Candidate Profile: Erin Palmer For DC City Council Chairman

WASHINGTON, DC — Erin Palmer is a 40-year-old lawyer who lives within the Takoma neighborhood in Washington, D.C. together with her husband Eric and their three youngsters.

Palmer is on the poll for the June 21 Democratic Get together Major. She’s working in opposition to incumbent Phil Mendelson to be the subsequent chairman of the D.C. Metropolis Council. The winner will sq. off in opposition to Republican Nate Derenge within the Nov. 8 normal election.

Patch has requested every of the candidates working in choose races to fill out a questionnaire, sharing info about themselves and why voters ought to select them to signify their occasion in November.

Identify
Erin Palmer

Marketing campaign web site

Erin for DC

DC Neighborhood

Takoma (Ward 4)

Workplace sought

DC Council Chair

Get together affiliation

Democrat

Training

American College Washington School of Regulation, Juris Physician, cum laude; American College Faculty of Worldwide Service, Masters, Worldwide Peace & Battle Decision; College of Pennsylvania, School of Arts & Sciences, Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, Majors: Politics, Philosophy & Economics; Spanish (with distinction)

Occupation

Lawyer (14 years)

Household

After finishing legislation college and incomes my graduate diploma in battle decision, I labored as a judicial clerk on the DC Court docket of Appeals, the place I met my husband, Eric, who was additionally clerking on the court docket. We fell in love whereas studying about native DC legal guidelines and exploring the town collectively. We married, settled in Takoma, and had our three youngsters: Adrián (11), Mateo (9), and Javier (7). They’re fixed and full of life reminders of the values we honor most as a household: kindness, empathy, and repair to our neighborhood.

Every delivery introduced surprises and challenges, however Javi’s was notably notable. He arrived en path to the hospital, making his entrance within the backseat of my sister’s automotive on the nook of thirteenth Avenue and Gallatin Avenue, NW. He has been part of our neighborhood from his first breath.

Does anybody in your loved ones work in politics or authorities?

None.

Age

40

Earlier public workplace, appointive or elective

Sure, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for Single Member District 4B02. I ran within the November 2018 and November 2020 elections. In 2018, I beat a longtime incumbent with about 74% of the vote.

Why are you looking for this workplace?

I’m a mother, an ethics lawyer, and a devoted public servant. I am working to carry new vitality, imaginative and prescient, and compassion to the DC Council.

The current launch of a draft Supreme Court docket determination overturning Roe v. Wade is a crucial reminder that we can’t take our rights with no consideration. We have to be devoted on the native stage to working deliberately to help our communities with essentially the most want. I’m obsessed with empowering our legislature to satisfy the calls for of the job, moderately than letting its authority slip and languish, as we have seen for years. I’m the one candidate who’s providing a pathway to finest serve our most weak communities and guarantee a brighter future for all DC residents.

I carry deep expertise in good authorities and institutional accountability. Management that’s dedicated to improved efficiency and accountability is essential for all operations, from the funds to laws to day-to-day oversight. I’m the one candidate on this race with a plan for a extra trendy, extra moral, and extra accountable DC Council. My DC Council Accountability Plan will empower the Council to legislate and conduct oversight properly and effectively, so our authorities works to the good thing about all DC residents, notably those that have been essentially the most underserved.

I’m additionally the primary and solely candidate for DC Council Chair to take part in and qualify for DC’s Truthful Elections program. By forgoing company and political motion committee donations, I’m devoted to being engaged with and accountable to DC residents, not firms and their lobbyists. Most significantly, I imagine that DC residents ought to have belief and confidence of their legislature, and my plans for accountability, schooling, neighborhood security, housing, and transportation are the primary steps alongside the trail towards a extra sturdy and efficient DC Council.

Please full this assertion: The only most urgent subject dealing with my constituents is ___, and that is what I intend to do about it.

The only most urgent subject dealing with my constituents is failure to satisfy primary wants. Safe and secure communities are protected communities. But, each map of DC is similar. Whether or not we’re speaking about housing stability, entry to wholesome meals, high-quality schooling, patient-centered healthcare, or neighborhood security, we’re seeing the outcomes of many years of power disinvestment. Constant, values-based management can appropriate for this power disinvestment and make us safer.
All DC residents should have their primary wants met in three key areas, and I’ve detailed plans on every:

1. security – together with protected streets and communities;
2. housing; and
3. schooling.

My Plan for Secure, Secure, and Safe Communities consists of three crucial methods: assembly residents’ primary wants as rights, meaningfully investing in violence intervention, and demanding accountable public security companies that serve DC residents. Extra particularly, my Plan requires a give attention to investing in evidence-based and significant crime prevention, focused and coordinated efforts utilizing data-based insights, sensible and efficient emergency response methods, accountable policing, and higher DC Council oversight. My Secure Streets Infrastructure and Public Transportation Plan outlines proposals to make our streets safer by design, enhance and broaden public transportation, and strengthen our neighborhoods with companies and facilities so individuals needn’t drive as typically.

I imagine that DC residents deserve protected housing and a authorities that proactively protects tenants by means of a public well being and racial fairness lens. The proposals in my Secure Housing Motion Plan will strengthen our regulation of protected housing by detecting, fixing, and stopping housing code violations, in addition to stopping the degradation of buildings that leads to demolition or sale and displacement of neighbors.

Lastly, our management can deal with schooling without any consideration – not a enterprise or expense. Pushed by the values-based proposition that each DC resident deserves high-quality, equitable public schooling, my Plan for Public Training as a Proper will enhance outcomes for college students, households, and faculty employees by absolutely and equitably funding our public faculties; partaking in actual schooling oversight; and making certain protected and wholesome college buildings.

What’s your place on DC statehood?

DC needs to be a state, and I’m a constant and clear advocate for statehood. Moral and accountable management with a transparent, constant imaginative and prescient for native management is crucial to pursuing statehood. In contrast to the present Council Chair, I imagine in DC having native management for each facet of governance – whether or not it’s the peak of buildings, native legal justice issues, or the way forward for RFK stadium. In 1982, our constitutional conference constructed on broad neighborhood enter to offer the muse for statehood, whereas current makes an attempt have been extra centrally-controlled and fewer participatory and community-centered. We deserve self-determination as a basic human proper, and I’m ready to be a relentless advocate for statehood.

How would you deal with the issue of gun violence within the District?

Per nationwide priorities and finest practices, I’m devoted to investing in violence prevention and constructing robust communities to cut back violence and reduce its impacts. We needs to be data-focused in how we deal with neighborhood security. That is why I’ve constantly supported the DC Auditor’s 2017 request for a staffing research for the Metropolitan Police Division to grasp the usage of and wishes associated to the Division.

I additionally imagine that our legal justice system have to be well-functioning and devoted to the reality. That’s the reason I’m deeply disenchanted that we proceed to battle to have a contemporary and efficient crime lab. The present Council Chair lists creation of the District’s Division of Forensic Science as one among his legislative successes. You would not know from his assertion, nonetheless, that the District’s crime lab has been plagued with failures from the beginning and just lately misplaced its accreditation to carry out forensic testing. This continuous dysfunction means slower progress on circumstances, extra harmless individuals behind bars, and delays in making certain we’ve got each fact and justice in our legal justice system, to not point out costing extra taxpayer {dollars}. I’m devoted to delivering a criminal offense lab that works for DC residents.

I’m additionally troubled that ongoing neglect is stopping our emergency name heart, the Workplace of Unified Communications, from well timed connecting 911 callers with the care and assets they want. Revolving door appointments and a scarcity of oversight have resulted in an company the place calls can take as much as 20% longer in sure neighborhoods and delays for emergency response might be longer than a half-hour and even end in deaths. My Advisory Neighborhood Fee was a pacesetter in demanding an audit of the Workplace of Unified Communications, and I’m dedicated to creating certain that when somebody calls 911 they get the assistance they want.

I strongly help and have constantly advocated for elevated assets for and coordination of violence interruption efforts, which obtain a small fraction of the funding offered to police. I am dedicated by means of DC Council oversight to streamlining and coordinating separate efforts, in addition to utilizing knowledge to tell our violence interruption efforts and double down on the applications that work. That is particularly essential since violence interruption applications reside inside a number of companies and violence interruption work is usually carried out by contracted and subcontracted entities.

DC ought to spend money on and strengthen our social security internet to satisfy individuals’s primary wants as a measure of violence prevention. We all know that secure and safe communities are protected communities. We should be sure that all DC residents have protected, secure, and safe housing; a high-quality public schooling; entry to wholesome meals and healthcare companies; and financial safety and alternatives for upward financial mobility.

What are the key variations between you and the opposite candidates looking for this submit?

I carry a deep dedication to good authorities and institutional accountability. That’s rooted in my skilled background as an ethics lawyer and mirrored in my DC Council Accountability Plan – the first-ever complete, evidence-based plan to construct a more practical, trendy, and moral Council of the District of Columbia. Over-concentration of energy and authority within the Chair has elevated the dangers of favoritism, back-door offers, and actions that advance my opponent’s private political agenda, all to the detriment of the collective skill of the Council to make legal guidelines and conduct oversight of presidency companies. Instituting extra collaborative procedures for Council governance and regularly assessing how finest to help Councilmembers in making legal guidelines and conducting oversight will empower the Council as a complete to legislate and conduct oversight properly.

I strongly imagine in increasing democracy and bringing extra voices to the desk. It is why I’m taking part in DC’s Truthful Elections program. By forgoing company and political motion committee donations, I’m devoted to being accountable to and engaged with neighbors, not lobbyists. Matching funds made it potential for me to enter this race and be aggressive in opposition to a longtime incumbent who’s the one Council candidate working for reelection to choose out of this system. The chance for normal DC residents to have their voices heard is why I supported and advocated for passage of the Truthful Elections program. I additionally help measures to broaden voting rights to youthful voters and everlasting residents, which the present Council Chair doesn’t, and I’ve detailed proposals in my DC Council Accountability Plan to make Council proceedings extra inclusive and accessible to DC residents.

My platform is constructed round values-based management devoted to assembly DC residents’ primary wants and correcting for longstanding disparities. I typically say that each map of DC appears the identical and that may be a results of continued disinvestment in Black communities, notably these east of the Anacostia River. Correcting for these disparities and making certain equitable outcomes would require an “all of presidency” strategy and investments at each stage of life. In contrast to the present Council Chair, I’ve constantly supported ensuring all public faculties having librarians, pay raises for early childhood educators, and championing paid household go away to make sure personal and public sector staff can take the go away they want.

In case you are difficult an incumbent, in what means has the present officeholder failed the neighborhood?

DC’s Crime Lab: The present Council Chair lists creation of the District’s Division of Forensic Science as one among his legislative successes. You would not know from his assertion, nonetheless, that the District’s crime lab has been plagued with failures from the beginning and just lately misplaced its accreditation to carry out forensic testing. This continuous dysfunction means slower progress on circumstances, extra harmless individuals behind bars, and delays in making certain we’ve got each fact and justice in our legal justice system. A DC Council higher geared up to research and implement finest practices might have created a very impartial, goal, and expert-led crime lab. Such a criminal offense lab would have been an unequivocally good factor for equity and making certain that DC’s legal authorized system depends on goal scientific evaluation. Stronger management and oversight at the moment are essential to appropriate for a decade of failures.

Sports activities Betting: DC’s sports activities betting contract has been rotten from the beginning. From a no-bid procurement course of to undue affect by a corrupt then-Councilmember to false guarantees of income for essential social companies applications to machinations by the present Council Chair to shove the contract throughout the end line, the purple flags have been instantly obvious and endured all through. And DC has paid the value — actually — with a contract that’s costing DC tens of millions and has diminished belief in authorities.

Dissolving the Training Committee & Failed Training Oversight: DC Council oversight of schooling is deeply flawed. DC is the one jurisdiction the place schooling governance is sort of utterly managed by the Mayor, together with our state schooling company (the Workplace of the State Superintendent of Training). This construction implies that Council oversight and impartial knowledge assortment are important to make sure any stage of accountability. But, we’ve got a Council that’s below capability by design as the present Council Chair dissolved the standalone Committee on Training as a part of a petty battle with one other Councilmember. Even previous to dissolving the Committee on Training, we noticed the outcomes of weakened schooling oversight, together with the lack of tens of millions of federal {dollars} for applications like Head Begin and Americorps. Training monitoring and oversight have to be constant, proactive, and well-staffed so the Council is now not caught in a cycle of too little, too late.

Failed Ethics / Jack Evans: The general public continues to witness DC Council indiscretion and ineffectiveness, most just lately within the scandals surrounding ex-Councilmember Jack Evans and the present Council Chair’s incapability to expeditiously deal with clear and current corruption. It was solely on account of excessive stress from neighborhood members, advocates, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (together with myself), and the press that the present Council Chair took motion to analyze recognized misconduct. The Council should maintain itself to the very best moral requirements. Institutional integrity requires fixed consideration. The Council needs to be proactive – and never simply reactive – in implementing safeguards to defend in opposition to moral misconduct and to root out such misconduct when it happens. Council places of work shouldn’t function as remoted work environments, which might enhance the danger of office misconduct and weaken accountability.

What different points do you propose to deal with throughout your marketing campaign?

A Extra Reliable and Efficient DC Council: I strongly imagine in good authorities and institutional accountability. My DC Council Accountability Plan is the first-ever complete, evidence-based plan to construct a extra trendy, moral, and accountable DC Council. The Plan is rooted in my skilled experience as an ethics and accountability lawyer. It proposes a variety of measures to empower the DC Council’s legislative and oversight operate, strengthen the Council’s ethics and accountability, guarantee inclusive and accessible Council proceedings, and help Council staff and office accountability. A high-functioning, moral DC Council finest serves DC residents.

Excessive-High quality, Equitable Authorities Companies: Each map of DC appears the identical – and that is due to a sample of continued disinvestment in Black communities and systemic racism in each a part of our authorities. DC residents need the identical issues – entry to dependable authorities companies, wholesome and inexpensive meals, high-quality and well-maintained parks and playgrounds, and security in our communities. Constructing a extra equitable metropolis means not solely ending patterns of discrimination however actively offering extra assets to proper historic wrongs. That requires extra investments in greening the neighborhood, higher entry to meals and parks, and devoted efforts to finish poverty in these neighborhoods.

We all know that the impacts of environmental pollution are disparately felt throughout the District, closely impacting communities in Wards 8, 7, and 5 and public housing residents. The focus of business pollution is rooted in racist land use and zoning insurance policies, worsened by many years of power disinvestment in authorities companies – issues like waste assortment, litter prevention, and inexperienced area (together with the upkeep of that inexperienced area!) – which may in any other case assist mitigate the impacts. The siting of business land and the impacts of air pollution have to be part of the Council’s consideration of laws and oversight of company motion, and the Council should fund and demand high-quality, equitable authorities companies.

Local weather Justice and Environmental Sustainability: Local weather justice and environmental sustainability influence each facet of our lives. However, we regularly see authorities restricted in its skill to behave past particular material areas and companies that time fingers on broader points. The Council – particularly, Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie – acknowledged the significance of viewing all authorities motion by means of a racial fairness lens. Equally, I imagine each authorities motion must be seen by means of an environmental justice and sustainability lens, and I plan to institute Council and Govt Workplaces on Environmental Justice and Sustainability that evaluation all DC authorities motion for its impacts on environmental sustainability and justice – all the pieces from zoning (and the siting and focus of business land) to growth requirements to site visitors security and public transportation.

What accomplishments in your previous would you cite as proof you’ll be able to deal with this job?

I’ll hit the bottom working as DC Council Chairwoman. My skilled background as an ethics and accountability lawyer for the federal Judiciary has given me invaluable and distinctive insights.
Earlier than leaving my job to run for DC Council Chairwoman, I served as Workers Counsel to the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Incapacity – the ultimate evaluation physique of judicial misconduct complaints in opposition to federal judges. When the federal Judiciary confronted extreme allegations of a federal decide’s sexual misconduct and harassment of his legislation clerks, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court docket appointed a Office Conduct Working Group to evaluate and revise the Judiciary’s office conduct procedures. I additionally staffed that Group and shepherded by means of essential office accountability reforms that improved bystander intervention and accountability for judges – that they should take motion upon recognized misconduct by a colleague – and streamlined and made simpler the power to file judicial misconduct complaints.

I’m extraordinarily pleased with my work to enhance institutional accountability inside the federal Judiciary. We instituted essential, significant reform inside an establishment that’s deeply established order oriented, in some ways resistant to alter, and infrequently an previous boys’ membership. I’m uniquely geared up to construct relationships and have interaction in collaborative decisionmaking to maneuver essential governance and legislative reforms ahead. This work gave me the data, experience, and grounding to place ahead a complete DC Council Accountability Plan.

My DC Council Accountability Plan proposes governance adjustments that can enhance collaborative and collegial motion by the Council as a complete and empower the Council as an establishment to raised make legal guidelines and conduct oversight. My curiosity in collaborative Council motion is rooted in a deeply held perception that our democratic establishments are beneficial past the

particular person elected official. It implies that not solely will I are available in able to legislate, conduct oversight, and act as a co-equal department of presidency to carry the Govt accountable, however that each Councilmember will probably be higher geared up to take action, as properly.

It is also essential to notice the benefits I carry to the desk as somebody who comes from outdoors the DC Council. I am dedicated to instituting reforms to make sure moral conduct and accountability, and I am not beholden to political favors traded in backrooms like our present Council Chair. When the present Council Chair first grew to become interim Chair, he was warned in regards to the moral issues of Councilmember Michael Brown, however he insisted on deference and the appointment of Councilmember Brown as Chair Professional Tem. Councilmember Brown was then arrested and convicted for taking bribes whereas serving as Chair Professional Tem. Partially due to the lengthy relationship with the present Council Chair, Councilmember Jack Evans remained in energy on the DC Council for over a yr after the Metro Board pressured him out on account of longstanding ethics violations. Being cozy together with his colleagues has dimmed the present Council Chair’s skill to obviously fulfill his Council administration and governance duties and make sure the Council stays moral and free from corruption.

What’s the finest recommendation anybody ever gave you?

Two items of recommendation have caught with me. A girl lawyer as soon as advised me within the context of taking depositions to by no means attempt to mannequin your model after another person, however moderately your private strengths. I took to coronary heart that I might by no means intimidate or overwhelm deponents, however moderately that my model was constructed round belief and listening to encourage individuals to be open and sincere.
A decide who mentored me constantly jogged my memory that pausing and deliberating has immense worth. Coming from an enormous legislation agency, I used to be used to dashing by means of work and choices, and this decide was an essential mannequin on the significance of pondering by means of choices and exercising sound and considerate judgment.

Is there anything you want to voters to find out about your self and your positions?
I’m not beholden to any of the company pursuits which have lengthy swayed our elected officers and prevented significant change. I’m taking part in DC’s Truthful Elections program, and I’m the primary and solely candidate for DC Council Chair to take part in and qualify for this system. By forgoing company and political motion committee donations, I’m devoted to being engaged with and accountable to our neighbors, not firms and their lobbyists. My opponent is the one Council candidate working for reelection to choose out of this system.

You possibly can learn my DC Council Accountability Plan; my Plan for Secure, Secure, and Safe Communities; my Secure Streets Infrastructure and Public Transportation Plan; my Plan for Public Training as a Proper; and my Secure Housing Motion Plan at https://erinfordc.com/points/. You possibly can learn extra coverage positions at https://erinfordc.medium.com/.