PEC Statement on 2022-09-ER1: Metro DC DSA Endorsement of David Schwartzman

PEC Statement on 2022-09-ER1: Metro DC DSA Endorsement of David Schwartzman

Co-authors: Howard Daniels and Sam Rosenthal

Note: This document was updated on September 19, 2022 at 10:30 pm to reflect that Julius Hobson and Hilda Mason were Statehood Party members on the DC City Council, not Green Party members.

The PEC recommends against endorsing David Schwartzman for DC Council at Large. While David is a lifelong ecosocialist activist whose values are in line with those of Metro DC DSA, we recommend against endorsing him because as a Green Party candidate, he is unlikely to win his race and lacks institutional support that our Democratic endorsees have enjoyed in past cycles.

David’s race is for one of two seats on the DC City Council against three incumbents, which puts him at a significant disadvantage in terms of name recognition and funding. While prior to its merger with the Green Party, the Statehood Party was represented on the City Council from 1975 to 1999 by Julius Hobson and then by DSA member Hilda Mason, the Green Party in DC has never had City Council representation, and faces the same challenges in DC that they do at other levels of government: they account for a small share of registered voters (only 0.72% in DC) and voters are wary of supporting the Green Party because it is unlikely to win.

This lack of support also means that Green Party candidates are less likely to have the same resources that their Democratic counterparts have, including campaign staff and fundraising, which would put a heavier burden on our chapter to fill these resource gaps for a longshot election bid.

Beyond that, during his endorsement call with MDC-DSA members, David said he did not have any campaign infrastructure in place and would be relying solely on DSA to scaffold his campaign. Given the late date of this endorsement vote, and the resource issues outlined above, this already formidable campaign is made even more difficult by David’s current lack of any campaign structure.

Because of this, we believe the reasons outlined above are enough to argue that his campaign would not merit the investment typical of our endorsements. We wish him a successful campaign and if he were to win, we would look forward to collaborating with him on our many shared priorities.

Citations

“Monthly Report of Voter Registration Statistics as of September 30, 2020 Archived April 23, 2016, at the Wayback Machine”. District of Columbia Board of Elections. Retrieved in September 2020 from https://web.archive.org/web/20160423161217/http://www.dcregs.dc.gov/Notice/DownLoad.aspx?NoticeID=5959309.

“Past Elected Officials”. District of Columbia Board of Elections. Retrieved September 19, 2022 at District of Columbia Board of Elections - Past Elected Officials.

Democratic Left, vol. 8 no. 1 (January 1990), page 7.