Issues

A Vision for the Party
The DC Democratic State Committee has so much potential.  We are running because we know that, with our skills, energy, and experience, we can transform the DC Democratic State Committee into a grassroots-mobilizing force for change within our city and a powerful force to elect Democrats nationwide.  We want to make the DC Democratic State Committee a more transparent, participatory, and issues-based organization that directly addresses key concerns of DC residents and works to elect Democrats at every level.

Advancing the Blue Wave
In a one-party town like DC, we want to refocus the DC Democratic Party on winning elections outside of DC. We’re experienced in helping elect Democrats, inside and outside DC. In 2017, we worked hard in Virginia, helping elect six new candidates to the Virginia House of Delegates. We hosted fundraisers, knocked on doors, phonebanked, and wrote postcards. It takes serious, organized efforts to win elections. And we know because we’ve done it.

After our groundbreaking work in Virginia in 2017, we have a model for our city and our country: harness the talents and resources of heavily Democratic areas and use them to help our friends and neighbors elect Democrats in GOP-controlled districts to end GOP gerrymandering and to retake Congress. It’s a simple plan that works, but it’s one that requires effort – effort we’ve shown and effort we will continue to put forth.

Fix the Affordable Housing Crisis
We have an affordable housing crisis in Washington.  Rapidly rising rents are pushing many low-income and fixed-income residents out of the District.  As our city’s population moves toward 1 million people, we must make sure that there is enough low-income housing and workforce housing for all.  The District is not the only city facing an affordable housing crisis, but our needs are acute.  The DC Democratic State Committee must serve as policy clearinghouse, finding ideas that work elsewhere, analyzing whether they will work in the District, and then, most importantly, pushing these ideas to the Mayor and to the Council.  All four of us on the Ward 3 Blue Wave slate have worked to ensure that there is fair and equitable housing for all.  We are committed to holding our elected leaders to their promises while finding and supporting affordable housing solutions that work.

Education Outcomes Matter
Just as the DC Democratic State Committee must serve as an affordable housing policy clearinghouse, so to must it be an incubator of innovative ideas to ensure that our students are receiving the best education our tax dollars can buy.  This issue is just too important for our party leaders to sit on the sidelines.

Successful schools need to be supported to maintain their high quality and failing schools need dramatic support in order to improve.  Every school needs engaging classes in social studies, the arts, foreign language, technology training, and civic education as well as those that successfully teach competence in reading, writing and numeracy.  We can reach these goals through budgetary commitment and transparency, strategies driven by independent research and data, innovation, creativity, and collaboration across DC.

Hugh as a former Wilson PTA President, Shelley with 38 years of experience as a teacher at the college level, Elizabeth as a mother of young children entering the DC school system and Beau as a mentor and former volunteer tutor have the insight, experience, and motivation to make valuable contributions in the effort to improve our DC public schools.

Grassroots Organizing
The Ward 3 Blue Wave slate will work to make the DC Democratic State Committee more effective as a vehicle to build bridges of collaboration among DC’s eight wards.  Together, we have the organizational skills and leadership abilities to mobilize Ward 3 residents, grassroots organizations, and DC volunteers.  As an initial focus, we commit to initiate District-wide civic involvement opportunities in all eight wards to partner with local elementary schools to tutor children that need to improve in reading or math.

We are experienced grassroots organizers and activists.  Beau and Elizabeth co-founded Flip Virginia, a District-wide coalition of over 85 grassroots organizations working to elect Democrats in Virginia in 2017.  Shelley received the Paula Nickens activist award of the DC Democratic Party for her organizing and activism.  Hugh brought parents and school leaders from all over DC to forge educational policy as President of the District-wide Congress of PTAs.

Vote for the Ward 3 Blue Wave so we can bring our energy, our focus, and our commitment to the DC Democratic State Committee!