Local
D.C. Council candidates court LGBT voters
Graham, Bonds face opposition in April primary
Council members Jim Graham and Anita Bonds are seeking re-election and facing Democratic opposition in the April primary. (Washington Blade file photos by Michael Key)
LGBT voters could play a key role in determining the nominees for at least three of the six D.C. Council seats up for grabs in the city’s April 1 Democratic primary, according to activists familiar with the candidates.
Similar to past years, nearly all of the candidates who are favored to win or who have a shot at winning their primary contests and the general election in November are strong supporters of LGBT rights.
In the April primary, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), Council member Mary Cheh(D-Ward 3), and Council member Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) are considered strong favorites to win in the primary and general election. Cheh is running unopposed in the primary.
Mendelson and Cheh are longtime supporters of the LGBT community and McDuffie has been supportive on LGBT issues since winning his seat in a special election in 2012.
Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large) and four-term Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who’s gay, are running in competitive races in the primary, in the opinion of some political observers, although most knowledgeable observers consider them the clear front-runners.
Bonds, who has been involved in D.C. politics since the early 1980s, has a long record of support for LGBT rights. And Graham, the former head of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, has been among the Council’s strongest advocates on LGBT and AIDS issues during his more than 15 years as a Council member.
The remaining Council race on the primary ballot will be for an open seat in Ward 6, which is being vacated by Council member Tommy Wells, a Democrat who’s running for mayor. Three Democratic candidates running in the primary – Charles Allen, Wells’ former chief of staff; Darrel Thompson, and Shelonda Tillman – have expressed strong support on LGBT issues and are expected to compete for support from the large number of LGBT residents that live in Ward 6.
Graham’s longstanding reputation as a champion for his Ward 1 constituents — both gay and straight — would normally make him a shoo-in for winning election to a fifth term. But an 11-2 vote by his Council colleagues last spring to reprimand him on grounds that he violated the Council’s ethics rules in 2008 by improperly interfering with negotiations over a Metro development contract have raised questions over whether his support in the ward has eroded.
The Council’s vote to reprimand Graham came shortly after the city’s independent ethics board, headed by gay former D.C. Attorney General Robert Spagnoletti, issued an opinion saying Graham did not violate any laws but committed an ethical breach as a city official by intervening in the contract process.
Graham has disputed the claim that he did anything improper, saying he pushed for awarding the contract to one developer over another because the one he favored was better qualified to do the work on a project located in his ward.
Lesbian Democratic activist Barbara Helmick, a longtime resident of Ward 1, said she has voted for Graham in the past but is undecided on whether to vote for him this time.
“Certainly the ethics question has raised eyebrows,” Helmick said. “But Jim has done a lot as a Council member and he has basically done a good job for his constituents.”
Helmick, like other Ward 1 residents, said she’s looking at Graham’s two remaining opponents in the primary, civic activists Bryan Weaver and Brianne Nadeau. Both have been strong supporters of the LGBT community. A third opponent, Beverly Wheeler, a former aide to Council Chair Mendelson, dropped out of the race last week, citing family related issues.
Ward 1 is believed to have the largest concentration of LGBT residents among the city’s eight wards and is home to two LGBT community centers, one of which – Casa Ruby – reaches out to the LGBT Latino community. Activists say that Graham’s prospects for winning the primary would increase significantly if he can retain the support of LGBT voters who have backed him overwhelmingly in past elections.
No Republican, Statehood Green Party or Libertarian Party candidate entered the Ward 1 Council race this year, a development that means Graham would likely face one or more lesser known independent candidates in the November general election if he wins the Democratic nomination in the primary.
Bonds, meanwhile, is being challenged by four other Democrats in the primary in her race for one of two at-large Council seats that will be on the ballot in the November general election. In a process that has often confounded voters, one of the two seats is reserved for a non-majority party candidate under the city’s election law, which means a Democrat cannot compete for the second seat.
Gay D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large) has held the so-called non-Democratic seat since 1997, when he won a special election to fill the then vacant seat. He has been re-elected four times since then, but this year Catania said he’s strongly considering giving up his Council seat to run for mayor.
As an independent, he doesn’t have to make a final decision on whether to seek re-election to the Council or enter the mayoral race until June. Many of the city’s political pundits believe Catania will run for mayor, clearing the way for others to compete for his Council seat.
Gay Republican activist Marc Morgan, a Ward 1 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, is running unopposed in the Republican primary for one of the two at-large seats. Should Catania run for mayor, Morgan could be in a strong position to compete for the non-Democratic seat.
A Libertarian Party candidate, who is running unopposed in his party’s primary, and one of two Statehood Green Party candidates running in that party’s primary, will be competing with Morgan for the non-Democratic seat in the November election.
Another openly gay candidate, Libertarian Party activist Martin Moulton, is running unopposed in the Libertarian primary for the city’s U.S. shadow representative seat. Moulton is expected to compete for the shadow seat in the November general election against Democrat Franklin Garcia, who’s running unopposed in the Democratic primary in April.
Out of the four Democrats running against Bonds in the primary, Nate Bennett-Fleming, who currently holds the U.S. shadow representative seat, is considered to be her strongest opponent. Bennett-Fleming has expressed strong support for LGBT rights and won the endorsement of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group, when he ran for the seat in 2012.
The city created shadow U.S. Senate seats and one shadow House of Representatives seat as unpaid lobbying positions to advocate for D.C. statehood and voting representation in Congress.
Although some consider the shadow seats to be of little value because they have no official connection with the U.S. Congress, Bennett-Fleming received more than 43,000 votes when he won the Democratic primary for the seat in 2012. In the 2012 general election, Bennett-Fleming received nearly 207,000 votes.
When Bonds won the at-large seat in a special election last April she received 18,027 votes, or 31.4 percent, in a seven-candidate race with one of the lowest voter turnouts of any D.C. election ever held.
The voter turnout is expected to be larger in this year’s April 1 primary and Bonds’ wider name recognition and longstanding involvement in city politics gives her an edge over Bennett-Fleming and the other three candidates, according to most pundits. But Bonds and her LGBT supporters say she is waging an aggressive outreach effort to capture the LGBT vote to boost her re-election prospects.
Elissa Silverman, a Democrat who came in second behind Bonds in the 2012 special election, reportedly is considering changing her party affiliation from Democrat to independent to run for the non-Democratic at-large seat in the general election.
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Congratulations to R. Warren Gill III, M.Div., M.A. on being appointed as the development manager at HIPS. Upon his appointment, Gill said, “For as long as I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., I’ve followed and admired the life-saving work HIPS does in our communities. I’m proud to join the staff and help strengthen the financial support that sustains this work.”
Gill will lead fundraising strategy, donor engagement, and institutional partnerships. HIPS promotes the health, rights, and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by sexual exchange and/or drug use due to choice, coercion, or circumstance. HIPS provides compassionate harm reduction services, advocacy, and community engagement that is respectful, non-judgmental, and affirms and honors individual power and agency.
Gill has built a career at the intersection of progressive politics, advocacy, and nonprofit leadership. Previously he served as director of communications at AIDS United, supporting national efforts to end the HIV epidemic. Prior to that he had roles including; being press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential primary, and working with the General Board of Church and Society, the United Methodist Church, the denomination’s social justice and advocacy arm.
Gill earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religious studies, Jewish Studies, Stockton University; his master’s degree in political communication from American University, where his graduate research focused on values-based messaging and cognitive linguistics; and his master of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion.
District of Columbia
Judge denies D.C. request to dismiss gay police captain’s anti-bias lawsuit
MPD accused of illegally demoting officer for taking family leave to care for newborn child
A U.S. District Court judge on Jan. 21 denied a request by attorneys representing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a gay captain accusing police officials of illegally demoting him for taking parental leave to join his husband in caring for their newborn son.
The lawsuit filed by Capt. Paul Hrebenak charges that police officials violated the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act, a similar D.C. family leave law, and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by refusing to allow him to return to his position as director of the department’s School Safety Division upon his return from parental leave.
It says police officials transferred Hrebenak to another police division against his wishes, which was a far less desirable job and was the equivalent of a demotion, even though it had the same pay grade as his earlier job.
In response to a motion filed by attorneys with the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents and defends D.C. government agencies against lawsuits, Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed to dismiss seven of the lawsuit’s 14 counts or claims but left in place six counts.
Scott Lempert, the attorney representing Hrebenak, said he and Hrebenak agreed to drop one of the 14 counts prior to the Jan. 21 court hearing.
“He did not dismiss the essential claims in this case,” Lempert told the Washington Blade. “So, we won is the short answer. We defeated the motion to dismiss the case.”
Gabriel Shoglow, a spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, said the office has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation and it would not comment on the judge’s ruling upholding six of the lawsuit’s initial 14 counts.
In issuing his ruling from the bench, Moss gave Lempert the option of filing an amended complaint by March 6 to seek the reinstatement of the counts he dismissed. He gave attorneys for the D.C. attorney general’s office a deadline of March 20 to file a response to an amended complaint.
Lempert told the Blade he and Hrebenak have yet to decide whether to file an amended complaint or whether to ask the judge to move the case ahead to a jury trial, which they initially requested.
In its 26-page motion calling for dismissal of the case, filed on May 30, 2025, D.C. Office of the Attorney General attorneys argue that the police department has legal authority to transfer its officers, including captains, to a different job. It says that Hrebenak’s transfer to a position of watch commander at the department’s First District was fully equivalent in status to his job as director of the School Safety Division.
“The Watch Commander position is not alleged to have changed plaintiff’s rank of captain or his benefits or pay, and thus plaintiff has not plausibly alleged that he was put in a non-equivalent position,” the motion to dismiss states.
“Thus, his reassignment is not a demotion,” it says. “And the fact that his shift changed does not mean that the position is not equivalent to his prior position. The law does not require that every single aspect of the positions be the same.”
Hrebenak’s lawsuit states that “straight” police officers have routinely taken similar family and parental leave to care for a newborn child and have not been transferred to a different job. According to the lawsuit, the School Safety Division assignment allowed him to work a day shift, a needed shift for his recognized disability of Crohn’s Disease, which the lawsuit says is exacerbated by working late hours at night.
The lawsuit points out that Hrebenak disclosed he had Crohn’s Disease at the time he applied for his police job, and it was determined he could carry out his duties as an officer despite this ailment, which was listed as a disability.
Among other things, the lawsuit notes that Hrebenak had a designated reserved parking space for his earlier job and lost the parking space for the job to which he was transferred.
“Plaintiff’s removal as director at MPD’s School Safety Division was a targeted, premeditated punishment for his taking statutorily protected leave as a gay man,” the lawsuit states. “There was no operational need by MPD to remove plaintiff as director of MPD’s School Safety Division, a position in which plaintiff very successfully served for years,” it says.
In another action to strengthen Hrebenak’s opposition to the city’s motion to dismiss the case, Lempert filed with the court on Jan. 15 a “Notice of Supplemental Authority” that included two controversial reports that Lempert said showed that former D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith put in place a policy of involuntary police transfers “to effectively demote and end careers of personnel who had displeased Chief Smith and or others in MPD leadership.”
One of the reports was prepared by the Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the other was prepared by the office of Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C. appointed by President Donald Trump.
Both reports allege that Smith, who resigned from her position as chief effective Dec. 31, pressured police officials to change crime reporting data to make it appear that the number of violent crimes was significantly lower than it actually was by threatening to transfer them to undesirable positions in the department. Smith has denied those claims.
“These findings support plaintiff’s arguments that it was the policy or custom of MPD to inflect involuntary transfers on MPD personnel as retaliation for doing or saying something in which leadership disapproved,” Lempert says in his court filing submitting the two reports.
“As shown, many officers suffered under this pervasive custom, including Capt. Hrebenak,” he stated. “Accordingly, by definition, transferred positions were not equivalent to officers’ previous positions,” he added.
Virginia
LGBTQ rights at forefront of 2026 legislative session in Va.
Repeal of state’s marriage amendment a top priority
With 2026 ramping up, LGBTQ rights are at the forefront of Virginia politics.
The repeal of Virginia’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman is a top legislative priority for activists and advocacy groups.
The Virginia Senate on Jan. 17 by a 26-13 vote margin approved outgoing state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria)’s resolution that would repeal the Marshall-Newman Amendment. The Virginia House of Delegates earlier this month passed it.
Two successive legislatures must approve the resolution before it can go to the ballot.
The resolution passed in 2025. Voters are expected to consider repealing the amendment on Nov. 3.
The Virginia General Assembly opened with an introduction of a two-year budget — Virginia’s budget runs biannually.
In 2024 some funding was allocated to LGBTQ causes, and others were passed over. This year’s proposed budget leaves room for funding for a host of LGBTQ opportunities. One specific priority that Equality Virginia is promoting would ensure the state budget expands healthcare for LGBTQ individuals and extending gender affirming care.
Equality Virginia Communications Director Reed Williams told the Washington Blade the organization is also focused on passing three main budget amendments, and ensuring “LGBTQ+ students and their teachers have resources to navigate and address mental health challenges in K-12 schools.”
Along with ensuring school training, the organization wants funding in hopes of “establishing enhanced competency training for Virginia’s 988 Lifeline counselors and support staff to provide affirming care for LGBTQ+ youth.” This comes after the Trump-Vance administration shut down the specific hotline for LGBTQ young people that callers could previously reach if they called 988.
On a federal level, protections and health care access for LGBTQ people has taken a hit, as the Trump-Vance administration has continued to issue executive orders affecting the health care system. LGBTQ people no longer have federal legal health care protections, so local and state politics has become even more important for LGBTQ rights groups.
Equality Virginia has urged its supporters to call their local senators and stress the importance of voting to expand health care protections for LGBTQ people. The organization also plans to hold information sessions and a lobby day on Feb. 2.
Equality Virginia is tracking bills on its website.
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