Former City Council member Kenyan McDuffie is a fourth-generation Washingtonian who graduated from Jackson-Reed when it was still Wilson. Now he is running for mayor with policies that revolve around two central tenets: equity and economic development.
“We have to make sure that the people who need support and help the most are prioritized,” McDuffie said in an interview with The Beacon.
McDuffie, 51, is one of 8 candidates in a crowded field for the June 16 Democratic mayoral primary. After a successful campaign for City Council, McDuffie was elected as Ward 5 councilmember in 2012 and reelected three times.
McDuffie stressed equity in areas like education and infrastructure. While JR students all have felt the pain of missing a bus or being late because the Metro randomly stopped, not everyone has access to a Metro stop to begin with.
“It’s not just making sure that bus routes are on time,” he said, “but that they even exist in certain communities that have high unemployment rates … [so that people] can get to job hubs throughout DC. ”
If elected mayor, McDuffie pledged to protect funding for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), expand bus routes, and back the “Regional Can’t Move” modernization plan. He pointed to the Kids Ride Free card as a popular and successful example of transportation that works in the city.
The current agreement, reached by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the union after three years of fraught negotiations, damaged the city’s relationship with teachers. McDuffie pledged to “create a high-level labor liaison in my administration so that there is an open-door policy” for teachers to speak with his office. He also said he would aim to work directly with unions to improve school environments and reduce teacher turnover rates.
When it comes to education policy, McDuffie did not offer a concrete plan for what happens inside the classroom, but he pointed to economic and equity issues as the root for many problems in the educational system.
“Our system of public education was created in a way that resource allocation was not equitable,” McDuffie said. He said that the government should work in disadvantaged communities to incentivize “economic activities with community building purposes.”
In McDuffie’s opinion, local businesses like small co-op grocery stores and a thriving economy can create a better starting place for students before they enter the classroom. That’s also his approach to truancy, where McDuffie said DC needs to address high student absenteeism by “understanding the challenges that [students] face and bringing the resources to them.”
McDuffie defended DEI programs, which have come under attack from the Trump Administration, as important for education. “Diversity, equity, inclusion are not terms that are in vogue these days,” he said, but they are “critical to the learning and well-roundedness of our young folks.”
In 2016, McDuffie helped pass juvenile justice reform, which banned juvenile life sentences without parole and solitary confinement. He outlined plans to ensure accountability and opportunity for juvenile offenders, while avoiding the question of juveniles already in the system.
First, he said, “you hold people accountable when they commit crimes to the fullest extent of the law, and you do it swiftly and certainly”. Then, returning to his economic development strategy, he emphasized creating opportunities for reform and “bringing the resources to them instead waiting for them to show up in some courtroom [again]”.
McDuffie pointed to DC’s Summer Youth Employment Program and Department of Parks and Recreation programs as enrichment opportunities that need to be revisited through an equity lens.
The former councilmember also acknowledged the difficult and untrusting relationship many students have with the police. Speaking of his own experience, McDuffie said that his godfather was killed by an off-duty Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer when he was 13 and that McDuffie himself was arrested three times in his neighborhood in Northeast DC as a youth. “I know what injustice feels like,” he said.
McDuffie said he endorses efforts to better train police officers and has supported police body camera legislation in hopes of restoring public trust in the police. In 2015, he backed the Body-Worn Camera Program Regulations Amendment Act, which established transparency and privacy rules for the MPD’s body-camera program.
McDuffie pointed to city legislation he supported to back up his planned programs. For example, the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act (NEAR Act) provides, “a public health-based approach to crime prevention and intervention.” McDuffie also supported lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union against the MPD, and said he prioritizes transparency and accountability around police actions and decisions
McDuffie also acknowledged the District’s problem with federal law enforcement. “The ICE raids have to stop, period,” he said.
McDuffie told The Beacon that he would “create a city that is more affordable, that is more opportunity rich, and a government that delivers for everybody across all their wards.” •
