Ward 7 has always been Vincent C. Gray’s home turf.
When Gray wanted a way back into District politics, Ward 7′s voters gave it to him, electing him over then-incumbent Council member Yvette M. Alexander with more than 60 percent of the vote.
Despite that lengthy history, Gray is facings five challengers in the June 2 Democratic primary.
Voters, these challengers claim, are ready for a change. They say Ward 7′s residents are tired of lagging behind much of the city, their neighborhoods remaining starved for commercial development and plagued by crime while those in the western half of the city have prospered for years. They argue Gray hasn’t fixed the problems fast enough.
Gray, 77, said he suspects some of the candidates who are decades younger than he is are aiming more at getting name recognition for future races than actually unseating him. He dismisses the challengers as lacking the chops to be on the council and says he’s not finished representing the ward. “I’m enjoying what I’m doing,” he said. “I love public service.”
He touts his accomplishments in office, including a long-sought deal to build a hospital east of the Anacostia. “I think we have done with substantial fidelity, with real commitment, those things we said we were going to do,” he said of himself and his council staff.
Even in pandemic conditions that have ruled out traditional door-to-door campaigning, the challengers — two Advisory Neighborhood Commission elected representatives, two military veterans and one waitress — have attempted to make themselves known. Yard signs dot the neighborhoods. Volunteers phone bank from their own homes.
All six candidates have participated in live-streamed, remote debates, with all the hiccups that virtual meetings entail: Gray had to be reminded by the moderator of an ACLU-sponsored forum on criminal justice to unmute himself almost every time he started talking. Retired military officer James Jennings participated in one debate from inside a car and another while walking outdoors.
Anthony Lorenzo Green, a 34-year-old ANC representative who refers to himself as a “social justice warrior,” has been the most pointed in his criticisms of Gray during these debates.
While Gray has advocated for increasing the city’s police force, Green said Ward 7 would be better served by fewer officers. “We have to get beyond the basic narrative of what we view as safety, which we always hear is even more police or more jails and cages,” Green said during the ACLU forum.
When the moderator asked about whether police should be required by law to make public the names of officers who shoot civilians, Gray demurred. “I don’t know if just disclosing the name of the officer is going to serve a constructive purpose,” he said. Green flashed back: “Mothers deserve to know the names of individuals that killed their sons, period. There should be no way we’re dancing around this.” Candidate Rebecca Morris chimed in to say a council member should have more understanding of people who interact with the criminal justice system, which she said she has gained by seeing family members and co-workers in the restaurant industry incarcerated.
Green testified before the D.C. Council supporting a measure to raise wages for tipped workers, which won approval of voters in a ballot initiative but was overturned by the council. In an interview, he said Gray’s vote to overturn the wage hike was disillusioning: “My council member chose to throw out our votes. That was insulting. It was a violation of our Democratic values."
Arnold Smith, a representative who serves on ANC 7C with Green, said he’s backing Green for his passionate stances. “I like a lot of his ideas. He’s quite progressive,” Smith said. “He can be a bit cantankerous, which is an understatement. But he really does care about community issues.”
While Gray has racked up many of the endorsements in the race, Green was endorsed by the Washington Teachers’ Union, who have long fought with Gray over school reform, and unions representing health care workers, transit workers and nonprofit employees. The liberal group Jews United for Justice did not make an endorsement in the race, saying it couldn’t choose between Gray and Green.
Veda Rasheed, the other ANC representative on the ballot, is running a campaign of similar dissatisfaction with Gray’s record, but with less of a left-wing flavor than Green’s. A Catholic University-educated lawyer who formerly worked in District Attorney General Karl A. Racine’s office, she pitched herself at the ACLU debate: “One of the things I know is the law and how it works … I’m able to go in there on day one and get the job done.”
Like Green, Rasheed, 35, says she can offer better constituent services in the neighborhood and says Gray has not sufficiently delivered on his goals. “When we talk about experience, that experience is not making the ward better,” she said in an interview. “For too long, we’ve been getting false promises, false hope.”
Former Bowser administration appointee Josh Lopez lives in the district Rasheed represents as an ANC member and is volunteering for her campaign. “Vince, he’s been around for a long time,” Lopez said. “He was able to come back in, but folks are pretty disappointed with the lack of progress in the ward. … You see cranes all over the city. You see new restaurants, new grocery stores. And you look at Ward 7, and we have an abundance of empty lots. There’s a potential to do so much, but there’s been weak leadership at the top.”
Even some who agree Gray has left something to be desired are nervous about any suggestion of voting him out, though.
Delia Houseal, who chairs ANC 7E — which Rasheed is a member of — said she thinks there is no way Rasheed is prepared for the council. Although she is frustrated Gray has not made enough progress, in her opinion, on reducing crime or on securing more grocery stores, she considers Gray “the safest choice.”
“Aside from council member Gray, a lot of the candidates don’t have a lot of experience in policy and don’t have a track record in building relationships,” she said. She said she is impressed by Green and by Kelvin Brown, a former member of the military who once ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign for an ANC seat. But she worries the ward needs someone with extensive knowledge of how to work within the Wilson building — and that’s something she suspects only the former mayor can deliver.