Photo credit: Bob Summersgill, who helped write the legislation
This morning, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed legislation legalizing marriage equality in DC (pending Congressional approval). His remarks regarding race, to me, were very poignant:
"We knew this day would come," Fenty said. "I say to the world: An era of struggle ends for thousands in Washington, D.C. . . . Our city is taking a leap forward."
Before he signed the bill, Fenty spoke of his interracial upbringing, noting it was illegal for his parents to get married 40 years ago.
"This is one of the churches my parents would have brought me to when I was a boy," he said as his parents sat among advocates in a second pew. "Things have a way of coming full circle. When you're mayor."
Several months prior to today, in my testimony to the DC Council on this bill, I felt the same way:
As the son of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, I wouldn't be here if marriage was denied to two loving, committed people. Neither would my boyfriend, the son of a Native American father and a Filipina mother. We are only here because those who have come before us have recognized that marriage is about love and commitment.
A good day here in DC.
Update: Andy Towle's got a video if anyone wants to watch.
This is the first public polling I've seen on the race. Clarus Research Group (which is actually run by a former George Washington University professor of mine) has a poll out showing Mayor Adrian Fenty, who is up for re-election in 2010, at 43%/49% approval/disapproval and 34%/53% re-elect/someone else numbers. It also shows him losing 41%-37% to the DC Council chairman, Vincent Gray, but leading in a four-way race with Gray and two other DC Councilmembers. None of those potential opponents have announced, and Fenty has quite a warchest. In DC, the Democratic nominee is expected to easily win, so the September primary is the ballgame.
What is especially amazing is the cross-tabs is the numbers on race- Fenty, who is African-American (as are the other potential contenders), scores 60% approval among whites and 29% among African-Americans. His re-elect number among African-Americans is just 22%. It's unsurprising considering his worst performance is in Wards 6, 7 and 8- 7 and 8, on the other side of the Anacostia River, have the highest rates of poverty in the city and are 97% and 93% African-American, according to the 2000 census. This past weekend, the news came out that DC's unemployment rate hit 11.9%- the highest on record. I don't live or know folks in those wards, but the impact may be the hardest there, and there may be a general feeling of being left behind during his Administration. I recall reading an editorial in the Washington City Paper a month or two ago about the race- can't find a link right now, but my recollection of the quote was "All Fenty has to do is get his pal Obama to march with him down Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE [a main thoroughfare in Ward 8] and this primary will be over." I'm not sure with those kinds of numbers that will get it done, but it looks like he'll certainly need the help.
Giving my own take as a DC resident since 2006 (the year Fenty was elected), I'm lukewarm on him. He treats the DC Council as a fiefdom rather than a co-equal branch, doing stupid little things to poke them in the eye like end-running Administration contracts and nominees around them and refusing to distribute Washington Nationals tickets to Councilmembers. On the issues, I like the new bike lines the city DOT has installed and the new Circulator bus routes; like the numerous new playing fields throughout the city; like Fenty's commitment to signing marriage equality legislation later this year, but lukewarm on his LGBT record overall; strongly dislike Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's autocratic approach and battles with the unions. I generally think the city, is governed pretty well, at least where I live and frequent. On the other hand, I'm not terribly high on any of his potential challengers so far.
Caveats that the poll is of registered, not likely voters, and it was conducted before news came out recently regarding Chairman Gray's scandal re home improvement, but the straight-up re-elect numbers on Fenty and his personal approval ratings are what are most striking to me.
DC residents, any reactions to Fenty, his potential challengers, or the poll?
