The D.C. Council is back. Here's what lawmakers are up to.

Kids are back in school, the weather is cooling, and it’s the season for D.C.’s many neighborhood festivals – summer in the city has officially come to a close. That also means the D.C. Council is returning from its usual recess. The city’s lawmakers will be busy working their way through consequential local bills, but also trying to fend off aggressive Congressional interference. 

Below is a summary of some of what the council will be dealing with in the coming weeks – including at Wednesday’s legislative session – but keep up with The 51st as the fall progresses for more updates.

Trayon White makes his grand return – but for how long?

It was back in February that the D.C. Council expelled Trayon White over a federal bribery indictment, but he’s back this week following his July special election victory for his vacated Ward 8 seat. And though he still has a January trial to be concerned about, White seems to be taking the upcoming council responsibilities seriously. He hired Sheila Bunn, his former rival in the Ward 8 race and a longtime council staffer, to be his chief of staff, and Troy Donte Prestwood, the president of the Ward 8 Democrats, to be his spokesperson.

But how much White can get done remains an open question. Chairman Phil Mendelson tells The 51st that he isn’t planning on appointing White to any of the council’s committees, where much of the critical legislative grunt work gets done. (Every councilmember serves on a number of committees, and all but first-year lawmakers get to chair a committee.) That decision comes despite protests from White himself, who wrote to Mendelson earlier this month to say that keeping him off of committees would be unfair to Ward 8 residents. (Mendelson refused to explain why White shouldn’t get any committee assignments.)

“Excluding [me] from standing committees would leave the estimated 86,509 residents of Ward 8 disenfranchised, without an elected representative able to officially vote on matters in the same manner that any other councilmember is empowered and entitled to do,” he wrote. “I am not a new councilmember, but a councilmember with years of seniority and experience, including having served as chair of a council standing committee. My participation as a member of the D.C. Council standing committees has been instrumental in providing full representation for Ward 8 and shaping legislation and policy with a lens of equity, fairness, and justice.”

The bigger question is, of course, whether he even gets to stay on the council. His colleagues could push to expel him again, though any such efforts seem to have lost steam. Mendelson told us that he isn’t going to move to expel White – which requires a super-majority vote – and hasn’t heard any of his colleagues express any desire to do so themselves. They may simply realize that expelling White would be divisive and counterproductive, since he could well face immediate expulsion should he be found guilty in his federal trial.

In the meantime, federal prosecutors have started filing motions ahead of White’s trial – including one asking a judge to prohibit him from arguing that he was set up by the FBI.

A final vote on a controversial housing bill

For years, D.C. officials couldn’t boast enough about all the housing construction going on. But this year investment and construction are slowing, and even affordable housing providers say unpaid rent and challenges dealing with the city's evictions law are part of the problem.

In response, Bowser introduced the RENTAL Act in February, a sweeping measure that would, among other things, speed the eviction process and exempt any building constructed in the last 25 years from the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, a four-decade-old law that lets tenants be first in line to buy their building when it's put up for sale. While Bowser and many in the housing industry say the changes would rebalance the housing market and reinvigorate private investment in construction, tenant groups and housing advocates said it would too aggressively chip away at tenant rights when housing prices remain high.

The bill went to At-Large Councilmember Robert White’s housing committee, and in July he unveiled his changes, scaling back some of the proposed reforms to speed up evictions and shortening the exemption from TOPA to 15 years. White’s version of the RENTAL Act narrowly passed on a first vote in late July, but not before some of his colleagues unsuccessfully tried to make changes to it.

And they are expected to try again on Wednesday. Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin has already filed a pair of amendments that would specify that the proposed 15-year TOPA exemption could only apply to buildings constructed after the bill passes, whereas White’s version also applied to buildings constructed in the last 15 years. Another amendment from Frumin would remove the TOPA exemption for buildings that have an ​​income-restricted affordability covenant. He argues that while those covenants might sound good on paper, the units they cover may still be too expensive for many tenants because the income limits are set too high. Additionally, Frumin says that TOPA can serve as leverage for tenant groups pushing for building improvements, and exempting buildings with affordability covenants would limit when and how tenants can negotiate with owners.

Amendments are also expected from Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, including one that would similarly target the proposed TOPA exemption for buildings with affordability covenants, and others that make technical changes she says would protect tenants’ rights and ensure that TOPA doesn’t unnecessarily delay possible building sales.

Landlords are pushing for the council to pass the RENTAL Act, arguing that property owners have been facing historic amounts of unpaid rent since the pandemic. 

Closing out the Commanders stadium deal

With everything that has happened over the last month, it can seem like it was forever ago that the council gave initial approval to the $3.7 billion deal to bring the Commanders back to D.C. Lawmakers will revisit it this week, aiming to cast a second and final vote to clear the way for what’s expected to be a five-year dash to turn the 174-acre RFK site, now largely vacant, into a new mixed-used destination that will include the Commander’s new home.

While Mendelson says that no major changes have been made to the deal since the first vote, there are notable tweaks to the timing of when the residential and retail development around the stadium is supposed to be finished. Instead of setting a specific date for phases of the development to be done, the new bill establishes rolling deadlines based on when final zoning approvals are granted. 

And while opponents of the deal concede that they’ve generally lost this fight, they are still pushing the council to add stronger environmental standards for the construction, more affordable housing (the revised bill requires 30% of the  units to be affordable), protection for heritage trees that could now be cut down, and an enforceable community benefits agreement with the team. 

In the meantime, the demolition of the old RFK stadium continues; the work is expected to be completed next year.

Eyeing the budget

The budget cycle that ended in late July wasn’t a pretty one: Lawmakers fought over a smaller pool of funds than they had seen in years, largely because of a slowing regional economy. Well, those fights may not be over just yet, as the council may have to vote on a revised budget for the 2026 fiscal year – which starts on October 1 – at some point this fall. 

The first big factor at play is whether less money than expected is flowing into the city’s coffers. Many city officials are pessimistic: not only has Trump’s slashing of the federal workforce continued to hit the city’s economy, but recent concerns over people staying home during the surge of federal officers and National Guard into D.C. could compound the problem. A planned revenue estimate from the city’s CFO expected at the end of September will determine whether Bowser and the council have to immediately start cutting spending.

Another big factor at play will be the expected impacts of Trump’s massive tax cut bill passed earlier this summer. States are already starting to respond to expected drops in tax revenue; in August the governor of Colorado, for example, called a special session of the state legislature to address an expected shortfall of up to $750 million. It remains to be seen how federal tax changes hit D.C., but lawmakers may take the opportunity to debate whether the city should untether its tax code from the federal one so as to counteract possible decreases in revenue.

Policing and public safety

In the wake of President Trump’s takeover of MPD and surge of federal agents and National Guard into D.C., public safety and policing are likely to remain top of mind for lawmakers. 

That will be evident during Wednesday’s first post-recess legislative session, where the council is expected to approve a 13% pay raise for police officers and officials. The entire package is worth almost $350 million over the next four years, and covers the last two years of work retroactively and the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on October 1. The starting salary for police officers will jump from the current $66,000 up to $75,000. 

The pay hike is part of Bowser’s push to increase staffing at MPD; there are currently some 3,200 officers in the department, and she wants to see it increase to closer to 4,000. “We’ve seen MPD shrink over the past decade, and our focus remains on ensuring we have all the tools and resources necessary to support the men and women responsible for protecting our neighborhoods and driving down crime,” she said earlier this month.

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto is also expected to move legislation to increase hiring and retention of police officers and firefighters, in part by removing an existing mandatory retirement age. (It is currently 60 for both.)

The council will also vote Wednesday on whether to extend Bowser’s expanded youth curfew into the fall. Passed as an emergency bill in June, it further limits who can be outside at night and gives police new powers to declare designated zones with earlier curfews – usually in nightlife areas like Navy Yard and U Street.

Still, much of the debate over public safety this week will be occurring not in the council chambers, but rather in Congress. On Tuesday, the House is expected to pass four bills addressing criminal justice in the city: one that drops the age for juveniles to be prosecuted as adults (to 14, from the current 16), one to limit who can get alternative sentences under the city’s Youth Rehabilitation Act (currently those up to 25 years old; the bill would drop it down to 18), one to lift restrictions on police car chases, and one that would give Trump more power in nominating judges to serve in D.C. Superior Court. 

Need a COVID-19 vaccine? It should soon be easier to get

If you’ve tried to get a COVID-19 vaccine any time recently in D.C., you may have been asked for a doctor’s prescription. That’s because of the changing federal guidelines for vaccinations, which now only recommend the vaccine for those over 65 or with a high-risk medical condition. A number of states have responded by adjusting their own vaccine recommendations and requirements; Maryland and Virginia have already become popular alternatives for D.C. residents looking to get the vaccine. The council is looking to follow suit: An emergency bill from At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson will allow anyone in D.C. to get a COVID-19 vaccine without a doctor’s prescription. 

The bottle bill gets its first public hearing

Would you be more motivated to recycle a bottle if there was a 10-cent inducement to do so? That question will be at the heart of the October 1 hearing on Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau’s so-called “bottle bill,” which would impose a new 10-cent deposit on every glass or plastic bottle purchase – with the dime refunded once the bottle is returned to a retailer. Nadeau says such a system would increase recycling rates. The proposal has an interesting local history: It was back in 1987 that D.C. voters rejected a bottle-deposit ballot initiative, after record spending by soft drink producers. Food-industry trade groups have already raised concerns with Nadeau’s bill, saying it would increase costs for consumers.