The smart money in D.C. politics is that Initiative 83 will pass handily when it heads to voters on Nov. 5. But a victory on election day is only half the battle.
Organizers could only put the electoral reform measure on the ballot by getting a bit creative, writing the initiative in such a way that it doesn’t compel the District to spend the money needed to actually implement its changes. Otherwise, D.C. law would bar I-83 from the ballot. So in that way, it’s technically just an advisory of sorts. The real decision lies with Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council as they set the District’s budget. I-83’s recommended reforms—ranked choice voting in local elections and open party primaries to independent voters—will almost certainly require some funding.
That represents a serious challenge for I-83 supporters, considering that Bowser and a decent chunk of the Council are vocally opposed to the initiative’s changes. Other lawmakers are tentatively supportive, but few are going out on a limb to trumpet its benefits before voters head to the polls. Even the most progressive members have relationships to protect within the city’s Democratic establishment, which has spent years fighting against I-83.
So that means organizers on both sides of the debate have to play a double game, simultaneously making their case to the public while also lobbying the denizens of the Wilson Building. Supporters and opponents alike tell Loose Lips they’ve spent the past few months trying to persuade councilmembers on these points if the initiative passes. Considering how well these issues poll and how many signatures I-83’s backers gathered to put the matter on the ballot, it’s entirely possible that this bit of inside baseball will have a bigger impact on the initiative’s future than next month’s vote.
“It will be on the ballot, but that’s not the final act of it,” says Bob King, a longtime Ward 5 Democratic activist who has been agitating against I-83. “It has to have a Council appropriation, and it will not have it, at this point. Stay tuned for that.”
King has good reason to be confident, considering that the person who proposes the budget and the person who has the biggest role in editing it—Bowser and Council Chair Phil Mendelson, respectively—are in his corner. And At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds, who has emerged as perhaps the Council’s foremost critic of I-83, controls the committee overseeing elections in the city, where funding for this reform would likely originate.
But Mendelson has generally shown a willingness to listen to a consensus from his colleagues even when he disagrees, so he could defer if a strong enough majority urges him to fund I-83’s changes. Initial estimates from Chief Financial Officer Glen Lee suggest it should only cost about $2.7 million over the next four years to implement, hardly an impossible amount to find in the budget. (“I don’t deal with hypotheticals,” Mendo says when LL pressed him on this point, “but I don’t support the initiative.”)
Pro-83 organizers are optimistic that they’ll have a decent chunk of the 13-member Council on their side, but LL’s survey of the body suggests that they have some persuading to do. Only two councilmembers told LL directly they plan to vote for I-83 and would support its funding: Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin and At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson. Three others—Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker, and At-Large Councilmember Robert White—say they have serious concerns about I-83, but they’d respect the will of the voters.
The remaining six lawmakers who will be in office next year didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did Bowser’s spokespeople. LL also reached out to Wendell Felder, who is set to step in for Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray so long as he beats his token Republican opposition in the general, but he also didn’t reply.
“My sense is a lot of them are waiting to see what the vote is going to be,” says Lisa Rice, one of the leading organizers behind I-83 and an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 7. “So it’s up to us to work really hard and deliver a big, double-digit win. And then the members of the Council can feel that a majority of their constituents want this change.”
It’s not inconceivable that a sizable enough margin of victory could push some lawmakers on the fence into the initiative’s camp. I-83 supporters note that several other councilmembers—Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen—joined Henderson to co-introduce her ranked choice voting bill three years ago, so they’re plainly open to this idea. Loyal Democrats, however, might not be eager to alienate the local party as it fights to keep the initiative off the ballot by speaking out in favor of it publicly.
Squint hard enough, and you can see an eight-member, pro-83 majority forming. Bonds and Mendelson are likely firm no votes, but the other members are more up in the air. Felder told the Washington Post in a candidate questionnaire that he opposes the initiative, not exactly surprising given his ties to the party infrastructure as chair of the Ward 7 Democrats. At-Large Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie has similar establishment connections, but he is technically a registered independent after switching over to run in the 2022 at-large race in the wake of his failed attorney general bid. Maybe he wouldn’t mind the ability to vote in the Democratic primary once again? Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White is, as ever, a true wild card, especially because he may not even be on the Council by the time it takes up the matter.
Undeniably, the shadow of Initiative 77 lingers over this entire debate. The Council memorably voted to overturn the elimination of the tipped minimum wage in 2018, only to see that decision blow up in their faces after voters passed the change by an even wider margin in 2022. Lewis George based much of her successful 2020 campaign against ex-Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd on his decision to overturn the will of the voters, and politicos haven’t forgotten having to answer angry questions from constituents about the repeal. (Notably, both Allen and Nadeau voted against it.)
“I do think it would be hard to justify, with Washingtonians clearly saying they support a ballot measure and us not honoring that,” Parker says.
But LL does not discount just how uncomfortable some councilmembers may prove to be with the portion of the initiative that opens party primaries to independent voters. Lewis George cited the issue in explaining why she personally plans to vote against I-83, and this is hardly an unusual stance among D.C. Democrats. Many favor ranked choice voting, but they resent being asked to open their primaries to more conservative voters.
There’s nothing stopping people with these beliefs from joining the party and voting as Democrats under the current system—consider that law-and-order Ward 3 State Board of Education Rep. Eric Goulet is just as much of a Democrat as the socialist-endorsed Lewis George is—but the perception has nonetheless been a difficult one for those with strong ties to the party to shake.
“It’s being marketed as this great innovation and reform of ranked choice voting, but they tacked onto it the open primaries and I do not think that Democrats support open primaries,” Mendelson says. “I think that the average Democratic voter feels strongly about being a Democratic voter, and they do not want open primaries where Republicans can vote.”
Parker adds that “my sense is people are voting for ranked choice voting, and the open primaries bit has kind of been tucked in there and a lot of people aren’t as aware of it,” so the Council could consider creative options to honor the will of the voters without implementing the entire initiative all at once. Maybe that looks like “an education and pilot program,” he suggests, or “bills that break the two ballot measures apart.”
“If the people voted for it, we should endeavor to see how we can make it happen here in the District,” Parker says. “But that could look many different ways.”
The concerns about voter education that Parker cited are certainly real. The claims that older Black voters east of the Anacostia are more likely to be confused by ranked choice voting have generally been used by opponents of I-83 as a cudgel to obscure their political motives for opposing it. But it’s not a wholly illegitimate worry.
“In every at-large election, a near majority of voters do not use their second votes,” Robert White wrote in a statement to LL. “And in [New York City], which is ahead of D.C. in ranked choice voting, [data] shows that the people who don’t use all of their votes are concentrated in lower income communities. So, there is a real equity issue that could impact communities of color. Like many others, I want to see campaigns run on good ideas and decency rather than lies and attacks. I-83 could help with this but would create a real equity issue that I can’t ignore.”
The D.C. Court of Appeals could always deliver a legal bailout to the Council and save it from having to wrestle with these decisions. In a bit of a surprise move, the court allowed the D.C. Democratic Party’s case against the initiative to move ahead, though it likely won’t render a decision until well after election day. Or the initiative could simply fail to pass. Mendelson, for one, thinks voters will resent that it’s backed by “organizers bankrolled by out-of-state interests.”
“This is not a homegrown initiative,” he adds, citing I-83’s hefty support from the electoral reform nonprofit FairVote and the crunchy soap company Dr. Bronner’s, which has repeatedly worked with initiative maven Adam Eidinger on past ballot measures. By LL’s count, the two organizations contributed $419,000 of the $454,000 the I-83 committee reported raising in its most recent financial report filed July 31. “I’m trying to use that soap up as fast as I can,” the Council chair quips.
But these strike Rice as weak arguments. She argues that both entities are well-known players in D.C. politics—FairVote is based in Silver Spring, after all—and she resents having the credentials of D.C. natives like herself or fellow organizer Phil Pannell questioned. LL would also note that these groups have little to gain monetarily from supporting this cause, as opposed to the big, out-of-town businesses that tend to attract such complaints from organizers.
“It’s a good talking point, but it’s not true,” Rice says. “There are people who are elected by a sliver of a sliver of a base, and they will do whatever their base wants and not listen to the larger majority. There’s nothing we can do about that. But that’s why it’s up to us to work really, really, really, really hard and get this passed.”