Crime frustrations fuel recall effort for second D.C. Council member

Another D.C. Council member is being targeted in a recall effort launched by constituents who say lawmakers who supported police cutbacks and sentencing reforms set the stage for the city’s ongoing crime crisis.

A petition to recall council member Brianne Nadeau, Ward 1 Democrat, was filed after organizers said she has been “at the forefront” of the District’s ongoing crime wave that’s seen major increases in killings, carjackings and robberies.

“In 2021, Brianne voted to defund the police by $15 million, which has left the Metropolitan Police Department dramatically undermanned,” a missive on the Recall Nadeau campaign’s website reads. “Last year, Brianne ignored the pleas of Mayor Muriel Bowser, the MPD, and thousands of her constituents when she passed legislation that reduced penalties on violent criminals including repeat offenders convicted of gun crimes, violent assaults, and carjackings.”

The statement references Ms. Nadeau’s support for cuts to MPD’s budget in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd murder by Minneapolis police, as well as her support of a massive rewrite of the District’s criminal code last spring. 

The latter initiative was ultimately overturned by a bipartisan coalition in Congress — something Capitol Hill lawmakers hadn’t done in nearly three decades.

Crime in Ms. Nadeau’s ward in Northwest — which includes Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan and the U Street Corridor — saw significant upticks in nearly every violent crime last year.

Ward 1 police data cited by the Recall Nadeau campaign said homicides went up by 100% from 2022 to 2023, with weapons assaults rising 56% and car thefts jumping 48% during that same period.

The District as a whole saw a nearly 70% rise in robberies, a record number of carjackings and the most homicides the city had seen in more than a quarter century in 2023.

Another effort to recall Ms. Nadeau is also underway, though it’s unclear if its organizers have filed paperwork to legitimize the campaign.

A web page dedicated to the second recall effort said the main goal is to get Ms. Nadeau to be more responsive to residents’ concerns about crime by hosting town halls and creating plans to address the issue.

“What I want isn’t the magic solution to all our crime problems,” wrote the unnamed organizer, who runs a parody account on X that’s dedicated to mocking Ms. Nadeau. “But what I need is a representative who demonstrates, through the activities of her organized office, that she is making an effort to try.”

The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Nadeau’s office for comment.

The efforts targeting Ms. Nadeau came after organizers for the recall of council member Charles Allen, Ward 6 Democrat, began in earnest last week.

Nearly 100 people gathered in a Navy Yard office to discuss plans to get the roughly 6,000 signatures needed to challenge Mr. Allen. The group has 180 days to obtain the necessary number of signatures.

Mr. Allen — who represents Capitol Hill and the H Street Corridor, among other neighborhoods — has been the poster boy for the District’s crime woes for years now.

In 2020, he posted on X about his intent to reduce MPD’s officer numbers by slashing the department’s budget and letting natural attrition occur. The District’s police force operates with a 50-year low of cops on the street.

Mr. Allen was also head of the Public Safety Committee when it passed the overhauled criminal code that was eventually shot down by Congress.

Both Ms. Nadeau and Mr. Allen were first elected in 2014 and have easily won reelection twice since then, including as recently as 2022.