia Hall
• DC Council Chair – Nate Derenge
• DC Council At-Large – Giuseppe Niosi
• DC Council Ward 3 – David Krucoff
• DC Council Ward 5 – Clarence Lee, Jr.
 
Rimensnyder, who has run for the congressional delegate seat in the past, has expressed support for LGBTQ rights. A spokesperson for Hall noted that Hall appeared as guest speaker at a recent meeting of D.C.’s LGBTQ Log Cabin Republicans group but did not provide information about Hall’s positions on specific LGBTQ issues.

Niosi and Krucoff and a small contingent of their supporters marched in the D.C. Capital Pride Parade on June 11. Lee couldn’t immediately be reached to determine his position on LGBTQ issues. Derenge, who ran as a GOP candidate for the Ward 8 D.C. Council seat in 2020, received a GLAA rating of -2 at that time.

Adam Savit, the D.C. Log Cabin Republicans president, said the group decided not to endorse any of the unopposed Republican candidates at this time. He said Log Cabin plans to hold a GOP candidate forum in the fall ahead of the November general election.

Longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Earl Fowlkes, who serves as chair of the Democratic National Committee’s LGBTQ Caucus, predicts there will be a low voter turnout and far fewer votes cast in the June 21 primary because this year is an “off year,” non-presidential election.

“With all the other things going on – the high gasoline prices and people trying to survive with the inflation, I don’t know if there is a lot of interest in this election,” he said. “And the people I talk to are not really focusing on the election very much because there are other issues they’re dealing with.”

If the voter turnout is low, Fowlkes said, it nearly always gives an advantage to the incumbents, prompting him to predict Mayor Bower, Council Chair Mendelson, and At-Large Council member Bonds will win their respective races.

Mark Lee, coordinator of the D.C. Nightlife Council, a nonprofit trade association representing the city’s restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, including gay bars, said the operators of those establishments have not officially endorsed any candidates running in the June 21 primary. But Lee said many of them are individually backing candidates they feel understand the needs and concerns of their mostly small, neighborhood-based businesses.

“That’s why there is broad small business support across the District for the re-election of Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and At-Large Council member Anita Bonds,” Lee said. He said many nightlife business operators are also supporting Eric Goulet for the Ward 3 Council seat, Faith Gibson Hubbard for Ward 5 Council, and Salah Czapary for the Ward 1 Council seat.

GLAA ratings trigger controversy  

The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance (GLAA), one of the city’s oldest LGBTQ organizations, last month issued candidate ratings that some critics say favor candidates with left-leaning progressive views unrelated to LGBTQ issues.

GLAA released a statement disputing those claims, saying the issues on which it based its ratings, such as decriminalization of sex work, reallocating funds from the police budget for violence prevention programs, and increased funding for programs for the homeless, will favorably impact LGBTQ people who are experiencing problems that some candidates have not adequately addressed. LGBTQ activists disagree over the impact the GLAA ratings will have on LGBTQ voters.

In the mayoral race, GLAA gave Robert White a rating of +9 out of the highest possible rating of +10. The group gave Bowser a rating of +6 and mayoral candidate Butler a +3 rating. Mayoral contender Trayon White received a “0” rating for failing to return a GLAA candidate questionnaire that the group requires of all candidates it rates. Under its rules, candidates that do not return a completed questionnaire receive an automatic “0” rating.

The group issues its ratings on a scale of +10, the highest rating, to -10, the lowest possible rating. GLAA did not issue ratings for the Congressional Delegate or shadow House seats or for any of the Republican candidates.

Following are GLAA’s candidate ratings:

D.C. Mayor
Robert White — +9
Muriel Bowser — +6
James Butler — +3
Trayon White – 0
 
D.C. Council Chair
Erin Palmer — +8
Phil Mendelson — +6
 
D.C. Council At-Large
Lisa Gore – +8.5
Anita Bonds — +6
Nate Fleming – +5.5
Dexter Williams – +4.5
 
D.C. Council Ward 1
Brianne Nadeau – +9.5
Sabel Harris – +6
Salah Czapary – +4
 
D.C. Council Ward 3
Beau Finley – +7
Deirdre Brown – +6.5
Phil Thomas – +5
Ben Bergmann – +4.5
Tricia Duncan – +4
Matt Frumin – +4
Henry Cohen – 0
Eric Goulet – 0
Monte Monash – 0
 
DC Council – Ward 5
Faith Gibson Hubbard – +7.5
Zachary Parker – +6.5
Gordon Fletcher – 0
Gary To-To Johnson – 0
Kathy Henderson – 0
Art Lloyd – 0
Vincent Orange [No rating given on ethics grounds]
 
D.C. Council Ward 6
Charles Allen — +8.5
 
Attorney General
Bruce Spiva — +6.5
Brian Schwalb — +6
Ryan Jones — +2.5
 
A breakdown of GLAA’s rating scores for each of the candidates and the candidates’ responses to the GLAA questionnaire can be accessed at glaa.org.