Pride and Getting to Know the DC Council Vol 8: Chairman Phil Mendelson
Hi everyone!
Welcome back to another edition of The ForeRunner. For those who don’t already know, you can read past issues on Medium at medium.com/the-forerunner. You can follow me on Twitter at @speaknojessica. You can email me at theforerunnerletter@gmail.com. Easy!
This week I am continuing a series on the DC Councilmembers by writing about Chairman of the Council Phil Mendelson and what the role of Chairperson entails. If you want to read about your own Councilmember, I may have written about them already and you can check my past posts.
Also this week I will write a bit about Capital Pride and some of its controversies, and as always I will have small acts of resistance and local events to attend.
Let’s get to it, and don’t forget to watch the Comey Hearing this morning! I assume it will be exactly like this:
But which I’m hoping is more like this:
Small Immediate Acts of Resistance
That are never calling your Senator or Representative
- Tweet at Chairman Mendelson to say thank you for funding Paid Family Leave. Yup, I’m still on about the Paid Family Leave stuff in DC. At this point in the campaign, we have gotten the start-up funding for the program, but we are still in danger of seeing some of its key provisions removed or changed. However, we still want to acknowledge the Council’s role in putting in the startup funds in the first place. So you can tweet @chmnmendelson and thank him for finding the $40 million for the Universal Paid Leave Act (UPLA’s) startup costs.
- Email or tweet at the CEOs on Trump’s economic advisory council and tell them to step down. This action is supported by the weekly acts at Wall-of-Us. Trump’s Economic Advisory Council has been controversial from the beginning. Many CEOs claim they joined the Council to help affect change from the inside, but very few of them have stood by their principals. Only two CEOs — Elon Musk of Tesla and Bob Igor of Disney — have left the Council over Trump’s exiting of the Paris Climate Accord, despite the fact that numerous companies included on the Council wanted the US to remain in the agreement or have said in the past that they support efforts to combat climate change. It’s time we held them accountable for those words. Use Wall-of-Us’s list of CEOs and their contact information to urge them to remove themselves from this farce of a Council, and to not tacitly support Trump’s anti-climate agenda by remaining on it.
- Use your consumer power to boycott Trump products. Grab Your Wallet has been organizing a boycott of retail chains that sell Trump family products for 238 days now. They have a detailed list of stores to boycott, as well as resources for contacting those stores, if you’re so inclined, to inform them the reason you will no longer be a patron of their establishments. Take a look at the list, and maybe send a few emails if you want. But definitely consider no longer shopping in these stores or with these brands if you can! Boycott Trump.
Resistance Events this Week
Local to DC unless otherwise noted
June 10: No Justice No Pride DC Day of Action, hosted by NO Justice No Pride, RSVP required (link above is to RSVP page, but the Facebook page has more detailed info)
June 11 (multicity): June Solidarity Sundays NE DC Monthly Meeting, hosted by ME and the rest of the NE DC SolSun team, RSVP required (you will have to request to join the facebook group, linked above, to see the June event)
June 11 (multicity): National Equality March for Unity and Pride
June 12: Statehood is Equality Lobby Day, hosted by DC Vote, RSVP required
June 13: Town Hall on #PaidLeave4DC with Patagonia, hosted by the Paid Family Leave coalition, RSVP required
June 13: #HandsoffDC Birth Control: Protecting Birth Control Access in the Trump Era, hosted by WIN (the Women’s Information Network), RSVP required
Topic 1: Getting to Know the DC Council Volume 8: Chairman Phil Mendelson and the Committee of the Whole
Phil Mendelson is currently the Chair of the DC Council or the “Committee of the Whole”: Mendelson has served on the DC Council since 1998 and has been the Chairman since 2012. Mendelson ran several of his campaigns on the idea that the DC Council should be more transparent and communicative with voters. In 1998 he criticized the Council, saying that DC residents only heard from Councilmembers when they were up for reelection.Mendelson was responsible for authoring the legislation that made DC’s Attorney General an elected position, as well as the DC Budget Autonomy Act.
The Chairperson of the DC Council has a lot of power in DC Government. Some of the duties of the Chairperson include assigning the other Councilmembers to the other committees and selecting the Chairs of each of those committees. So, for example, the reason Jack Evans is currently Chair of the Finance Committee is because Chairman Mendelson appointed him as such. The Chairperson is the Chair of the DC Council and what’s called the Committee of the Whole (which includes all members of the Council, so almost the same thing). The Committee of the Whole is responsible for, among other things, “the annual budget, and amendments, additions, or supplements to the budget”. Mendelson, as Chair of the Committee of the Whole, has a lot of power in the final say as to where the Council’s budget dollars end up. The other committee chairs and councilmembers can make suggestions, but the Chairperson essentially has the final say as CHair of the Committee of the Whole as to what the Council recommends to the Mayor.
The Committee of the Whole is also responsible for “coordinating the Council’s relationships with the Congress; the scheduling of all matters for consideration by the Council in the legislative meeting; legislative matters related to the District as a political entity, including voting rights and statehood; truancy; and DC employees’ retirement”. The Committee of the Whole also reviews all legislation that passes through the Council for legal sufficiency, technical compliance with Council rules, and a sufficient fiscal-impact statement.
Furthermore, according to DC Council rules, the Chairperson is an ex-officio voting member of all the other committees, making him or her the only person who can vote in any committee on the Council.
These are just a few of the responsibilities that the DC Council Chair has. Perhaps reading this it makes sense why Phil Mendelson was so often the target of activist calls relating to the budget over the last few months. His recommendations on spending carry significant weight. For those of you interested in a more full description of the Chairperson’s job I’d definitely recommend taking a look at the Council Rules, linked above.
Now to move on to more fun things, who have I chosen as Chairman Mendelson’s Star Trek doppleganger? Well, after much consideration I decided to go with Captain Jean Luc-Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Why, you ask? Well, like all of my decisions, this one was shallow and petty: they are both bald. And, of course, I guess it’s relevant that Mendelson is de facto “Captain” of the Council. I was a little apprehensive, because the mantle of Captain Picard is not given lightly. But eventually I felt it was the best choice. So, congrats Chairman Mendelson on your temporary promotion to Patrick Stewart.
I asked Chairman Mendelson to answer some questions on activism in DC, but as of the time of this writing had not received a response.
Topic 2: Pride
June is widely celebrated as Gay Pride Month, or LGBTQ+ Pride Month, or just Pride. The month of June was chosen to honor the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Manhattan. According to the Library of Congress, “the purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally”. According to the Human Rights Campaign:
Originally, Pride was solely a political demonstration to voice LGBT demands for equal rights and protections … It was not until 1991 that Pride began to resemble what it is today: a celebration of queer life and sexuality in addition to a political and social demonstration.
The differences between the descriptions are very interesting to me. When in doubt, always go with the descriptions from the actual people and organizations representing those people; not the interpretations of academic institutions. Bustle has an excellent article on “The Origins of Pride Month”. The term “gay pride” was coined in 1970 by L. Craig Schoonmaker at an organizing meeting. In a 2015 article, mentioned in the Bustle article above, Schoonmaker was quoted as saying:
…anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.
Pride Month can have something of a fraught history for different groups within the LGBTQ+ community. Traditionally, white gay men often have the most power in queer circles because they have the most societal privilege. There has been a history of marginalizing black and latinx members of the queer community, as well as trans men and women, and even just gay women and bisexuals. The recent Stonewall film, for example, was criticized for portraying the main instigators of the Stonewall Riots as white, cisgendered gay men, when many in the queer community believe that black transwomen and others from the community were having their critical roles erased. African Americans have also criticized the gay rights movement for borrowing too liberally from the language of the Civil Rights movement. These criticisms are layered in complications. Some, though by no means all, of the most prominent voices that do not want to link the struggle for the rights of African Americans and the rights of gay Americans are explicitly anti-gay, which makes their position complicated at best. And many prominent Civil Rights leaders such as John Lewis encourage the comparison. But it’s always important to acknowledge the concerns of people of other marginalized communities, and not to co-opt their movements’ words.
Part of the history of Pride Month involves the attempt by minorities within the queer community to carve out their own specific spaces where they are individually celebrated. Black Pride celebrations have a history dating back to the early ’90s. The first official such celebration was in none other than Washington, DC in 1991. Today New York City and Detroit have some of the most well known Black Pride celebrations. There are also efforts to host Latinx focused Pride events, in DC headed mainly by the Latino GLBT History Project. It is common for queer women to have their own celebrations the day before or the day after the major Pride events in major cities.
This year marks the first time in over eight years that the President and the White House have not commemorated the beginning of Pride Month. Mike Pence is a known anti-LGBTQ advocate, having been a supporter of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act which allowed businesses to discriminate against clientele on religious grounds. This administration has already rolled back protections for transgender students, and Trump has been rumored to be on the verge of signing an Executive Order, leaked by The Nation, that would institute a nationwide “religious freedom” law. There was also a recent report by North Carolina-based RTI International showing that anti-LGBTQ+ bulling in schools is at an all time high. We have a long way to go, and a lot to think about this Pride Month. There’s much to celebrate, but we have to keep fighting.
Here in DC, Capital Pride celebrations continue as usual. There are several events, including the Pride Parade, going on in the city this weekend. I do want to highlight some local controversy that I think is important. A local group of LGBTQ+ advocates, formerly of Resist This, have come together to oppose some of the elements of Capital Pride, and what they believe is a generally exclusionary attitude toward black and trans members of the queer community in DC in particular.
Some of the controversy flared up when No Justice No Pride unearthed a piece on a conservative blog by a Capital Pride organizer named Brian Pruitt in which Pruitt had made some transphobic comments. Pruitt resigned from the organizing committee, but stood by his comments. In a statement, No Justice No pride said of Pruitt’s forced resignation:
By firing Bryan Pruitt, Capital Pride is beginning to recognize they have a problem. Pruitt should never have held a position as part of Capital Pride’s staff. His views are widely known, public, and he has been a part of Capital Pride for many years. While we recognize this as a victory for the community, Capital Pride’s work is not done.
According to the Washington Blade, some of No Justice No Pride’s demands to Capital Pride include not allowing uniformed police officers to march in the Pride Parade, given the history of police violence in the black queer community; and not allowing corporate sponsors such as Wells Fargo to participate. Wells Fargo in particular is singled out due to its investment in the Dakota Access Pipeline. Another Sponsor of concern is Maryland Live! Casino, which is one of Capital Pride’s top donors. The owner of Live! Casinos is a member of Trump’s inner circle. There was also a statement from NJNP that, while members on the Capital Pride Board acknowledged a lack of diversity on said board, that calls for white cis male board members to step down to make room for others in the community to join were not heeded.
As this wonderful Mother Jones piece points out, in some ways the internal struggles of Capital Pride can be seen in Pride events across the US this year. The piece explains:
[T]his year, organizers and activists across the country are grappling with whether Prides should be celebrations or protests. Some say being out, proud, and unapologetic is in itself a protest, while others point out that the event commemorates a moment of powerful resistance. They argue that given how the assault on LGBT rights has intensified, coupled with other attacks on civil liberties, it’s time to return to those roots.
In New York City, for example, activists have successfully pushed to have resistance groups at the front of the Pride Parade. Normally, NYC’s parade consists more of comedy and entertainment performers, so this is a big change. And in Los Angeles, the Pride Parade has been completely replaced by a protest march. But in other cities, activists are protesting within the traditional Pride events being held. This is what NJNP plans to do here in DC, feeling that their concerns have not been heard by the Capital Pride organizers.
I have linked to a couple of the NJNP events this week for anyone who wants to participate in making Capital Pride a more inclusive space. The organizers of Capital Pride have made some small changes based on input from NJNP and others: “for example, transgender and queer youth will be leading the parade. Some in the leadership say the group plans to develop standards for corporate sponsors and address other concerns before next year’s Pride.” I’m not telling anyone to boycott pride, and I’d encourage you to do your research on the group and what its plans are. Given who we have in the White House and elsewhere, this is an important Pride and I wouldn’t fault anyone for wanting to celebrate with fellow members of the queer community. But always be mindful of those who we may be leaving out.
That’s all for this week folks. See you next time!
In solidarity,
JM
You can reply to this newsletter or email me at theforerunnerletter@gmail.com with your thoughts, criticisms, or ideas. Check out my Medium page if you’d prefer a blogged version of this newsletter or would like to read any of my previous issues. Last week’s letter was on Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie.
Follow me on Twitter at @speaknojessica. And get your friends to subscribe to The ForeRunner at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner because where else will you get someone randomly assigning the personalities of Star Trek characters to DC’s elected officials? Who will your Councilmember be? The suspense is killing you I’m sure.
Jessica, the writer, has written for Gender Avenger and been a speaker for Trybe. She is the DC state captain for the national activist group Solidarity Sundays (solidaritysundays.org, look for the NE DC/Brookland group) which meets once a month to take progressive political action. She developed this newsletter in response to the 2016 election.
