The dust hadn’t even settled over D.C. Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George’s victory and the national blue wave when local Democrats’ attention shifted to a new battle: a vacant D.C. Council seat.
It was the kind of political drama that could, literally, only happen in D.C. — home to one of America’s youngest big-city governments and a unique charter that didn’t anticipate the situation unfolding after Election Day.
In a matter of days, a resignation on the D.C. Council set off a political power struggle as council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) switched her party to Democrat to claim it and the Democratic Party made an “emergency” appointment to fill the vacancy to block her. All the while, D.C. officials scratched their heads about who was in the right given they were in untested territory.
In the end, the party won. A D.C. Democratic Party appointee, Jamal Holtz, the president of D.C. Young Democrats, is preparing to be temporarily sworn in to the council seat Monday after Henderson abandoned her plan.
The rancor stemmed from a provision in the city’s home rule charter that limits how many Democrats can serve on the council. Local leaders say the fight underscores a need to amend the charter to avoid such a legal mess in the future.
“The Home Rule Act is not as clear as it needs to be,” said Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who agreed to swear Holtz in after days of uncertainty over the law. “The scenario we’re going through is one that was not easily contemplated and has never occurred before.”
Henderson said she briefly considered a legal challenge, but her attorney advised her it could drag on for months and delay the special election for the seat.
“This is not the path I want to take,” she said in a statement.
She called for Congress, which retains authority over D.C. under the Constitution, to amend the Home Rule Act to lift the party restrictions.
“As Tuesday’s historic election showed, no political party has ownership over any seat,” she said. “With incoming Democratic majorities in Congress, lawmakers should repeal the outdated caps on the District’s representation. The people should have the right to decide.”
The sequence of events offer a crash course in the uniqueness of D.C.’s local government.
The drama began to unfold when former council member Robert C. White Jr. (D) — who was just elected as D.C.’s nonvoting House delegate — resigned from the D.C. Council on Monday. He had been informed by the D.C. Attorney General’s Office that a 1970 federal law meant he would have to resign before Election Day or else risk being ineligible to go to Congress. The law said the delegate could not hold paid public office “on the date of his election.”
His resignation created a vacancy for the Democratic at-large seat — leading to the next kerfuffle.
Under the Home Rule Act, only three at-large seats can go to Democrats and two others must be reserved for members of a nonmajority party, or independents. When a Democratic at-large member resigns, as White did, the law calls for the D.C. Democratic State Committee to appoint a replacement.
But that process was called into question when Henderson, an independent elected in 2020, immediately switched her party affiliation to Democrat on Tuesday. In effect, she snagged the available Democratic seat before the Democratic Party could pick a replacement.
Party leaders were furious. They had framed her move as “betrayal” and as an “attack” on D.C.’s home rule itself.
Henderson, a former staffer for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), said she merely saw an opportunity at a critical juncture to return to the party she had once belonged to. The move could allow her to eventually seek higher office, such as council chair, and to be part of conversations about the future of the Democratic Party ahead of a consequential presidential election, she said.
“Joining a political party is not an attack on home rule,” she said in an interview this week. She added: “As we head into 2028 … who is at the table around shaping the future of how we put this country back together again after the Trump administration, I’d like to be a part of those conversations.”
The swiftness of Henderson’s move triggered the D.C. Democratic State Committee to move with similar speed, using its “emergency authority” to appoint Holtz, a selection it announced Thursday night. Holtz, 28, a D.C. statehood advocate, would be the first Gen Z council member. But the party said he is only intended as a placeholder to block Henderson.
“Voters elected Robert White as a Democrat; Democrats deserve to select his replacement,” the party said in a statement. “The D.C. Democratic Party will not stand idly by while politicians use deceptive shell games to take away their choice. We will use the full force of the law and our bylaws to protect their rights.”
Philip Pannell, a D.C. Democratic national committeeman, said the dustup revealed the need for D.C. statehood — and also the facade of the Home Rule Act’s cap on Democrats serving in at-large seats. The provision was initially designed to provide some balance on the D.C. Council in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Some Republicans and Statehood Party members have in the past held the seat, but a Republican hasn’t served on the council in over a decade.
Over the years, Pannell said, lots of Democrats have essentially served as independents-in-name-only just to comply with the rule. Kenyan R. McDuffie, who resigned from the council in January and switched from independent to Democrat to run for mayor, is another recent example.
“People pretty much used it to engage in what I consider a decades-long political drag show in terms of changing party affiliations,” he said. Party affiliation in this town isn’t so serious anymore because of that, he said.
But he said he simply saw Henderson as politically ambitious, not as a villain.
“I have the highest regard for Christina Henderson,” he said.
He too said it was time to change the law.
The party agreed. Chioma Iwuoha, party chairwoman, said in a statement Friday night that the week’s events “exposed two gaps in the law,” including the cap on majority-party members and the 1970 provision that initially required White to resign before his election, rather than before he is sworn in January.
Mendelson said he plans to work with White in Congress on those changes; because the 1970 law involves qualifications for a federal office, Mendelson said he was advised that only Congress, not the council, can change the criteria.
White, who wasn’t immediately available to comment Friday, had suggested a similar change before leaving the council.
The saga, however, is not over. The D.C. Democratic State Committee may cause yet more confusion with the seat in the ensuing weeks. With Holtz as a placeholder, Iwuoha said the party plans to continue reviewing applications from people across the city who are interested in temporarily serving in the at-large role until a special election can be held next year. This could create yet another untested situation in which, if the party wants to pick someone else, Holtz would have to agree to resign.
The appointment is temporary until a special election for White’s seat can be held next spring, likely at the same time as the Ward 4 council vacancy created by Lewis George’s election as mayor.
Asked why the party is doing it this way, as opposed to pumping the brakes to fully consider applications after Henderson stood down, a party spokesman said leaders had not discussed delaying the process as of Friday afternoon.
“It is full steam ahead for Monday for Jamal Holtz,” said the state committee spokesman, Troy Donte Prestwood. “He is ready to go.”
Holtz said in a statement he did not seek the council role, “but as a believer in process and in a system where the rules are clear for everyone, I accept my Party’s nomination to serve in this role in a temporary capacity.”
“If we want the rest of the country to respect D.C.’s right to self-govern,” Holtz said, “we need also to respect those processes here at home.”
He is expected to be sworn in at 1 p.m. Monday.
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