by Jerry Dunleavy
Janeese Lewis George rode to power into the D.C. Council in 2020 on a wave of "Defund the Police" promises and with the backing of the DSA. As their latest poster child, she could be mayor of America's capital city.
A longtime “Defund the Police” advocate who could be the next mayor of the nation’s capital has argued that American policing is “rooted in white supremacy” — and she, like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is also a member of Democratic Socialists of America.
Janeese Lewis George, who won her D.C. City Council seat in 2020 with the backing of the DSA and on a “Defund the Police” platform following the George Floyd protests and riots, is now a leading contender to replace outgoing multi-term Mayor Muriel Bowser. The Democratic mayoral primary will be based on ranked choice voting for the first time this year. Lewis George has a lead in the primary according to a City Cast poll, as well as according to a GBAO Strategies poll sponsored by her own campaign.
Prior to winning the DSA endorsement and the Democratic primary in 2020 and becoming a member of the D.C. City Council, Lewis George had been an assistant attorney general in Philadelphia as well as an assistant attorney general in Washington, D.C.
Lewis George backtracks on defunding the police
Crime is a key issue in the race, where Lewis George’s top opponent, Kenyan McDuffie, has hammered the DSA candidate over her Defund the Police stances. Lewis George now contends that she will not defund the police, but getting DSA’s backing during her original D.C. council run meant vowing to defund the police, and she had a vocal history of promising to do just that.
Mamdani, as mayor of the country’s biggest city, could soon have a fellow DSA member as mayor of the nation’s capital, if Lewis George wins on June 16.
Lewis George’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DSA endorsement and Defund the Police stance are inextricably linked
Lewis George’s endorsement by and membership in the DSA is inextricably linked to her long history of calling to defund the police, because it is a litmus test for DSA support. When she was making her first primary bid for a D.C. council seat in 2019, Lewis George filled out the standard endorsement questionnaire put together by the DSA of Metro D.C.
She said “yes” when asked if she identified as a democratic socialist, writing, “Because democratic socialists believe that our political and economic systems are fundamentally flawed, and that a better system is one that shifts more resources and power into the hands of working families. My campaign is built on this foundation, which is why I’m fighting to decrease the influence of money in politics; raise wages; beat back racism, sexism, and other forms of cultural and gender bias; expand healthcare; and make housing affordable again.”
Lewis George’s timing for joining the DSA and then seeking the DSA endorsement seemed strategic, as she wrote that “I was admittedly late to the game, signing up only in October 2019.” The DSA questionnaire asked whether she supported “efforts to demilitarize and disarm our police departments” and she answered “yes.”
“We’re told the institution of policing is intended to protect all of us from some suspicious menace, but the fact is that crime is a public health problem, not a battle of military opponents,” Lewis George wrote. “The transformation of American police departments, especially the MPD, into military units trained to occupy the very communities promised protection is one of the greatest dangers to the future of urban life.”
She also said “yes” when asked if she recognized “the increased police presence in our schools as the start of a school-to-prison pipeline” and thus supported "removing police officers from schools, instead providing free mental healthcare as an alternative means to provide for the safety of our children.”
“I don’t think we should have guns in our schools no matter who is carrying them,” Lewis George wrote. “We should be expanding funding to ensure mental health services and staff are available in all Ward 4 schools, not just but especially those with a high rate of mental health-related needs.”
She also said “yes” when asked if she was committed to “rejecting any political endorsement by labor groups whose mission is primarily to organize and represent police officers.” The DSA-backed mayoral candidate — who was then running in the Democratic primary to join the D.C. council — tweeted in October 2019 that “I will absolutely divest from MPD and put that money into violence interruption programs” and expounded upon that by saying that “what I mean is that I would redirect some of the $550 million in funding that is currently allocated for policing toward violence prevention and violence interruption programs that are run by agencies other than MPD.”
Lewis George doubled down on this in December 2019, arguing that “I'm tired of throwing failed solutions at this problem. More policing doesn't work, we can't enforce our way to safer communities.”
She won the Democratic nomination for the D.C. City Council seat in Ward 4 in early June 2020.
The Minneapolis City Council announced a few days later that it was in support of disbanding or dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department. ABC News soon reported that Lewis George — now the nominee for D.C. city council — was in favor of that.
"It's no longer sounding like a radical idea. It's sounding like a logical idea for many," Lewis-George reportedly said, adding that “just like the 1968 Civil Rights Act had to be passed in order to see the protests die down, I think this is a moment where our legislators are going to have to do the same thing."
Long list of "soft on crime positions"
Lewis George also took a number of soft-on-crime stances when seeking the DSA endorsement in 2019.
She said “yes” when asked if she supported “eliminating cash bail” and wrote that “cash bail keeps low-income people with limited cash liquidity behind bars.” The candidate also said “yes” that she did “recognize sex work as work” and did “support the decriminalization of sex work.” Lewis George added, “This isn’t complicated. Just because many might find it unsavory does not mean that those employed in the sale of sex should be denied the rights afforded all workers.”
Lewis George also said “yes” when asked if she was in favor of “the decriminalization of all drugs” — including the hardest and most addictive.
“Yes, though probably it'd be most practical to do it in phases,” she told the DSA. “Like most crime, drug use is a public health problem whose solution is a public health approach, not punitive law enforcement and incarceration."
The DSA’s D.C. chapter held a “Fund Care, Not Cops!” rally in mid-June 2020, which Lewis George spoke at.
Lewis George endorsed the “Defund the Police” slogan during the rally. “A lot of people have said to me, ‘oh, don’t use the word defund because it makes a lot of people uncomfortable,’ and I said, ‘were people as uncomfortable when they defunded education?’ What we’re saying to you is that you have had too much of continuing to divest from our communities and to take from our communities and continue to do it and we are tired,” she said according to Street Sense Media.
Lewis George tweeted in June 2020 that “Juneteenth recognizes Black freedom and Black resistance, a powerful opportunity to proclaim in one voice that BLACK LIVES MATTER. To honor our ancestors and create a path toward freedom for future generations.”
The candidate was asked whether, back when she was a prosecutor, she had ever thought to herself that she was working within a racist system.
“Absolutely,” she said. “All the time.”
Introduced the “White Supremacy in Policing Prevention Act”
NPR said that that experience “informed her proposals to divert some of the police budget to community improvements and violence reduction programs.”
“You know, I've seen, you know, how much we just lean on doing the same thing and expecting a different result, which is like — let's just put more officers there, and that'll [solve] the problem, which is not the only solution,” Lewis George said. “You've got to put more resources into the community to do that.”
Once in office, Lewis George quickly continued her critiques of the police, including introducing the “White Supremacy in Policing Prevention Act” in February 2021.
Her office announced that this was “a bill to investigate any ties between members of MPD and hate groups that could prevent fair enforcement of the law, and to recommend preventive and detection safeguards for the Department” and contended that “in the wake of rising extremism, police departments nationwide are grappling with the threat of white supremacist and hate group ties among law enforcement.”
Lewis George said on Instagram at the time that “this legislation is a critical step to ensure that our laws are enforced fairly, improve officer and community safety, and increase public trust in the Department without setting aside additional funding for policing.”
She also introduced legislation in 2021 to restrict police chases in D.C.
The councilwoman appeared on Zoom for a hearing in May 2021 where she praised proposed police reforms which “fundamentally reimagine what the role of policing is in D.C.” She said she was in favor of “decriminalizing poverty and low-level offenses” and wanted to create “police-free schools.”
DSA candidate said Jacob Blake case shows black people “not safe in our own bodies”
Lewis George also suggested that Wisconsin police not being charged for the shooting of Jacob Blake meant that black people are not safe in America.
In August 2020, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake in the back and left side seven times after Blake repeatedly managed to evade being detained by the responding officers and as Blake turned toward the officer while holding a knife.
Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley released a January 2021 report saying the facts established that Sheskey and two other responding officers knew Blake had a felony warrant involved with domestic violence and sexual assault charges. The report said they also knew: that Laquisha Booker flagged them down and indicated Blake was trying to take her car while her kids were in it; that Blake physically resisted arrest while armed with a knife; that Sheskey and another officer repeatedly tried to subdue Blake with a taser to no avail; that Blake was walking to the car with a knife; and that Sheskey, another officer, and two citizen witnesses saw Blake turning toward Sheskey with the knife when Sheskey then shot him.
The district attorney concluded: “I do not believe the State could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Sheskey was not acting lawfully in self-defense or defense of others.”
“Time and time again we see that deescalation, respect for our lives, and accountability for those who shoot us is not a privilege Black people get to have. We are not safe in our own bodies. #JacobBlake,” Lewis-George tweeted the day of this announcement.
The Biden Justice Department announced in October 2021 that the Kenosha police officer who shot and partially paralyzed Blake would not be prosecuted, due to “insufficient evidence.”
The DOJ said “it will not pursue federal criminal civil rights charges” against the officer, saying it had told Blake’s family and that prosecutors made the decision “because the evidence obtained is insufficient to prove that the KPD officer willfully used excessive force.”
Lewis George tries to downplay Defund the Police stance as she runs for mayor
Lewis George’s current mayoral campaign platform makes no mention of her prior repeated pledges to Defund the Police, but instead claims she will support the police.
“Janeese will implement a comprehensive public safety strategy that addresses prevention, intervention, and enforcement. It’s an approach she took as Ward 4 Councilmember when addressing crime on Kennedy Street and in Petworth,” the platform contends. “And it’s the approach she took when she was a prosecutor at the D.C. Office of the Attorney General. As Mayor, the entirety of her government will play a role in public safety, not just one agency.”
Lewis George has attempted to somewhat walk back her prior demands for defunding the police.
The DSA candidate’s current campaign platform further claims that “to make D.C. safer” she will “enforce our laws and support law enforcement agencies” by “strengthening and expanding resources to detectives to aid in solving more crimes” and by “addressing MPD’s vacancy and retention crisis by expanding the police cadet program, reducing forced overtime, renovating aging facilities, and providing child care benefits that make the District competitive with other local and federal police departments.”
The Washington Post noted in May that “the DSA’s platform calls for substantially defunding police departments and ultimately abolishing them.” The outlet said that Lewis George was asked if she agreed with that view, and replied that she “does not always agree with what the DSA does” and argued that the “defund” attacks by her opponents are “cheap shots.”
“I stood up in the moment, just like every generation before me has stood up, and made a loud, resounding call for investment in our community,” Lewis George told the outlet, reportedly “adding that years of police brutality cases that did not result in justice informed her earlier calls” and “that she would hire more police to alleviate overtime burdens straining the department.”
Lewis George has allowed clear indications of her softer-on-crime stances to be made well known during the campaign, including attacking federal law enforcement as well as opposing late-night curfews for juveniles in the wake of youthful and often predominantly black teenaged crowds committing spates of violence in the nation’s capital in recent weeks, including a viral brawl at a Chipotle in a Navy Yard Chipotle in May.
WUSA9 reported in May that the D.C. Council had approved a curfew measure which “would give police the authority to establish curfew zones across the District.” The outlet added that “under the measure, the Metropolitan Police Department would be allowed to designate areas where children and teenagers are prohibited from gathering in groups of eight or more starting at 8 p.m. as a way to prevent teen takeovers in places like the U Street Corridor and Navy Yard that have sometimes become violent.”
The measure was passed by an 8 to 5 vote, with Lewis George as one of the nays.
Lewis George also called the curfew “dangerous” during debates in May.
"Right now, using the curfew as a tool for our young people is dangerous. It is dangerous because we have federal troops who are in our city, masked ICE agents who are in our city, and these are the people enforcing this law and our young people, and these are not individuals who are trained in de-escalation, they are not accountable to D.C. residents,” Lewis George said as reported by Fox News.
"As mayor, I think it's important that we use the right tools, and we don't put the risk of our youth being harmed or killed without the real oversight that's necessary,” the DSA candidate added.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro argued in May, "Teen takeovers have disrupted neighborhoods, forced businesses to close temporarily, and diverted valuable law enforcement resources from the residents of the District. These incidents have become increasingly common in areas such as Navy Yard and NoMa and are often accompanied by criminal conduct, including assaults, robberies, fights, and other disorderly behavior."
McDuffie’s campaign put out another new ad in June which went after Lewis George on the issue of crime.
“D.C. is at a crossroads. The next mayor must tackle crime. But Janeese Lewis George will make it worse. She routinely stands in the way of critical safety laws like youth curfews. It’s common sense,” the ad said. “What’s really dangerous for our kids is violence. … Janeese Lewis George is a risk we just can’t take.”
The would-be socialist mayor also laid out the importance of the DSA to her electoral bids — and crowed about the DSA’s growing power.
“I’m running to be the first Democratic Socialist mayor of D.C. I’m a proud democratic socialist. I’m proud of how far we’ve come. … D.C. was one of the first to be building democratic socialism in our country,” Lewis George said. “Our Metro D.C. DSA was the first to say we’re going to build global power here in our cities. And when we decided that in 2020, people were like, it will never happen, you’ll never do it. And we said: watch us do it.”
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/defund-police-champ-who-says-policing-rooted-white-supremacy-may-be
