The following report was delivered to the Metro DC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The report has been republished here for wider review and distribution.
Metro DC DSA (MDC DSA) is holding its annual convention on December 7 and 8, continuing its democratic process to debate and discuss our political orientation, the rules that govern our organizing, and elect a new Steering Committee. And as part of this work, the 16th Steering Committee is providing its annual report to the membership, to summarize the 2024 term. That annual report is contained herein.
This report comes at a political conjuncture relevant not only to our region, but to the entire country and world. The return of far right rule to control of the federal government will have deep repercussions across the DMV. But it happens at another conjuncture, as well: DSA’s national membership is spiking as the working class seeks an answer to politics beyond the hateful reaction of the right and the failed neoliberalism of the center, and our local membership is as well. The chapter’s strength - in its campaigns, in its procedures and bodies, in its social life — is high, and we stand ready to be the political vehicle for a new, working class politics moving forward.
Locally, we have continued to build our own organization and power. Despite headwinds against socialist politics at the national level, our chapter remained quite strong relative to the organization — losing fewer members and bringing in more new ones than most others. That strength has translated into regional political power for our class — be it in the form of winning elections, supporting workers fighting for unions, or standing in solidarity with Palestinians during the ongoing, US backed genocide.
This year our chapter continued to build that power:
By organizing across state lines, our chapter has proven the political power of the organized working class. Together, we can mobilize the many to force working class perspectives into the conversation — in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.
Membership growth remains a priority in the chapter — we have the people, they have the money. Until the election, our public events — from happy hours to walking tours to canvasses — brought in new members, but not at a pace to grow the chapter from last year. After the election, our chapter has grown rapidly, with a greater than 10 percent bump in membership. Moving members from dues-paying and inactive into leading organizers will be key in the next few months, as workers across the region look to fight back against fascism. Our organizational strength moving forward will come from being the political home for workers disenchanted with centrist policy that allows fascism to fester. But work in 2024 has set us up to do this: new member onboarding is more popular than ever, and many friendly, low-stakes public events give people the space to start engaging with the chapter through multiple avenues.
As 2024 comes to an end and we start our local chapter convention, we ask our comrades to read this report. Understanding our past successes and failures will be key to building on what we have done and creating new opportunities for democratic socialism - both here in the DMV and nationally. We have shown that winning political power through organizing is possible. Let’s continue to do so.
As stated in our chapter’s bylaws, “The Steering Committee is the highest elected body of MDC DSA and is the political leadership of the chapter when the membership is not assembled.” But the Steering Committee is not just the chapter’s political leadership: it is also the body that implements the chapter’s will, in the form of resolutions, priority campaigns, and duties written into the bylaws. The committee must ensure that the general body’s will is seen through.
To that end, each Steering Committee must assign itself a set of tasks in the form of portfolios, per the bylaws. Some of these portfolios are related to row offices, like Treasurer, where members campaign for a specific role on the committee and must see it through; others are decided collectively at the beginning of the term by the entire committee, and at-large members must make sure the work happens.
The sections following this one provide summaries of the permanent committees mentioned above. Immediately below is a summary of activities (not included in the permanent committee summaries) for the 2023 Metro DC DSA Steering Committee:
The next Steering Committee will set its own plan of work, determine its own priorities within the context of the 2025 priority campaigns and resolutions passed at the 2024 local convention, and decide democratically on how to split up responsibilities. The 2024 chair recommends continuing with portfolio reportbacks and deepening support for social activities that serve as onramps into the organizing work of the chapter.
Verified as of 12/5/2024, total cash on hand is $81,364.46. As of December 8, 2022, we had $70,353.19 in cash on hand. This reflects a total decrease of about $11,000 in our cash reserves in 2024, after a year in which we spent a significant amount of money investing in a wide range of work, all outside of electoral campaigns.
We spent most of our allocated funds. We spent just under $8,000 of the $16,000 allocated to our priority campaigns, slightly less than last year. This is a slight underestimate, as some of the $8,250 still in the priority budget will get used before EOY (at least $850 is outstanding, I just need to get the person their check). This difference isn’t driven by any particular campaign or circumstance: all used a chunk of their funds, but none has come close to exhausting it, which is fine as long as that comes from being smart with resources rather than a fear of running out.
We spent all of our Translation Budget, which was reduced due to lack of use this year but which came to a total of $1,500. We spent the great majority of our new Outreach Fund, which has $307 left out of an initial allocation of $2,000. This money paid for outreach materials, food, equipment, etc., which we’ve been consistently using to keep trying to bring people into our work. This has been effective in fits and starts, and our current high in member numbers is as much due to reaction to the Trump administration as anything, but I am convinced that spending money on outreach has been a force multiplier for our member engagement energy, and has really helped us build infrastructure to absorb these new members.
This is money held in the Treasury that is not held in restricted funds, budget funds, or branch funds. This is referred to as General Funds. We have $66,795 in General Funds. As of December 8, 2023, we had $56,457 in General Funds, so we increased our general funds by about $10,000.
This is money that has been deposited by a Working Group or Section via fundraising to be used for their own purposes. This money is counted as separate from the General Funds. In total, we have $10,279 in Restricted Funds, an annual increase of about $500. This number is partially driven by continued fundraising by MoCo and the Abolition working group, which is unambiguously positive: MoCo’s fund is nearly $2,000, so we grew despite spending a lot from restricted funds. That being said, groups with access to restricted funds are encouraged to find ways to spend them, particularly Abolition with regard to the Migrant Justice fund, which has been placed under their control, since that fund is so substantial.
Branch Funds are like Restricted Funds for Branches, self-raised money that can be used for their own purposes. Branches also received a $1000 budget allocation placed into a “use it or lose it” budget fund that expires by the next budget period.
In total, branches spent $1600 of their allotted $3,000 dollars. Northern Virginia spent most of theirs, and Montgomery County spent some of theirs (and may spend the remainder by EOY), and PGC spent some of theirs. This is the first year that PGC has spent from this fund, which I see as a real positive.
We had 5 priority campaigns this year, covering very different types of work, terrains of struggle, and financial needs.
The breakdown of expenditures is:
The priority system continued to work well, providing significant support for our chapter’s most public 2024 accomplishments: the very significant organizing victory at Marbury Plaza, which awarded tenants significant amounts of back rent based on their slumlord-induced bad conditions, strong showings for Question 1 and Uncommitted, and Janeese Lewis George’s re-election.
The 2024 Chapter Budget put aside $3,000 for “discretionary” spending, i.e. money for reimbursements for expenditures that come up. We’ve spent about $1,850 of that money, still primarily on outreach and social expenses. The biggest expense was a big speaker we’ve used for walking tours and demonstrations, which has been a big value add. The outreach fund has meant that more of discretionary can go to durable expenses like that, and to things like socials and new member cohort expenses, since we don’t need to reserve discretionary as carefully for core outreach expenses. Future steering committees should continue to be cautious with the discretionary budget, but should keep in mind that investing in durable goods, which often open up new types of events for potential successes, can be a very worthwhile expense as long as they’re considered carefully and money is spent gradually overall.
At the 2023 Convention, the chapter approved an operational budget. The budget included a total of $17,839, down from the previous year’s total, based on the previous treasurer’s correct estimation that the previous budget had been too high. The cost of a number of key services (e.g. Zoom, Gsuite) rose during the year, however so there is a chance we will be slightly over budget by end of year. Currently, we have spent about $17,000 of that budget, and I expect that we’ll end up right around the total by EOY
I’ve again proposed an increase in the operating budget for 2025, due to the rise in the cost of certain services, and to enable more texting and phone banking using our new Scale2Win platform. I’ve also proposed significantly more spending on meeting space, to permit more in person chapter meetings (with a hybrid component, of course).
For dues, we received $32,961 from the National Dues share, which represents the last quarter of 2023 through the third quarter of 2024. This is a significant increase (about $6,000) from last year, largely due to the increase in solidarity dues contributions and the fact that in general, our monthly dues payer numbers are up. We have the second highest number of members paying monthly dues in the country, and are thus a very significant contributor to the national org’s fiscal health. The increase in dues share is the primary reason we increased our cash on hand by so much this year: we spent at a similar pace on a similar budget, but simply brought in a good bit more money, and so our cash on hand is up.
The chapter also received donations in 2024, via an older Paypal fundraising system and Action Network. We received $6,112 through PayPal, and $9,638 through ActionNetwork, for a total of about $15,750, putting our income at around $48,600. These direct donations are down again over last year, when we brought in closer to $17,000, but this is more than offset by the increase in dues share, which is the approach we’ve been pushing to chapter contributions this year.
The Administrative Committee (AdCom) is a permanent chapter committee sanctioned by the Steering Committee to oversee and accomplish the general administrative functions of the chapter, among other duties as outlined in the bylaws. AdCom is organized into five departments: Communications, Operations, TechOps, Member Engagement and Security. Within those departments are committees — for example, Events committee (within Operations) and Social Media committee (within Communications). Both Departments and Committees are led by stewards, and the chapter Secretary chairs AdCom with assistance from the AdCom Steward, who helps lead Dept Steward meetings and RedDesk support.
AdCom has formally existed since late 2020 and has evolved along with the chapter. Departments and the teams within them have developed depending on the organizing circumstances and internal demand for administrative assistance in that area. For example, this year, the Security Dept coordinated to refine some of our protocols and procedures around member vetting to ensure we’re being clear-eyed as we mobilize more members into the various teams that use Action Network and prepare for the incoming Trump administration. Our Member Engagement Dept, which was established following local convention 2023, has recently developed a new structure to revitalize its engagement efforts, breaking down the Dept into three distinct teams: Mobilizers, who focus on getting members plugged into our various chapter formations; Onboarders, who focus on onboarding new chapter members with things like our New Member Orientations; and Community Builders, who focus on coordinating chapter socials, happy hours and community events. Additionally, our TechOps Department has successfully built out a chapter Wiki for all members to engage with so we can more easily archive institutional knowledge about chapter structures, formations, campaigns, history, etc. TechOps has done a great job at socializing this tool with the general body. Our Communications and Operations Departments have continued mobilizing new members and have been exceptional about promptly resolving RedDesk ticket requests — often moving quickly to respond to last minute requests and external crises (like organizing for rapid response Palestine solidarity actions.)
Most members interact with AdCom through RedDesk, our chapter's internal ticketing management system, where members can submit requests for social media posts, vetting, onboarding, mass texts, event creation, and many other items. As of December 1st, 2024, AdCom has resolved ~911 RedDesk tickets this year. That’s ~229 more tickets resolved than by the end of last year, demonstrating the fruits of increased mobilization efforts and dedicated work carried out by volunteers who keep the wheels of our chapter turning.
The past year has seen successes and challenges for AdCom. The main challenge has been retaining Department and Committee Stewards. These are often time consuming leadership roles that many people are hesitant to take on. Stewards quickly become burnt out after overseeing their team’s administrative functions, regularly checking in with team members, responding to RedDesk tickets, answering questions in slack, etc. It’s thankless work that feels largely disconnected from other chapter campaigns and formations. This pervasive burnout leads to rampant turnover, which leads to time spent mobilizing to fill a vacancy, which leads to more time spent onboarding and training the new member, which then leads to more burnout for the Secretary and AdCom Steward. It’s a taxing cycle that has been difficult to shift. For example, we had a new Comms Dept Steward start in the beginning of the year, who then took a step back shortly after assuming the role due to lack of capacity. So we had to start over again to find a new steward, which resulted in the Comms Dept not meeting for multiple months. This is an unsustainable model. I think there are a couple ways we can shift this dynamic:
Behind each ticket is a Team that works without pay to keep the chapter running and growing. Without these volunteers, none of this would be possible.
AdCom has grown a lot over the past four years and will continue to evolve as our chapter becomes more organized and powerful.
2024 was a very active campaigning year for the Political Engagement Committee and Electoral Working Group, but we still laid important foundations for growth and activity to come in 2025. The body helped support the chapter’s endorsement of Janeese Lewis George’s reelection campaign (20,000 voters’ doors knocked) and Uncommitted Maryland (21,000 doors) in the primary election, and the Right to Reproductive Freedom Maryland state constitutional amendment campaign (4,600 doors) in the general. On the legislative advocacy side, the chapter organized to pass the Prince George’s County rent stabilization bill and the DC Ceasefire Resolution.
To prepare for the future, the PEC established Electoral subcommittees for research, mobilization, and communications as ways to keep members engaged during the offseason and give us more capacity to plan ahead and quickly spin up legislative and electoral campaigns around every chapter priority in the future. This capacity will be absolutely crucial for growing our connection with MDC-endorsed electeds. In order for us to institute a Socialists-in-Office (SiO) committee with regular meetings we need to have enough people to do the work of following legislative calendars, liaising with offices to schedule times, and support our legislative agendas with quick-turnaround comms and field organizing. The SiO Historically it has been difficult for Electoral to be in a planning and execution phase at the same time, but we hope the subcommittee structures, regular programming of trainings and socials, and better onboarding procedures, will start to ease that difficulty as we bring in more people through our successful campaigns.
Electoral also created a training on electoral organizing, reviewing how the chapter’s electoral program has changed over time and giving a walkthrough on how they can be part of it. We hope that the materials for this training will be used to keep growing the Big Red Machine, as one of our conservative DC-area enemies called us, for years to come. The trainings and these campaigns have developed many new leaders who now know not only how to knock voters’ and constituents’ doors, but how to: plan and launch canvasses, manage lists of volunteers, use VAN to make lists of voters, print literature, recruit people to DSA from the doors, and the other tasks necessary to build a bigger canvassing force.
We hope to further develop these skills in even more members by showing up in force for the newly MDC DSA-endorsed Shayla Adams-Stafford in Prince George’s County Council District 5 special election. Electoral spent months preparing for this, with Prince George’s Branch comrades foreseeing the open seat that was on the horizon, gathering information about likely candidates who aligned with our values, and supporting Shayla in requesting chapter endorsement. Our canvassing efforts for the MD Reproductive Freedom were focused on PG-5 to familiarize the chapter with the terrain and develop canvass leaders who can hit the ground running.
The goals of the Political Engagement Committee are to: knock more doors; winning more elections; posing more of a re-election threat; exerting more legislative pressure in coordination with electeds and working groups; passing more legislation that materially empowers the working class and brings workers into the movement. In 2024 we moved the chapter closer to achieving them, with more to come.
As its first year as a department within the Administrative Committee, Member Engagement was able to utilize the resources of being part of a larger formation to bring new energy into the work of mobilizing, retaining, and onboarding members.
Building on momentum established in the previous year, the Member Engagement Department started strong with a list of goals and ongoing projects. This year, this team has successfully managed continuous New Member Orientations, redesigned the Chapter Skills Survey, maintained Chat-with-a-Comrade, and worked closely with the chapter’s various formations to identify best practices for onboarding and retention.
With the leadership of Member Engagement Steward Kaela B, Steering Portfolio lead Emily N, and MED leaders Monika Y. and Shawn V., and in consultation with leaders from Political Education, Publications, Training, and the Administrative Committee, the Member Engagement Department launched a new team structure at a chapter-wide forum in August. The teams established in this structure are as following:
We are enthusiastic that these efforts will carry our work forward in a way that is sustainable and accessible, helping our chapter grow and thrive through these collective efforts.
Stomp Out Slumlords is a working group of Metro DC DSA that fights evictions and supports tenant organizing throughout the Washington metro area. The working group organizes across the District of Columbia and in neighboring counties of Maryland and Virginia. Over its seven-year existence, the group has organized rent strikes and actions in dozens of buildings and won improved conditions, back rent, collectively bargained agreements, rent abatements, rent freezes, and in one case, tenant ownership of a 34-unit building. SOS is also a member of the Autonomous Tenants Union Network (ATUN).
SOS has run consistent anti-eviction canvasses, as well as building outreach canvasses over the past year as a means for building up its network of involved and engaged tenants. These activities act as one of the core components of SOS’ base and tenant network expansion, and have continued even as SOS has spent some part of the year incubating its long-term ambitions of establishing a region-wide tenant organization and expanding TOPA rights in DC.
A summary of SOS’s activities over the last year is below:
The Labor Working Group organizes with workers across the region to fight bad bosses, build new unions, and campaign for pro-worker policies. Inspired by a rich history of socialist thought and practice, the Labor Working Group believes that workplace organizing—whether through traditional union models or other forms—is central to building power and making tangible changes to fight exploitation and oppression.
Below is some of the Labor Working Group’s organizing in 2024:
MDC DSA's Abolition Working Group began during the Floyd Uprisings in 2020, and has consistently been organizing in coalition with Black-led and racial justice organizations to move toward prison abolition in DC, Montgomery County, and Northern Virginia. As part of the Abolition working group's vision for racial and economic justice, the group organizes to demand that funding removed from police and prisons be reinvested in real public safety: housing, schools, jobs, healthcare, and mental health services, community-based support programs, violence interruption, and other public goods and services. The working group organizes to make this chapter-wide political position a reality.
At the 2023 Metro DC DSA convention, members voted to make the work of the Abolition working group a priority campaign for 2024, along with four other campaigns. Prior to 2024, this working-group was referred to as the Defund MPD working group.
The working group meets bi-weekly, and organizes itself in two regional subformations: DC and Northern Virginia. (Abolition work in Maryland is mainly carried out through the Montgomery and Prince George's branches, although the WG has active members who live and work in Montgomery and Prince George's counties).
In 2024, the working group played a major role in organizing the fight against Secure DC (the “Crimnibus”) proposed by the DC Council. The bill rolled back several initiatives won in the aftermath of the Floyd uprisings. While the bill was ultimately passed 12-0, the city-wide coalition was able to shake out several small, but important, wins in abating the worst of the legislation, such as maintaining felony theft thresholds, maintaining several police transparency thresholds, watering down the mask ban implemented by the legislation, sunsetting pretrial detention, and limiting the range of DNA collection afforded by the legislation.
In addition, the Abolition working group organized a range of events designed to incubate and develop anti-carceral counterpublics in DC and continue organizing against the police state. These efforts included:
The Abolition working group declined consideration for a 2025 priority campaign status, but the working group intends to continue carrying out its activities in 2025 by organizing political education events, engaging in base-building through its ANC campaign, broadening DSA’s base of contacts through its incarcerated individual jail-writing campaign, developing mutual aid projects through jail support and courtwatch programs, and continuing to research and advocate for non-carceral approaches to public safety through its yearly DC budget oversight research.
We Power DC is a grassroots campaign fighting for public power in the District. The long objective is to win a publicly-owned municipal utility, directly accountable to the people it serves, by municipalizing Pepco. By bringing DC’s utilities system under democratic control, DC’s working class could be saved thousands in yearly utility bills and greater focus could be mandated on ensuring carbon-neutral energy production.
We Power DC is in the base and power building phase of its campaign - building up a base of popular support and dedicated activists, connections and trust across environmental justice organizations, and support among elected officials.
Below are We Power DC’s activities from 2024:
As a working group, We Power DC also cojoined with the Social Housing working group to form a new Green New Deal working group with the intention of merging operations between the two campaigns to expand capacity and to better coordinate strategy and tactics. Although both campaigns will continue to manage separately, this new working group is intended to slowly evolve the campaigns into a broader plan.
The Political Education Working Group’s mission is to help the chapter and the community it is based in better understand our own world and how to fight for a better one. Political Education does this by coordinating Reading Groups, Walking Tours, Socialist Night School, Book Exchanges, and working with Chapter campaigns and formations to create and empower communities to understand the economic and social forces that shape the environment chapter members are operating in.
Below is a list of significant Political Education Working Group activities in 2024:
The Publications working group, also known as the Publications Editorial Cooperative, has been operating within Metro DC DSA for over seven years. Publications’ primary objectives encumber production and distribution of the weekly newsletter, and curation of the Washington Socialist, a digital publication associated with Metro DC DSA. Publications often mobilizes support for other propaganda projects, and works closely with the Design Committee, the Administrative Committee, Member Engagement, the Campaigns Council, and the Street Team in order to smooth the transfer of information across chapter members and to external audiences.
Since April 2023, Publications has had an elected editorial board responsible for overseeing publications wide processes. Five members of the board are elected by Publications working group participants, one is an elected member of the Steering Committee, and another is appointed by the Administrative committee. In 2024, the board has become a vital anchor of consistency for the working group — anchoring group operations and also establishing a clearer editorial line for publications productions.
Significant insights from Publications operations over 2024:
Publications also initiated a series of left-wing writing workshops with an affiliate publication, After the Storm, to engage a new audience and develop the bench of writers and editors connected to the chapter. Each of the workshops were sold-out and reached capacity, and afforded the chapter new opportunities for incorporating and familiarizing the wider left in DC with the DSA and chapter publications.
The Bodily Autonomy Working Group formed this year through the merger of the Reproductive Justice Working Group and the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy campaign. Throughout the year prior to the merger and after it, the working group has advocated for trans sanctuary bills, held a name change clinic, protested across the DMV, organized to protect abortion rights in Maryland, and provided care kits for reproductive justice.
In September, BAWG successfully organized to get the Alexandria City Council to pass a sanctuary bill protecting LGBTQIA+ people who live there. This is the first LGBTQIA+ sanctuary resolution in the state of Virginia, where LGBTQIA+ have been under attack from the Governor’s mansion into local school boards, and represents a step in the right direction to protect the bodily autonomy of everyone. After Alexandria BAWG launched a sanctuary campaign in Arlington and recruited Equality Arlington to drive it to passage. Ideally it will be passed by the end of 2024, but at worst before inauguration in 2024. In the face of the election results and with additional capacity from new members, BAWG also accelerated and launched a Fairfax Sanctuary campaign in mid-November.
BAWG also held its first name change clinic this year, helping multiple individuals prepare paperwork, explain the legal context, and the steps for successfully changing their names in line with how they identify.
Public facing actions were also a common activity for BAWG and its predecessors this year, from protests to tabling at events. Rallies at school boards demanding they protect queer and trans kids and a presence at this year’s Trans Day of Visibility event were part of the work. Just the week of convention, BAWG helped organize a rapid response protest at the Supreme Court during the hearing of U.S. v Skrmetti, a case that could threaten gender-affirming care for children. This action ended up in the national news and forced one prominent Republican congressperson to abandon her hateful speech.
For reproductive justice, BAWG packed over 500 care kits — including plan B, condoms, pregnancy tests, and zines about reproductive justice — while raising money for the DC Abortion Fund, helping those in need across the country as abortion rights are under attack.
In Maryland, BAWG helped lead on passing Question 1, which enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution. Over 25 volunteers knocked thousands of doors, and Question 1 passed overwhelmingly — with more than 76% of the vote statewide.
The street team is a new chapter group, founded in January of 2024, that makes sure DSA has a community presence across the region. The formation organizes tabling operations in public space in the region: farmers’ markets, community events, protests, and anywhere possibly interested but unorganized people are likely to be. The working group has formalized, meeting monthly with a mission statement, and has successfully initiated rollout at multiple events every month of the year.
Through tabling, the street team has been able to pull in new subscribers to our newsletter, sign-up new people to the chapter and increase engagement with members. It has also grown successfully and has integrated the chapter’s organizing into its pitch to interested workers by advertising campaigns, working groups, actions, and other ways to get involved. The street team works with the Member Engagement Department to get interested people into a pipeline to membership and active organizing with the chapter.
In addition to fine-tuning its operations and developing a new base of organized members, the Street Team has also accomplished the following competencies in its operations:
The Internationalism working group relaunched in February of 2024 with a focus on Palestine solidarity. The group has brought contingents to multiple mass protests, supported college encampments in the region as they were happening, and done multiple events on political education, like film screenings and sponsoring reading groups. Members of the working-group also connect to local Palestine solidarity coalitions, such as DC 4 Palestine and VA 4 Palestine.
Growth of the working group has been organic — an outgrowth from the local Palestine solidarity movement and has attracted a significant number of members completely new to the DSA. This outgrowth of engagement has come with some growing pains - in moving a mass number of members, rechartering a structure, and clarifying its program and operations. But the working group has been able to hold consistent meetings and maintain enthusiasm and engagement among its base of new members throughout the year.
In September, Internationalism supported Brandon Lee’s speaking tour, in which he came to multiple locations in the US to discuss, educate, and agitate people about the struggle for justice in The Philippines. Internationalism helped with multiple local actions — from a conference to a vigil for the victims of martial law — during Brandon’s time here.
The Internationalism working group has also been involved in Cuba Solidarity organizing, including an event with the Cuban Embassy that explained the injustice and harm of the US blockade on the country, and the importance of removing Cuba from the state sponsors of terror list.
As actions and opportunities came up, Internationalism also got involved in other coalition work, such as commemorating the Armenian genocide and demand justice.
The Social Housing working group has been organizing for two years in DSA, with the objective of passing social housing legislation similar to what’s been initiated in Montgomery County through its Housing Opportunities Commission. The landmark legislation that would actually bring social housing to the District has already been proposed and boosted by chapter-endorsed Janeese Lewis-George through the Green New Deal for Housing Act. In effect, the Social Housing working group’s operations are designed to build support for this legislation and expand the popular demand for social housing in the district.
The working group has engaged in four categories of primary activity in 2024:
In addition to the aforementioned operations, the working group also hosted a delegation of 40+ current and former elected policy experts from Vienna, Austria in November to discuss the Viennese model of social housing — largely seen as the model for this program. The delegation includes members of the Austrian National Council, the Vienna State Parliament, as well as officials from the City of Vienna, university professors, union representatives, and more.
The Montgomery County, MD branch of Metro DC DSA organizes to build local democracy, fight for tax justice and against austerity, demand rent control and sustainable housing, fight fascism, and build solidarity here and abroad. Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the United States, but it is also highly unequal.
Last year, MoCo Branch won one of our chapter’s marquee victories — rent stabilization for hundreds of thousands of tenants in Montgomery County, limiting rent increases to 6% or less annually. Montgomery County DSA continues to defend that victory on two fronts. First, the county is still working on finalizing rent stabilization regulations and standing up an Office of Rent Stabilization charged with enforcing rent stabilization. This past winter, the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs released a set of draft regulations. We held two canvasses, knocking on over 500 doors to encourage renters to submit comments in support of strong draft regulations as well as a tenant information session at the Blairs in downtown Silver Spring. We submitted the comments we received through canvassing, the tenant meeting and through calls to our membership and we also joined a coalition comment prepared by a CASA lawyer.
The Montgomery County Branch is also a leading partner in the campaign to win rent stabilization in the City of Rockville, which is exempted from the county rent stabilization law. We held three renter canvasses throughout Rockville between April and June and turned out DSA members and tenants to a rally and a rent stabilization hearing at the Rockville City Council in July. Despite public pressure from renters, the Rockville City Council and Mayor voted to remove rent stabilization from consideration at the July meeting and instead opted to hold a series of housing policy discussions on other housing topics. Since July, we’ve organized three different renter canvasses and a wheatpasting event to inform renters about the Rockville City Council and Mayor’s betrayal of renters in their vote. We turned out DSA members and Rockville tenants to attend and testify during these housing policy discussions in September, October and November — condemning the council and mayor’s refusal to protect tenants from unchecked rent increases. Our goal for the final housing policy discussion, focused on “housing stability” was 25 testimonies and 40 supporters in the room. In total, we had 35 testimonies — including about a dozen testimonies from DSA members and tenants we canvassed — and 70 supporters in City Hall, taking over three overflow rooms.
Through this campaign, the branch has strengthened relationships with other coalition partner organizations including the Huntington Tenants Association, Progressive MD, JUFJ, CASA, and Housing Justice Montgomery. Notably, our branch’s organizing work also led to Rockville City Councilmember Zola Shaw joining DSA as a member — strengthening our relationship with her and with Rockville renters and residents.
We’ve noticed an uptick in DSA membership and interest in DSA from Rockville residents and tenants because of this campaign. One tenant that we canvassed in May has become a leader in the campaign and we are now supporting them in forming a tenant association and we also connected with a group of somewhat organized tenants through our wheatpasting.
From January–March, MoCo Branch mobilized in support of Delegate Gabe Acevero’s ceasefire resolution in Annapolis to submit testimony on behalf of the branch and organized rapid response testimony from Branch members after the deliberately short notice from the House Rules Committee to do so. In March, a group of District 20 constituents led by Branch member Susan R. engaged in a lobby meeting with Delegates Jheanelle Wilkins and David Moon. Alongside partners in a larger Maryland ceasefire coalition, we far outnumbered opponents in the hearing and made a strong showing of support for peace and justice in Palestine.
At the same time as we were mobilizing for a ceasefire resolution, we engaged with other DSA chapters and coalition partners and launched a field organizing campaign in support of Uncommitted Maryland to show support for peace and justice in Palestine. Through the statewide campaign 135 volunteers knocked on doors of over 26,000 voters and had over 4,000 conversations. As a result, Uncommitted received 66,168 total votes, 9.75% of the vote across the state. While working on the Uncommitted campaign, organizers and activists built new skills, introduced new people to DSA, and strengthened our activist network for future actions.
After Uncommitted, the branch entered a period of rest, reflection, and research on our next steps for Palestine organizing. Former branch member Alex M. wrote and published a reflection on the Uncommitted campaign in the Washington Socialist, and we have been using her reflections and feedback to guide our shift toward the next phase of our organizing. Branch leaders participated in a campaign planning and research workshop led by Eric W from national in October, and hosted a research party to determine options for local BDS campaigns. Olivia and Michelle reached out to coalition partners, presented two proposals for campaigns that were discussed at the December branch general body meeting, and ultimately decided to join the Drop the MIDC coalition heading into 2025, with clear affirmation from the branch to prioritize Palestine solidarity work in addition to our rent stabilization work.
The Montgomery County branch has not had any significant organizing activity on Abolition work in this period. Our previous abolition campaign steward, Kat, had to step back and the Decriminalize Montgomery Coalition has not had significant public-facing activity during this period at the county level, though we are monitoring state level efforts on reducing police traffic stops. In September, the legislation that the Decriminalize Montgomery Coalition supported to ban consent searches, the Freedom to Leave Act, failed a County Council committee vote.
A group of DSA members who live Upcounty (Germantown, Gaithersburg, Montgomery Village, Olney, Damascus, etc.) met regularly to discuss Upcounty-specific organizing after starting an Upcounty group this year. They canvassed renters to get support for a tenants’ association at Gateway apartments in Gaithersburg and plan on continuing organizing there. They also hosted two successful picnics and socials and are meeting monthly to discuss future plans.
The Prince George’s Branch of MDC DSA was chartered in 2020. Branch members organize in Prince George’s County, MD to build a base for socialism and support the working class of the county.
Here is some of the organizing the Prince George’s County Branch has done in 2024:
The NoVA Branch of MDC DSA has helped organize members, workgroups, and campaigns across Northern Virginia since 2017. The branch also supports coalition partners and connects members here to comrades across the Commonwealth through the burgeoning Virginia DSA.
Some highlights from 2024 in NoVA:
The Socialist Feminist Section of Metro DC DSA is a chapter formation committed to furthering socialist feminism in our chapter and creating more spaces in which people with marginalized gender and sexual identities can meet and talk about organizing.
This year, the section engaged in significant organizing with the Reproductive Justice working group up into its merging with the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy Campaign into the Bodily Autonomy working group. To develop a base of support for activities carried out by these working group, the socialist feminist section carried out seven happy hours to connect new and long-time members.
The 16th Metro DC DSA Steering Committee hopes that the information in this report is useful. The large and various work highlighted here — all occurring in just one year, and not fully capturing the chapter’s activities — indicates the strength of our chapter’s organizing. Our work has changed things, in small ways and large, for our class. At times it may be thankless, hard, or simply not enjoyable, but it has an outsized impact.
And it happens because we, as workers, are organized collectively. Our class power is possible because hundreds of members locally take the time to build it. From the Steering Committee to each and every chapter member — if you come to one event a year or everything — thank you. You are why we are a force in the DMV.
