D.C. mayoral candidate Janice Lewis George (D) is one of only four candidates to receive the highest rating score of +10 from GLAA DC heading into the city’s June 16 primary election.
GLAA, officially known as the Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance of Washington, has been rating candidates for public office in Washington, D.C., since the 1970s. The committee evaluated 18 of the 36 candidates on this year’s primary ballot for mayor, D.C. Council and D.C. attorney general, based on a policy of evaluating only candidates who responded to the GLAA survey, which asked about their positions on a wide range of issues, most of which were not LGBTQ-specific.
According to GLAA, candidates who did not respond to the survey and were not evaluated include Democratic mayoral candidate Kenya McDuffie, who political observers consider to be one of two potential mayoral candidates running in the Democratic primary, along with Louis George.
GLAA President Benjamin Brooks said McDuffie’s campaign contacted GLAA when it announced its candidate evaluations and learned McDuffie was not evaluated because McDuffie’s questionnaire was not received. Brooks said campaign workers initially did not believe they had received the survey, but said they noticed it in the spam folder of their campaign email account this week.
Brooks told the Washington Blade that he told campaign workers it was too late for GLAA to release an evaluation of McDuffie because the deadline for filing all candidates had passed. However, he said GLAA will allow McDuffie to submit a completed questionnaire and will post it on its website along with the survey responses of other candidates who have submitted it to GLAA.
In a statement to the Blade, McDuffie’s campaign said the GLAA survey “was placed in a spam folder associated with the campaign’s email address and was never viewed by the campaign.”
“McDuffie, who is Kenyan, is proud of his long history of working with D.C.’s LGBTQ+ community,” the statement said. “He has responded to the GLAA survey in every election since his first campaign and in 2022 received one of the top two ratings among candidates for two seats at large in Congress in that election cycle.”
“Kenya is committed to continuing to fight for equality, dignity, safety and opportunity for LGBTQ+ residents in all eight districts, and our campaign welcomes the opportunity to continue to engage with GLAA and the LGBTQ+ community throughout this campaign.”
Louis George and McDuffie, each with a long history of support for the LGBTQ community, are among a total of eight candidates (seven Democrats and one state Green Party candidate) running for mayor on the June 16 primary ballot. In addition to Louis George, there were only two other mayoral candidates evaluated by GLAA. Rini Sampath, a Democrat who identifies as queer, received a +6.5 rating, and fellow Democrat Ernest E. Johnson received a +4.5 rating.
In the GLAA rating system, candidate ratings range from +10 for the highest score to -10 for the lowest score. In the June 16 primary evaluation, the lowest score was +4.5. GLAA said in a statement that each of the 18 candidates it evaluated expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues in their survey responses, indicating that the overall evaluation score primarily reflected the candidates’ positions on non-LGBTQ-specific issues.
Three other candidates with +10 GLAA ratings are each running for the District 1 DC Council seat as a Democrat. Among them is gay candidate Miguel Trindade de la Mo. Aparna Raj identifies as bisexual. and LGBTQ ally Rashida Brown. The only other District 1 candidate GLAA rated was LGBTQ ally Terry Lynch, who received a +5.5 rating.
D.C. 5th Ward City Councilman Zachary Parker, the only gay council member facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, received a +7 rating from GLAA. Two challengers did not return questionnaires and were therefore not evaluated.
In a statement to the Washington Blade, GLAA said of the candidates it evaluated, “all candidates demonstrated agreement on seven of our 10 priorities.” “Complete agreement on core issues shows that no matter who is elected to the City Council or the Mayor, we should expect them to hold their elected officials accountable to the goals of protecting local autonomy, resisting federal overreach, advancing transgender health care rights, and ending chronic homelessness in our districts,” the statement said.
“While the candidates agree on the fundamentals, they stand out for the depth and creativity of their responses and their record on the issues,” the statement said, adding that the candidates’ complete survey responses and ratings can be accessed on the GLAA website. glaa.org.
As in past election years, GLAA does not evaluate candidates running for D.C. Congressional seats or so-called “shadow” U.S. House and U.S. Senate seats.
With the exception of one question about transgender rights, none of the other nine of the 10 survey questions are LGBTQ-specific. But most of the questions mentioned how LGBTQ people are affected by the issues being raised, including affordable housing, federal intrusion into D.C.’s home rule rules, and access to health care and public benefits for low-income people.
One question asks candidates whether they support the decriminalization of sex work in D.C. between consenting adults, which GLAA supports. Louis George is one of the candidates who has announced that he does not support decriminalizing sex work at this time. Two other mayoral candidates evaluated by GLAA, Sampath and Johnson, said they support decriminalizing sex work.
In the Washington, D.C. attorney general race, GLAA gave only one of the three candidates, Republican challenger Manuel Rivera, a +4.5 rating. Incumbent Democrat Brian Schwalb and Democratic challenger JP Simkovic were not evaluated because they did not return their questionnaires.
D.C. Council President Phil Mendelson (D), who is running unopposed in the primary, received a +6.5 rating. 6th District Councilman Charles Allen, a longtime LGBTQ ally who faced three Democratic challengers in the primary, received a +6.5 rating.
GLAA evaluated two of the three independent candidates vying for the seat in a special election to fill the D.C. Council at-large seat vacated by the resignation of then-Independent City Councilman McDuffie, allowing him to run for mayor as a Democrat. Elissa Silverman received a +5.75 rating and Doni Crawford received a +6.5 rating.
Finally, in the At-Large DC Council race, GLAA released ratings for five of the 11 candidates running in the primary, all Democrats. Oye Owolewa received a +9. Lisa Raymond, +7.5; Dwight Davis, +6.5; Deanna NM Forester, +6; and Fred Hill, +6.6.
A complete list of GLAA-rated candidates and their detailed survey responses can be accessed at: glaa.org.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
