Opinions
Open primaries, ranked choice voting support better democracy
Under status quo, D.C. primaries are closed to 86,000 independents

By LISA D.T. RICE
Change is difficult for humans to embrace. I know it. You know it. We like our routines and hold onto them for dear life, often to our detriment, robbing ourselves of the opportunity to evolve and grow, break the mold and truly make a difference.
Change may be hard for Washington, D.C.’s politicos, too – as Peter Rosenstein demonstrates in his recent opinion piece in the Blade. Yet, open primaries and ranked choice voting – the two electoral reforms proposed in the Make All Votes Count Act of 2024, also known as Ballot Initiative 83 – will help our city’s democracy evolve, grow, and improve. They will help us live up to our democratic ideals: more voters’ voices heard, more true choice for voters and politicians who work harder for all of us and are truly accountable to We the People.
We can do better than the status quo that Rosenstein seems to celebrate in his piece. One in every six D.C. voters is a registered independent. That includes me. Yet, under the status quo, our party primaries – which are taxpayer-funded – are closed to these 86,000 voters. Of course, in a nearly one-party city like D.C., the Democratic primary is the most important election.
Our constitutional right to vote should not – and does not – require subscribing to a political party. Yet, registered independents are denied that right in this all-important contest – even though we pay for it with our tax dollars. It doesn’t have to be this way; a majority of states already allow independents to vote in party primaries.
Our closed primaries also discourage change-agent candidates who might appeal to those 86,000 voters. Meanwhile, our single-choice elections discourage first-time and diverse candidates who fear they might “split the vote” or are told to “wait their turn.” Our single-choice elections also mean that candidates can be nearly guaranteed election even if they barely eke out a narrow slice of the Democratic primary vote (sometimes as low as 20 or 25 percent).
With our current election rules closing off real voice and opportunity for many, party bosses end up dictating both the party platform and the policies that come out of the Wilson Building.
There’s one thing our current system is very good at: preserving the status quo. In D.C.’s 2022 elections, only one incumbent lost their attempt for re-election (to another incumbent — a Democrat turned independent — seeking a new seat). All the others won.
Yet, there’s a reason that the electoral reform movement is gaining momentum here and elsewhere: survey after survey shows we are not happy with the status quo. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 62 percent of Americans are not satisfied with how democracy is working in the U.S.
If we want to change the results, we need to change the system. If you want democracy to work better for you, then support for open primaries and ranked choice voting is obvious.
Open primaries in D.C. would empower all registered voters, including independents, to fully participate in our taxpayer-funded primary elections. We must have that right. Voter suppression in D.C. must end.
Meanwhile, ranked choice voting empowers voters, provides more genuine choice in elections, and results in more representative outcomes. Candidates must appeal to a broader audience, winning a minimum of 50 percent of the vote. In our current system, a candidate needs only a plurality in both the primary and general elections to prevail.
Our politicians should work harder for all of our votes. Ranked choice voting is one of the tools to make that happen. (In his piece, Rosenstein questions whether politicians will actually work harder with ranked choice voting. It’s a simple math problem – you have to work harder to win over 51 percent of voters than to win over just 20 or 25 percent.)
Currently 51 cities, counties, and states use ranked choice voting –in primaries, caucuses, and general elections. Since 2005, there have been more than 650 elections using ranked choice voting. Naysayers try to claim that ranked choice voting is too complicated for us. Far from it.
We rank things in our everyday lives – it’s unsurprising that, across those 650-plus elections, voter understanding and satisfaction is high. Cities across the country have elected historically diverse representatives using ranked choice voting, including the first majority-LGBTQ+ city council in Salt Lake City, Utah; a majority-women city council in New York City; and the first majority-people of color council in Minneapolis. In D.C., election reform can help usher more new and diverse voices into office.
One last point: ranked choice voting is sometimes referred to as instant runoff voting. But unlike traditional runoffs, it happens all at once and it doesn’t cost more money or voter time. Runoffs also tend to have a dramatic drop in turnout from regular primaries and general elections. Why should the District of Columbia spend money on inefficient, low-turnout runoffs? Why not spend it on helping our homeless population, investing in public health or improving our schools? That seems a better use of taxpayer funding than helping ensure the status quo in our politics.
Lisa D. T. Rice, a native Washingtonian, is an ANC Commissioner representing single member district 7B07, which includes residents of the Penn Branch, Dupont Park, and Fort Davis neighborhoods. She is a registered Independent and the proposer of the MAKE ALL VOTES COUNT ACT OF 2024.
Opinions
Pinto leads Council in working with Bowser to fight crime
We must not coddle young criminals or repeat offenders

The time has come for the D.C. Council to join with Mayor Bowser and pass her crime bill on a permanent basis. Councilmember Brooke Pinto worked to pass part of it in July as emergency legislation. We must accept residents are scared. Some for good reason; others because of hyped media reporting. But the spike in crime is real, though not evenly spread across the city. Most don’t know crime fell from 2021 to 2022. But it is here today, and we must do everything we can to stem it.
We can no longer coddle young criminals or repeat offenders. We can’t say if only we could deal with the root causes of crime things would be OK. While we must do that, work to provide better housing, enough food, better education, and family life, let’s also recognize most young people in our community, including those who deal with some of the same issues as the criminals, are not turning to crime. How they deal with the hardships they face, manage to go to school, and live productive lives, should be a focus so we learn from them. Recently the D.C. attorney general awarded the eighth annual Right Direction Awards. Thirty young people were saluted for overcoming significant challenges on their road to achievement. We need to share more of their stories.
How do they manage to stay away from guns and drugs? What allows them to succeed? It’s time for the media in D.C. — the Washington Post, and TV and radio stations — to report more comprehensively on youth in the city. For every crime story reported, find a positive story to tell. There are clearly more positive stories out there. It requires more work than following the police blotter. Send reporters into schools, recreation centers, libraries, houses of worship, and they will find the good stories.
I have long advocated for working with Congress to set up internships for D.C. students in every congressional office; 535 kids a year would get experience, good connections, and a resume boost. If we are serious about this, and have a focus on our youth beyond those who commit crimes, everyone will benefit.
Council Judiciary Committee Chair Brooke Pinto introduced several bills including the The Active Act. This legislation would further beef up penalties for gun crimes, creating a new offense for illegal disposal of a gun or ammunition while a person is fleeing police. Then increasing penalties for endangerment with a firearm and firing many bullets at once. At the same time, she looks to expand alternatives to incarceration, creating a task force to examine possibilities for diversion programs to avoid jail time for nonviolent misdemeanor offenses such as drug possession. The Active Act also creates more hurdles for pretrial release in cases involving people charged with violent or dangerous offenses. It would require judges to issue written explanations if they decide to release before trial a person charged with committing a violent offense.
In response to the LGBTQ community, Pinto with Council members Christina Henderson, Robert White, Charles Allen, Vincent Gray, Matt Frumin, Janeese Lewis George, and Anita Bonds, introduced the “Transgender and Gender-Diverse Mortality and Fatality Review Committee Establishment Act of 2023.” Pinto wrote, “Although data are limited, some studies suggest transgender people are “twice as likely to die as cisgender people” due to “heart disease, lung cancer, HIV-related illness and suicide,” with trans women being “two times as likely to die” compared to cis men and “three times as likely” compared to cis women being disproportionately vulnerable to the aforementioned risks, as well as to violence and murder, with one in four trans women likely to be victimized by a hate-related crime.” It is anticipated the information from this committee will contribute important data and analysis, and provide important resources, for the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention and for transgender and gender-diverse people across the country informing future strategies and interventions to drive down the disparate outcomes we are currently seeing.
We must ensure the legal system is not a revolving door. That crimes committed with guns are punished seriously, and young people who commit violent crimes can be held without bail if they are ongoing serious threats to the community. Clearly, going easier on violent criminals is not working the way some hoped it would. Again, simply saying we will deal with it by getting to the root of crime will not deal with the crime we have today. It should happen, and will have an impact, but not right away, and we need to reduce crime today.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
Is anyone else sick of Cassidy Hutchinson?
Trump loyalist feted by mainstream media after belated change of heart

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump loyalist who belatedly turned on her boss, the man she “adored,” is this week’s mainstream media obsession, turning up multiple times on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, “The View,” and seemingly everywhere else. The only person getting more airtime this week is Taylor Swift, after urgent news broke that she’s dating an NFL player. (The “Today” show led twice with that very important story this week.)
For sure, Hutchinson’s testimony before the Jan. 6 committee in front of 13 million viewers took courage, given how many Trump supporters are inclined to violence against his critics.
But Hutchinson remained loyal to Trump even after the Jan. 6 insurrection and planned to move to Florida for a job with him after he left the White House on Jan. 20. She initially took the advice of Trump’s attorneys to claim she didn’t recall the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
Some of us saw Trump for what he is back in 2015: a racist criminal and pathological liar, an ‘80s has-been and washed-up reality show host in orange makeup and a bad wig.
Where’s our party?
Easily duped people like Hutchinson helped elect Trump and then supported him throughout all the too-numerous-to-mention scandals — mocking the disabled, insulting a Gold Star family, ridiculing war heroes, siding with Neo Nazis in Charlottesville, and on and on. Not to mention a botched response to a pandemic that killed more than one million Americans. Trump refused to wear a mask (we recently learned because it smeared his extensive makeup) and poked fun at Joe Biden for wearing one.
Most of Trump’s die hard supporters jumped ship after Jan. 6, but not Cassidy Hutchinson. She even told Mark Meadows that she would “take a bullet” for Trump. She told “The View” that it was a “difficult moment” to watch former White House staffers denounce Trump after Jan. 6, due to her blind loyalty to him. She resisted her own mother’s pleas to abandon Trump and not move to Florida with him. She blamed Trump’s advisers for his bad decisions.
It all smacks of brainwashing. Anyone who is so weak willed that they are easily manipulated by the “charms” of Donald Trump has no business anywhere near the White House. Hutchinson has demonstrated not just bad judgement, but disastrous judgement.
And now that she has a book to peddle, the mainstream media predictably line up to sing her praises and she spills all sorts of tea, from Rudy Giuliani allegedly sexually assaulting her to Mark Meadows burning White House documents in his office fireplace. She didn’t follow the parade of staffers who quit after Jan. 6 and she didn’t report Meadows for allegedly destroying government property. And now we’re supposed to shell out $30 for her vapid book about finally seeing the light, long after the rest of the world had figured out Trump for the incorrigible threat to democracy that he represents.
Hutchinson deserves our gratitude for her Jan. 6 committee testimony. But nothing more. And the mainstream media have got to stop their practice of reckless revisionist history and praising the undeserving.
Opinions
Speaker Kevin McUseless calls for Biden impeachment inquiry
Stunt will backfire on Republicans in 2024

Congress has joined the world of the insane with Republicans calling to impeach any Democrat they disagree with. It is happening in Wisconsin to the new Supreme Court justice, and now lily-livered Kevin McUseless, facing threats from his MAGA members, announced an impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
He could name no reason, and in fact during the nine months of Republicans investigating Biden, they have found none. Two weeks ago, he said he wouldn’t do this without a vote of the House, but moderate Republicans rightly figure this will all backfire on them, so wouldn’t agree to vote for it. Meanwhile the country is waiting for House Republicans to do their job and pass a budget, which they are unable to do. The result could close the government again. That will also backfire on them, as it will hurt so many people.
So, what better time for Democrats, thinking independents, and any sane Republican left, those willing to put the country above their own party, and in the case of Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), even their own reelections, to just vote all these Republican clowns out of office?
Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who will lead the inquiry on Biden, has for the nine previous months come up with zilch — nothing meriting impeachment or even further investigation. The IRS whistleblowers’ testimony he touted was contradicted by the FBI in sworn testimony. But then it isn’t Comer asking for this impeachment inquiry, it is Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, and the MAGAs holding McUseless hostage. Those two should be arrested for criminal behavior, charged with being an embarrassment to the country. They are joined by the likes of Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), recently thrown out of a Denver theater for groping her boyfriend, vaping, taking pictures, and recording a show, Beetlejuice. This is today’s Republican Party.
Clearly, most elected Republicans are not willing to stand up to these jokers; all afraid of the Trump cult, aka the Republican Party. They are being threatened with a primary by Trump if they do. They would lose the primary, part of the reason Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) just announced he would not run again. The Trump cult controls roughly 35% of the party and you can’t win without them. But Trump-supported primary winners have shown they lose general elections.
I am more confident than some in a Trump/Biden replay, Biden will win by 10 million votes this time, but not get one more electoral vote. It will again be about seven or eight states. If Republicans go ahead with this impeachment Democrats will win in 2024.
As to Hunter Biden, he should be punished for anything he did wrong, like any private citizen; whether it is not paying his taxes or lying on a gun permit application. President Biden should stop inviting Hunter to the White House, and curtail his public embrace of his son. It hasn’t helped his son, and is clearly not helping his own campaign, or for that matter any other Democrat. What he does in private is his business. The president has two homes, one in Wilmington, and one in Rehoboth Beach, where he can meet with, and entertain his son. I think the president owes that to the people he is asking to support him. He owes it to the party to not put himself in positions his opponents can take advantage of.
Joe Biden has been a public servant since he was 28 years old, starting on the New Castle County Council, in Delaware, in 1970. He ran and won his Senate seat in 1972. He has never been accused of any impropriety until the Republicans decided they could make unfounded accusations for political gain. He has shown himself a decent and honest man. A man with empathy for those less fortunate; and a president with one of the most successful administrations in modern times.
So McUseless, do your worst. Bend over for the MAGAs and get screwed. Hope it hurts. You have no balls as depicted in a recent funny meme where Barbie is shown on her knees in front of Ken, saying she finally understood; McUseless was the model for Ken.
The country will survive McUseless and the congressional Trump cult and be stronger for it. The decent people of the country will end up winning and McUseless, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and their cronies, will be relegated to the dustbin of history with nary an asterisk to their names. If there is an asterisk it will read that they were useless, venal, and screwed up.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
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