GLAA D.C., formerly known as the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, announced on May 13 that it has awarded its highest ratings for D.C. Council candidates running in the city’s June 4 primary election to incumbent Council members Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) and Robert White (D-At-Large) and to Ward 7 Democratic candidate Nate Fleming.

On a rating scale of +10, the highest possible rating, to -10, the lowest rating, GLAA awarded ratings of +9.5 to Lewis George, + 9 to Robert White, and +8.5 to Fleming.

Fleming is one of 10 candidates running in the Democratic primary for the Ward 7 Council seat, which is being vacated by incumbent Council member and former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, who is not running for re-election. In addition to Fleming, GLAA issued ratings for seven other Ward 7 Democratic contenders who, like Fleming, returned a required GLAA candidate questionnaire.

The remaining two Ward 7 candidates were not rated under a GLAA policy adopted this year of not rating candidates that did not return the questionnaire, the responses to which GLAA uses to determine its ratings, according to GLAA President Tyrone Hanley. A statement accompanying the GLAA ratings shows that it rated 13 D.C. Council candidates – all Democrats —  out of a total of 18 Council candidates on the June 4 primary ballot.

Ballot information released by the D.C. Board of Elections shows that only one Republican candidate and one Statehood Green Party candidate is running this year for a  D.C. Council seat.  GOP activist Nate Derenge is running for the Ward 8 seat held by incumbent Democrat Trayon White and Statehood Green Party candidate Darryl Moch is running for the At-Large Council seat held by Robert White.

GLAA shows in its ratings statement that neither Trayon White nor Derenge nor Moch returned the questionnaire, preventing them from being rated. However, one of two Democratic candidates running against Tryon White in the primary — Salim Aldofo — did return the questionnaire and received a rating of +5.5. The other Democratic candidate, Rahman Branch, did not return the questionnaire and was not rated. Trayon White has been a supporter on LGBTQ issues while serving on the Council.

GLAA President Hanley said GLAA this year decided to limit its ratings to candidates of all political parties running for D.C. Council seats. In addition to candidates running for an At-Large Council seat and Council seats in Wards 4, 7, and 8, the June 4 primary ballot includes candidates running for the D.C. Congressional Delegate seat, the Shadow U.S. House seat, and the Shadow U.S. Senate seat. GLAA chose not to issue ratings for those races, according to Hanley. He said during mayoral election years, GLAA rates all candidates for mayor.

The Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C’s largest local LGBTQ political organization,  was scheduled to release its endorsements of D.C. Council candidates and candidates for all other local D.C. races, including Congressional Delegate and Senate and House “shadow” races, at a May 21 endorsement event. The Blade will report on those endorsements in an upcoming story.

Like in all past years beginning in the early 1970s when GLAA began rating candidates in local D.C elections, the group has not rated federal candidates, including those running for U.S. president. Thus, it issued no rating this year for President Joe Biden and two lesser-known Democratic challengers appearing on the D.C. presidential primary ballot on June 4 – Marianne Williamson and Armando Perez-Serrato.

In the At-Large Council race, GLAA gave Robert White’s sole Democratic challenger, Rodney Red Grant, who returned the questionnaire, a rating of +3.5.

“The ratings are based solely on the issues and may not be interpreted as endorsements,” GLAA says in its statement accompanying the ratings. The statement says the ratings are based on the candidates’ response to the questionnaire, the questions for which GLAA says reflect the group’s positions on a wide range of issues as stated in a document it calls “A Loving Community: GLAA Policy Brief 2024.” It sends a link to that document to all candidates to whom it sends them the questionnaire and urges the candidate to seek out the brief “for guidance and clarification” in responding to the questions. GLAA says the ratings are also based on the candidates’ record on the issues GLAA deems of importance, including LGBTQ issues.

Like its questionnaire in recent years, this year’s nine-question questionnaire asks the candidates whether they would support mostly non-LGBTQ specific issues supported by GLAA, some of which are controversial. One of the questions asks the candidates, “Do you support enacting legislation to decriminalize sex work for adults, including the selling and purchasing of sex and third-party involvement not involving fraud, violence, and coercion?”

Another question asks if the candidates would support decriminalizing illegal drug use by supporting “removing the criminal penalties for drug possession for personal use and increasing investments in health services.” Other questions ask whether candidates would address “concentrated wealth in the District by raising revenue through taxing the most wealthy residents,” would they support funding for “harm reduction and overdose prevention services to save lives,” and would they support a Green New Deal for Housing bill pending before the D.C. Council that would “Socialize Our Housing” to address putting in place city subsidized housing for those in need.

One of the questions that might be considered LGBTQ specific asks whether candidates would support sufficient funding for the D.C. Office of Human Rights to ensure the office has enough staff members to adequately enforce the city’s nondiscrimination laws and to end a discrimination case backlog that the office sometimes encounters.

Some activists have criticized GLAA for not including more LGBTQ-specific questions in its questionnaire. Others have defended the questionnaire on grounds that D.C. long ago has passed a full range of LGBTQ supportive laws and most if not, all serious candidates running in D.C. for public office for the past 20 years or more have expressed strong support for LGBTQ equality. They argue that LGBTQ voters, while weighing the depth of support candidates have on LGBTQ issues, most of the time base their vote on a candidate’s record and position on non-LGBTQ issues when all candidates in a specific race are LGBTQ supportive.

Hanley told the Washington Blade GLAA believes the current questionnaire addresses the issues of importance to the largest number of LGBTQ D.C. residents.

“My response is that we care about whatever issues are impacting queer and trans people,” Hanley said. “We can’t isolate the challenges we are experiencing as queer and trans people to things that are specifically related to our identity as queer and trans people because they are all interconnected,” he said.

“So, how will I tell a Black trans woman we care about her not being discriminated against at her job for being trans, for being Black, or for being a woman, but we don’t care that she doesn’t have housing? Hanley asked. “To me, that seems like a very inhumane way of thinking about human beings because we are whole human beings,” he said, some of whom, he added, face a wide range of issues such as homelessness,  drug issues, and “struggling to make ends meet.”

The GLAA statement that accompanies its ratings, which is posted on its website, includes links to each of the candidates’ questionnaire responses as well as an explanation of why it gave its specific rating to each of the candidates. In its explanation section GLAA says all the candidates expressed overall support for the LGBTQ community and expressed support for the concerns  related to the issues raised by the questions even if they were not at this time ready to back some of the issues like decriminalization of sex work.  

Following are the GLAA ratings given to 12 Democratic D.C. Council candidates and one “unknown” candidate that Hanley says submitted their questionnaire but did not reveal their identity on the questionnaire:

DC Council At-Large

Robert White: +9

Rodney Red Grant: +3.5

DC Council Ward 4

Janeese Lewis George: +9.5

DC Council Ward 7

Ebony-Rose Thompson: +4.5

Ebony Payne: +5

Kelvin Brown: +2.5

Nate Fleming: +8.5

Roscoe Grant Jr.: +3.5

Veda Rasheed: +5

Villareal VJ Johnson II: +4

Wendell Felder: +2

DC Council Ward 8

Salim Aldofo: +5.5

Unknown: +2

The full GLAA ratings, a breakdown of the ratings based on a GLAA rating criteria, the candidate questionnaire response, and GLAA’s explanation for each of its candidate ratings can be accessed at the GLAA website.