Doni Crawford, a staffer for former D.C. Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie, was announced Monday as the candidate to temporarily replace him on the council following his resignationearlier this month to run for mayor.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) shared the selection at a news conference a day before a council meeting Tuesday during which lawmakers will vote on her nomination. Mendelson said he was confident she would have support from a majority of the council.
“Ms. Crawford’s experience is important and relevant and will make a difference, but I think members were impressed with her authenticity,” Mendelson said. “Out of the 42 candidates, she is the best choice.”
Well known around the Wilson Building, Crawford most recently worked as director for the council’s business economic development committee, which McDuffie chaired, and as McDuffie’s legislative director. Before starting in McDuffie’s office in 2022, she worked as a policy analyst at the left-leaning DC Fiscal Policy Institute and, before moving to D.C., at a nonprofit group in her native Pittsburgh.
“For most of my career, I’ve been a policy professional working behind the scenes: doing the research, building coalitions, and helping turn ideas into results. I wasn’t doing it for the spotlight. I was doing it because I believe in this city and in the people who call it home,” Crawford said at the news conference. “Now I’m ready to step up and step forward.”
McDuffie resigned effective Jan. 5 after more than 13 years on the council. His replacement will fill the seat until a special election on June 16, the city’s primary election. The seat, which is reserved for a member of the non-majority party, will go up for grabs again in the fall general election.
If approved by the council, Crawford — a 36-year-old resident of Ward 5’s Carver Langston neighborhood — will be sworn into office Tuesday.
Although the tenure may be temporary, the interim council member could take part in some consequential votes — including on next year’s budget. That member will also serve during oversight season, when lawmakers hold hearings with the directors of all D.C. government agencies to evaluate their performance and inform budget decisions.
D.C. law dictates that when an at-large seat becomes vacant, the political party of the departing council member should choose an interim placement. McDuffie, however, was an independent during his most recent council term, in which case the law says the council should appoint a “similarly nonaffiliated person.”
For some lawmakers, the process was fraught. Council members Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) and Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), questioned whether Mendelson had seized too much control, or criticized him for not laying out more defined criteria for McDuffie’s replacement, leaving the council prone to accusations of bias. Mendelson has emphasized that he was striving for consensus.
In the end, he said, the decision came down to “a combination of two things: one, being impressed with Ms. Crawford, and the other being that there was broad support for her.”
While at the Fiscal Policy Institute, Crawford helped lead advocacy efforts during the covid-19 pandemic that expanded unemployment benefits to gig workers. She said Monday that she was also part of the council team that negotiated the deal with the Washington Commanders to redevelop the RFK site with a football stadium — adding that she pushed to strengthen the community benefits agreement and bolster requirements for the hiring of D.C. residents.
Crawford, who was registered as a Democrat for the 2024 election, said she switched her registration to independent in the fall, anticipating a possible vacancy and wanting to be ready to put herself forward.
She said she had just one conversation with McDuffie to share her interest in the role; she earned the position on her own, she said, pitching herself to lawmakers one by one.
“I’m ready on Day One,” she recalled telling them. Between her work at the Fiscal Policy Institute and her years in the Wilson Building, she has been involved in seven D.C. budgets, she said.
“I know the legislative and budget processes,” she said. “My work ethic speaks for itself.”
Crawford acknowledged that this appointment process was unusual, and she said she knew she would have to earn residents’ support. She said she planned, in her first 30 days, to talk to residents across the city about their budget priorities.
Crawford emerged from a list of 42 people who either nominated themselves or were nominated by others. The list included at least three former council members — Jack Evans, Kwame Brown and Elissa Silverman — according to a person familiar with the discussions.
In the end, council members’ support coalesced around several candidates — including Crawford and Eboni-Rose Thompson, a Ward 7 representative on the D.C. State Board of Education, according to three people familiar with the council’s discussions. Amy Mauro, head of the D.C. Fire and EMS foundation and former chief of staff at the fire department, had also made the shortlists of several lawmakers, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay information from private conversations.
Mendelson, for his part, remained tight-lipped throughout the process, declining to disclose a list of candidates. He was vague on Monday when describing the mechanics behind the selection, describing it as “subjective judgment.”
While the council’s selection fills the role on an interim basis, the special election campaign is already underway. Crawford, at the news conference, declined to say whether she planned to run. Silverman announced Thursday she would campaign for the seat. Mauro, reached Friday, said she was still deciding. Thompson, who ran in the most recent contest for Ward 7 council member, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Meagan Flynn contributed to this report.
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