correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly reported that Graham McLaughlin is the first independent candidate to challenge Elissa Silverman in the 2022 election. He is among several candidates who have announced they're running. The article has been corrected.
Graham McLaughlin opened his campaign for D.C. Council on Saturday with a prayer.
“Lord, whatever name we call you by, if that’s Allah, if that’s Yahweh — if we don’t call you at all,” he said, bowing his head before a diverse crowd and a table heaped with pancakes and sweet potato hash. “We thank you so much for this little taste of heaven.”
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The first time D.C. elected a council in 1974, three of the 13 members were pastors. Times have changed. Today, five are lawyers. But McLaughlin launched a campaign Saturday with strong Christian themes as well as a goal of cutting down on government regulations on businesses.
The first-time candidate plans to run as an independent for an at-large seat in November, launching a bid to challenge incumbent Elissa Silverman (I), who is seeking a third term. (Two of the council’s four at-large seats are up for reelection this year, and by law only one can be held by a Democrat.)
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Silverman, a left-wing leader on the council, championed the law creating paid parental leave for D.C. workers through a tax on employers. She won a bitter reelection campaign four years ago against Dionne Reeder, whom Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had backed as a pro-business alternative. Silverman ended up winning almost twice as many votes as Reeder. (McLaughlin says he supports paid family leave but would have preferred it to focus more squarely on D.C. residents rather than anyone in D.C. jobs.)
Bowser backs Reeder in a rare display of mayoral muscle
Incumbent at-large member Anita Bonds (D) is also seeking reelection, and several people are running against her. Whoever wins the June Democratic primary would appear alongside the independent candidates on the November ballot, in which the top two vote-getters win seats on the council.
Other candidates have filed to run as independents but have campaigned quietly so far, including Jennifer Muhammad, Joseph Little and Fred Hill, who formerly ran for the council in Ward 8.
McLaughlin, 40, lives in the Hill East neighborhood, between two institutions that have shaped his life in the District: to the north is Mount Moriah Baptist Church, a predominantly Black church where McLaughlin, a White man from North Carolina, got serious about his religion, and a few blocks to the south is the D.C. jail, where he found a way to put that faith in action.
For eight years, he rented rooms in his house to men just out of the jail or federal prison. That led McLaughlin — who has worked for several large companies overseeing their corporate volunteering and philanthropy efforts — to co-found the nonprofit Changing Perceptions, which supports former inmates in the District. He also got in the habit of hosting events at his home: Sunday suppers for talking about faith; Thursday dinners for teaching ex-convicts about business; and Pancake Saturdays for former felons working to get their lives on track as well as anyone else hungry for brunch and conversation.
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Some of McLaughlin’s former roommates were at Pancake Saturday this weekend, which doubled as a campaign launch, eagerly asking him when they could knock on doors to promote his candidacy. They mingled with McLauglin’s neighbors in a crowd of more than 30 people.
The chef for the gathering, Reese Dixon, credits his catering business in part to Changing Perceptions’ entrepreneurship classes, which taught him how to get certified as a local minority-owned business so that he could seek government contracts. Now, he said as he dropped dollops of pancake batter from a massive bowl onto three griddles on McLaughlin’s stove, he has 12 employees and a contract to cater three meals a day for a transitional house for ex-convicts like himself.
“I know the work that [McLaughlin] has done with returning citizens and in the community,” he said, adding blueberries to the pancakes. “This is my campaign contribution.”
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McLaughlin is running as a pro-business candidate, meaning businesses big and small: “That’s the business owner with 10,000 units; that’s the guy just coming home [from prison] saying, ‘I want some of this red tape taken out so that I can make a difference.’ ”
Among his campaign promises: reducing regulations that make it more expensive to build affordable housing in the District, including allowing developers to build taller apartment complexes in some places. He says he is reading research papers on his other top priorities, including reducing crime and reducing discrimination against LGBT residents, to come up with his policy goals.
McLaughlin, whose girlfriend is a professor at Gallaudet University, also has ideas for helping D.C.'s deaf community, including monthly cash stipends and better child-care options for deaf children.
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Some at the pancake brunch offered suggestions, raising concerns for the new candidate about gentrification, addiction recovery support and other issues. McLaughlin listened and addressed the group.
“Seeing how many businesses have been started in this room and how we have tried to walk together in a way I hope we can walk together as a city — I feel emotional even saying it. This is what the city should be,” he said. His neighbors nodded, asked questions, then tucked into the piles of pancakes.