At-Large D.C. Council member Christina Henderson, an independent, announced Tuesday that she had submitted paperwork to re-affiliate herself as a Democrat.
The move raises questions about how the council will fill a different at-large council seat vacated by Democrat Robert White on Monday. Only three of the council’s five at-large seats can belong to the same party. By switching her affiliation, Henderson will become the third at-large Democrat.
“For decades my policy and political values have aligned with the Democratic Party,” she said in a social media post. She called the law that limits the number of members identifying with either major political party “an actual threat – one of many – to Home Rule. Today, I have the opportunity to freely associate and rejoin the party I once called home.”
Typically, the D.C. Democratic Party would step in to pick an interim replacement if an at-large Democrat resigned, according to D.C.’s Home Rule Act. With Henderson’s switch capping the number of Democrats allowed to hold an at-large council seat, there is debate over whether the D.C. Democratic Party still has the opportunity to make its own appointment or if that responsibility will fall to the council itself.
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“I wouldn’t have made the decision without consulting lots of attorneys, which I did, including the council’s general counsel, the attorney general’s office, and some private attorneys,” Henderson told The Washington Sun. “I do believe I have the legal right to switch parties and I feel pretty confident.”
The maneuver, which the D.C. Democratic Party has warned would bypass the established succession process, drew immediate political lines. During his resignation speech on Monday, White warned against exactly this scenario, saying that Henderson switching parties to slide into the Democratic majority would be “controversial” and “undermine the Home Rule Act.”
White vacated his seat in anticipation of winning the race to become D.C.’s nonvoting delegate to Congress after being unable to find a legal pathway around a 1970 law that prohibits any potential D.C. delegate from being in a paid public office at the time of their election.
“I came into this seat by an appointment from the Democratic Party, because the person I was replacing resigned early. The Democratic Party, under our Home Rule laws, has the authority to appoint the at-large Democratic member,” he said. “Since I’m an at-large Democrat, they will and should, by statute, appoint my successor until a special election.”
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Henderson previously switched her party affiliation from Democrat to independent ahead of the 2020 election, when she first ran for an at-large seat on the council. In the Tuesday statement announcing her re-affiliation, Henderson said she originally became an independent candidate because of limits on the number of party-affiliated at-large members.
Speaking outside the Deanwood Recreation Center on Tuesday, expected mayoral winner Janeese Lewis George declined to opine personally on Henderson’s recent move but reaffirmed her commitment to the Democratic Party.
“I stand with the Democratic Party,” Lewis George said. “They’ve already started a fair and transparent process, so I’m proud of the work they’ve done so far — and I stand with them.”
Council Chair Phil Mendelson said in a phone interview Tuesday that he was still in the process of “sifting through” the law with the council’s general counsel. Mendelson said he initially thought that Henderson’s switch would mean it would fall to the council to fill the vacancy, because it would no longer be a Democratic seat. But as of late Tuesday morning, he said, “I’m being told that may not be a correct reading of the law.”
Mendelson had seen the criticisms of Henderson from D.C. Democratic Party leaders, but he believed it was the lawmaker’s prerogative to switch parties. “I don’t think it’s fair” to criticize Henderson’s choice, he said. “Every individual has a right to choose their affiliation when they register to vote.”
As conversations around Henderson’s potential switch swirled ahead of Election Day, the D.C. Democratic Party said in a statement posted online Friday that it was “aware of efforts to go around the Party’s process” in making an appointment but that it is entitled to fill the vacant seat. The party threatened legal action against any attempts to sidestep its process.
“There is one path to this seat, and it runs through the DC Democratic Party,” the statement said. “Any attempt to circumvent this process is an attack on Home Rule itself, and we will treat it as one.”
Despite obvious tension rising from the recalibration, Henderson said she has hope for a productive path forward with Democratic Party officials. She said there are inconsistencies between the Home Rule Act and the Board of Elections’ regulations that could still entitle the Democratic Party to fill the vacancy, with the provision that the pick could not be a Democrat since the three-of-five threshold has been met.
The D.C. Board of Elections did not immediately provide a comment on the change.
Stepping back under the Democratic banner will give her a seat at the table for conversations surrounding national policy and the 2028 elections, Henderson told The Sun. She shot down a run for higher office, saying if she does go for another position it will be for D.C. Council, signaling a potential bid for council chair. Ultimately, she said the switch was a recent decision to return to the party where she feels most at home.
“No one has ever done this before in this way. No one has done this type of switch. It was not a long, drawn-out process at all,” she said.
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