WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU B5
Democrat A my A shworth and Re-
publican Mike May w ill face off to
replace retiring Commonwealth’s
Attorney Paul Ebert, who has
been prosecutor for more than 50
years.
[email protected]other donations and backing for
his campaign.
November’s election will be
crucial in determining the future
of criminal justice in Prince Wil-
liam County.
In a ddition to the sheriff’s race,sheriff’s office in Prince William
County in 15 years.
Hill, a moderate Republican
who is serving his fourth term, is
also a U.S. Army veteran and had
a long career in law enforcement
before he was elected sheriff in- He is overseeing a
$45.6 million renovation of the
jail and supports the 287(g) pro-
gram, saying it helps the county
tackle gang issues. Hill did not
immediately return a request for
comment.
The contribution to King from
Democracy PAC, which is Soros’s
vehicle for funding races in the
2020 elections, gives the candi-
date a large advantage money-
wise. With the donation, he has
raised about $88,000 to Hill’s
$61,000 during this election cy-
cle, according to state campaign
finance records. King said he
plans to use the money for mail-
ers.
King said he hopes the en-
dorsement from Soros leads to
ing some of the same criminal
justice issues from 50 years ago,”
King said. “I don’t want kids 50
years from now having the same
conversations about police bru-
tality and bias.”
In Prince William County, the
sheriff runs the jail and provides
courthouse security. The Prince
William County Police Depart-
ment provides law enforcement
services.
King, who is a sheriff’s deputy
in Fairfax County, also served in
the Army in Iraq. He is the first
Democrat to mount a run for theFairfax counties to progressive
challengers in June.
King is also running on a pro-
gressive agenda as he takes on
Republican incumbent Glen Hill
in November’s general election.
King is promising to divert more
offenders from incarceration, in-
crease the diversity of the sheriff’s
office and end the Prince William
County jail’s controversial agree-
ment, known as 287(g), to help
the federal Immigration and Cus-
toms Enforcement agency with
immigration enforcement.
“Unfortunately, we are still see-BY JUSTIN JOUVENAL
A political action committee
funded by George Soros has given
$50,000 to a candidate for sheriff
in Prince William County, the
latest in a string of contributions
by the Democratic megadonor
aimed at p ushing criminal justice
reform in Northern Virginia.
The donation to the campaign
of Democrat Josh King follows
more than $1 million in spending
by the Soros-aligned PAC that
helped tip Democratic primaries
for prosecutor in Arlington and
celebration that was previously
free of politics into a de facto
campaign rally.
However, he said, despite the
politics, “the people of the Dis-
trict of Columbia shouldn’t have
to foot the bill for the entire
country, and that’s why we have
bipartisan support for this lan-
guage.”
The funding request comes as
D.C. officials prepare to make the
case this week for their biggest
priority — m aking the District the
51st state — before the House
Committee on Oversight and Re-
form.
To rally support for statehood,
Bowser on Monday led a parade,
complete with American flags
mocked up to feature 51 white
stars, at a cost of $31,206. The
money came from $1 million the
D.C. Council set aside to promote
the statehood campaign.
[email protected]Peter Jamison contributed to this
report.logistical plans that had been in
place since 2001.
Chris Rodriguez, director of
the D.C. Homeland Security and
Emergency Management Agency,
has said that the estimated costs
for the Fourth of July were six
times as much as in past years
The District was left with a
$6 million deficit after incurring
$1.7 million in expenses for the
Fourth of July celebration and
police costs for demonstrations
through the following weekend,
and $7.3 m illion in expenses from
Trump’s inauguration in January
2017, Bowser has said.
Trump administration officials
have said District officials
planned to use money left in the
emergency fund to cover inaugu-
ration costs and did not request
additional money. Bowser’s office
denies this.
Van Hollen said the Fourth of
July event was initially designed
as a tribute to Trump instead of
the nation, and he accused the
president of turning an annualspeech by Trump at the Lincoln
Memorial, a second fireworks dis-
play, a flyover by military aircraft
and a display of armored vehicles
on the Mall. The president’s ap-
pearance increased security costs
and required the city to changeis unclear whether her request
will be heeded.
The city absorbed higher secu-
rity costs for the Fourth of July
celebration this summer after the
president redesigned it as a “Sa-
lute to America,” including aessentially contracted out a lot of
demands on the government of
the District of Columbia without
providing a budget that compen-
sates the District of Columbia for
it.”
The money is additional to the
$12 million appropriation paid to
the District to ensure that local
taxpayers are not left footing the
bill for federal security needs.
The total amount of $18 mil-
lion is part of a larger package of
bills Senate appropriators must
pass and reconcile with bills re-
cently passed by the House.
Lawmakers do not expect to
complete their work before the
end of the fiscal year, and this
week they plan to vote on a
continuing resolution to extend
the deadline, further delaying the
payment to the District.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton
(D), the District’s nonvoting rep-
resentative in Congress, wrote to
House leaders in July asking that
the $6 million be included in the
next continuing resolution, but itBY JENNA PORTNOY
A Senate panel on Tuesday
took a first step toward reimburs-
ing the District for costs incurred
as a result of President Trump’s
Fourth of July celebration, his
inauguration and other events in
the nation’s capital.
At the request of Sen. Chris Van
Hollen (D-Md.), an appropria-
tions subcommittee advanced a
bill that would pay the District
$6 million to replenish a fund
used to provide security at large
public events, such as rallies and
state funerals.
After Trump’s overhauled
Fourth of July event this summer,
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D)
warned the president that the
District fund, known as the Emer-
gency Planning and Security
Fund, would run a deficit when
the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
“The White House budgets
have clearly shortchanged the
District of Columbia,” Van Hollen
said in an interview. “They’ve
BY REBECCA TAN
Montgomery County intro-
duced an ambitious racial equity
bill Tuesday, its most significant
step in joining dozens of other
jurisdictions that are seeking to
correct racial inequities through
government policy.
The Racial Equity and Social
Justice Act, co-sponsored by all
nine members of the Montgom-
ery County Council, would re-
quire legislation, public policy
initiatives and government pro-
grams in Maryland’s largest ju-
risdiction to include a “racial
equity impact” statement that
lays out potential implications
on existing disparities among
different racial groups.
Under the proposal, all county
government agencies in the
majority-minority suburb would
have to develop equity action
plans that include mandatory
training for managers and super-
visors. A newly formed Office of
Racial Equity and Social Justice
would identify existing govern-
ment policies that could be
changed to address inequities.
Such sweeping, government-
wide initiatives have been con-
troversial in other cities and
counties, with critics question-
ing their expense and effective-
ness.
At a news conference Tuesday,
County Council President Nancy
Navarro (D-District 4) said the
bill’s detailed provisions would
ensure the “discipline” necessary
to address the racial disparities
in Montgomery, where there is a
higher poverty rate for black and
Latino residents than for whites
and a disproportionate number
of black youths arrested.
“A lthough all of us want to
work toward this goal, the reality
is that unless we have structural
pieces in place that force us, we
will never be able to get to that
ultimate goal,” Navarro said,
flanked by a dozen advocates and
activists.
She s aid she does not think the
additional requirements would
slow down the legislative proc-
ess, because council members
are already discussing racial eq-
uity in meetings; the new bill
would simply codify it.
Jayne Park, executive director
of the organization Impact Silver
Spring, said the bill seems com-
prehensive, though details on
implementation remain unclear.
“I don’t really know what an
‘impact statement’ looks like,”
she said. “How is i t actually going
to happen?”
Marie Ta ylor, president of
Leadership Montgomery, a Rock-
ville-based nonprofit group that
provides racial-equity training,
said she was “pleasantly sur-
prised” by the level of detail in
the proposed bill. The real test of
commitment for the county’s
lawmakers, she noted, will bewhat resources they set aside to
implement its provisions.
Skeptics of racial-equity initia-
tives said they will be paying
close attention as well.
“It would b e a hard sell to me if
they need to raise taxes to pay for
this,” s aid D an McHugh, a former
president of the Montgomery
County Young Republicans and
critic of the county’s immigra-
tion-related policies. “My big
question is how much is it going
to cost, and how are we going to
pay for it?”
A fiscal impact and economic
impact statement for the initia-
tive is still in the works. Officials
say they have yet to decide what
the size of the racial equity office
would be.
In Northern Virginia’s Fairfax
County, the equity office includes
one director, two policy advisers
and an annual budget of more
than $480,000. In Washington
state’s King C ounty, widely recog-
nized as the leading jurisdiction
for racial-equity initiatives, there
is an office that operates with
nine full-time staff members and
a biennial budget of $4 million.
A public hearing for the Mont-
gomery bill is scheduled for
Oct. 29. Several advocacy groups
organized under the Montgom-
ery County Racial Equity
(MORE) Network are hosting a
“people’s forum” on the bill on
Thursday.
[email protected]THE DISTRICT
Congress inches closer to paying city for cost of hosting Trump-era events
MARYLAND
Montgomery introduces equity bill
VIRGINIA
Soros-funded PAC donates to Democrat in Prince William sheri≠’s race
JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST
President Trump addresses the “Salute to America” event in front
of the Lincoln Memorial on the Fourth of July.Democrat Josh King received
$50,000 from Democracy PAC.Sheriff Glen Hill, a Republican,
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