Defeat DC's Default Democratic Dictator of Deliberate Dysfunction, Muriel Bowser, By Voting for Jeremiah Stanback in June!!!

Defeat DC's Default Democratic Dictator of Deliberate Dysfunction, Muriel Bowser

By Voting for Jeremiah Stanback in June!!!

Since Washington, DC won "Home Rule" in 1973, every mayor has been a Democrat -- making the mid-term Democratic Primary our de facto mayoral election. Mayor Muriel Bowser was elected with 42,045 votes in the April 2014 primary -- when the city had 450,000 registered voters. I made both of these points in my PREVIOUS BLOG POST about the possibility of long-shot candidate Jeremiah Stanback defeating Ms. Bowser in the June primary -- much to her chagrin, hopefully. It's also worth noting that, while she went on to win the general election with nearly 20% of the vote, she still fell short of Donald Trump's 31.5% of the nation's 200 million voters. Though less popular (percentage-wise) than the worst president in the nation's history, it looks as though the incumbent might go into the Juneteenth primary without any "serious" challengers; and, she could conceivably win a second term after getting only 20,000 votes (4.5% of the electorate) in the primary. I'd say that this means that the capital of the nation that has been "exporting democracy to various parts of the globe" now has a "default democratic dictatorship" -- a system wherein the failure of citizens to vote causes the office of the chief execute to default to a candidate who wins with an extremely small percentage (less than 30%) of the voting base. (BTW, we don't have run-off elections. Voters just run off and give the default democratic dictator full run of the house.)

Having moved to DC in 2005, I'm proud to say that no incumbent mayor has won re-election since my arrival (06, '10 or '14) -- a pattern I hope persists through this November. I can't prove causation; but, I CAN prove coincidence and use this coincidence as a bellwether of things to come in November 2018. It's more than likely that Ms. Bowser is already keenly aware of these truths. She probably fears that DC voters might choose someone else in the Democratic primary due, at least in part, to my critiques of the current administration. Maybe she fears that I'll advise Mr. Stanback to campaign near social service offices where he can win the votes of the vast majority of DC's 145,000 food stamp recipients -- a fear that will soon be fully justified. Being defeated in June by a long-shot candidate who doubles as a political newbie would probably be so terribly embarrassing to Bowser that she would forgo running as an independent in the 2018 general election (or showing her face anywhere in DC from that day forward). This is the worst-case scenario that I'd have to assume she's smarting over, as she imagines how she might nullify the effects of my advocacy and of other people's efforts to remove her, so as to become the first incumbent mayor to be re-elected since 2002. Meanwhile, I'm in my corner of the square circle doing my Ali dance, trying to "sting like a bee" and wondering if the pattern of all incumbent mayors losing their re-election bids during my time in DC will persist. But, while I made no notable effort to ensure that previous mayors were unseated, it seems that I may need to make a deliberate effort to unseat a mayor whom I've developed a particular dislike for.

It's on!!!

Though it may come as a surprise to you, most of my arguments for voting for Jeremiah Stanback in the primary have nothing to do with the failures of Ms. Bowser and everything to do with the morally delinquent system of governance that she joined as councilwoman and inherited as mayor and whose culture she had no intention of ever changing -- for the better, anyway. Mayor Bowser's notable failures include a failure of character that allowed her to put homeless children and their parents in danger in order to obtain campaign donations from developers and her likely failure to have decreased the city's homeless population to 4,4000 by this past January 2018 -- which would have put the city on par to end homelessness by the fall of 2020, as per the public's understanding of her five-year plan. I doubt it's even been brought down to 6,400 this year. The results of this year's count will be published between May 10th and 15th and appear in the Washington Post. See the numbers for 2001 through 2017 HERE even now. (Also take notice of how the annual reports go from being 17 pages long to being 125 pages long, while the numbers of homeless people in 2016 and 2017 are each very close to the numbers from 2001 and 2002, respectively.)

As the old adage goes: "Don't hate the player; hate the game". Muriel Bowser is just one boxer in the dirty game of politics -- trying not to let a homeless man send her the way of Duk-Koo Kim. The local politics in this city have been dirty for at least 20 years; but, they've been particularly dirty since my arrival -- no thanks to me. "Mayor for Life" Marion Barry returned for his fourth and final term as the city's chief executive in January 1995 (having also been elected for terms spanning from 1979 to 1991). He inherited the fiscal mess left by Mayor Sharon Pratt-Kelly, tried to clean it up and eventually sought help from Congress which appointed a federal control board that took DC Government into receivership for 10 years in what can best be described as being like the draconian "structural adjustments" which the IMF imposes on struggling nations or the imposition by the Michigan governor of  "emergency managers" in Detroit -- or both.

It would seem that Washington, DC never fully recovered from the downward spiral which began with Mayor Pratt-Kelly's irresponsible fiscal policies and which led to her successor crying for help. The fiscal vultures began circling above a city that was dying financially and every so often one would descend on a carcass, always hoping that they hadn't descended too soon -- a phenomenon can lead to the vulture's death.

Barry was followed by Tony Williams from 1999 to 2007. After adopting the 10-year plan to end homelessness in September 2004, Williams went on to sign into law in 2006 legislation that eliminated safeguards that prevented rents from skyrocketing. With me having only begun to advocate in June 2006, my knowledge of the details around legislative efforts that year are a bit fuzzy. However, I do vaguely recall having attended a council hearing where more seasoned advocates explained that they were opposing legislation that would allow rents to go through the roof.

I would learn in 2016 of yet another administrative process that took place in 2006 and which has done immeasurable harm to the rights and abilities of DC denizens to continue to live in the place that many have called "home" since birth and have lived in for 10, 20, 30 years or longer. It's called the "Comprehensive Plan", though a more fitting name might be the "Comprehensive Scam" or the "Incomprehensible Plan". The current Comprehensive Plan is an 800-page document which was adopted by the DC Council in 2006 and left for incoming mayor Adrian Fenty's administration to implement through the zoning commission beginning in 2007. It guides development in the city for 20 years, goes through two amendment cycles during that score of years and will be replaced with an altogether new plan in 2026 (effective 2027). This cicada-like legislation remains underground and relatively unknown for several years, even as the zoning commission uses it to make decisions as to where, how and to what degree developers may change the landscape and skyline of DC. Despite the Comprehensive Plan's major contributions to gentrification, those who are most directly impacted by it know nothing of its existence or have difficulty understanding the Legal-ish and government double speak within its many sleep-inducing pages.

The second amendment cycle began in the fall of 2016 and will conclude by this June. For her part, Mayor Muriel Bowser is suggesting amendments that will weaken this document such that it gives developers more latitude to gentrify low-income residents out of the city. her administration is suggesting to the DC Council changes to some of the plan's vocabulary around a developer's requirement to provide "affordable" housing -- changing words like "must" or "shall" to "may" or "should". Ms. Bowser aims to make other language around tenants' rights more ambiguous, and thus, more difficult to enforce. She is playing on her constituents' ignorance of the law and the legislative process. Her Office of Planning has taken steps to avoid doing sufficient outreach to the community and might end up reluctantly doing a bare minimum of pro forma follow-up outreach that does more to confuse the citizens than it does to inform them or to engage them in meaningful ways. As a fellow homeless advocate told me in 2014, "With Muriel Bowser, we'll get 'gentrification on steroids'". Despite him not being intellectually gifted, his statement was spot-on.

In addition to Muriel Bowser's current attempts to make the Comprehensive Plan less enforceable and more difficult to understand, she has presented her plan around homelessness in such a way that the average citizen was deceived into believing that all long-term DC homelessness would be eliminated by the fall of 2020 -- such that no one will remain homeless for more than 90 days thereafter. Those advocates who devote 20 or more hours per week to ending homelessness understand the government jargon enough to see through the smoke screen. However, DC has a mayor who is using low voter turnout and a widespread disinterest in local politics to have her way with the machine of DC Government. She has done more to bring about deliberate dysfunction of all systems that were designed to end homelessness or create and preserve affordable housing than I can adequately address in a single blog post. But, to be fair, Ms. Bowser is part of a process that began in the late 90's.

So, there are more than a few reasons to vote the incumbent out. Some have to do with her personal failings as mayor and others have to do with her being part of the establishment -- the latter reason beginning to explain why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. But, if the Trump presidency hasn't taught us anything else, it should have taught us that you can't -- like a Republican -- just be against something. You also have to be for something else. Many people merely voting against Bowser could cause those votes to be split six different ways in a growing field of candidates that rivals that of the 2016 presidential campaign season; and, we could end up with Bowser winning a second term with only 10,000 votes out of a possible 380,000 in the Democratic primary or 450,000 in the general election. That said, the lion's share of the votes against the incumbent in the primary would have to go to one candidate -- preferably the candidate of my choice who is Jeremiah Stanback. The general election is another story. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it some time after the June 19th primary.

It's also important to bust that myth that people can somehow "vote with their feet". If that were possible, there's a good chance that we wouldn't have Trump as president. He got 62.9 million votes to Hillary's 65.8 million. Eight million voted third party or independent and another 63 million "voted with their feet" by staying home. This last group essentially voted for Trump by not going to the polls. People never truly 'vote with their feet" unless they are like my brother Paul "Jon" Sheptock who was born with no arms. Even if you feel as though you have "no real options", then your only true option is to vote for the least of the available evils (i.e. candidates, however many there may be). Then again, you could make a point by writing in Mickey Mouse or Captain Caveman or by voting for a real candidate who most people don't think stands a chance at winning -- bearing in mind that Donald Trump, Sr. is not currently available.

Despite the apparent difficulties that the national GOP has had reining in or voting out POTUS 45, the local political landscape would enable voters to recall an incompetent or corrupt politician more easily and would trigger a special election within a matter of months thereafter. The candidates in the resulting special election would be left with the strong impression that their voting base is tired of the crooked politics, though it's not clear what the candidates would do to assure voters that these concerns will be adequately addressed. So, let's rid ourselves of the myth that anyone with arms can "vote with their feet" and instead settle on a singular non-establishment candidate for the Democratic primary -- if only to make a point about the state of politics. In closing, I hope that candidate is Jeremiah Stanback.

Defeat DC's Default Democratic Dictator of Deliberate Dysfunction, Muriel Bowser

By Voting for Jeremiah Stanback in June!!!