Who Are The Charles Allen Voters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:The obsession with Charles Allen is crazy.

Allen has been one of the leading Councilmembers who’s pushing for shrinking the police force and let criminals out of prison sooner, so I don’t think it’s “obsession” to pay attention to him and his impact.

And he becomes even more controversial when you look at the specifics about what he’s doing. For instance, see this example where he wrote a judge saying she made a mistake in denying a serial rapist's parole based on the fact that one of the victims he raped was a 9 year old child. As he say says, the law he co-authored (and was passed by the council) said that judges weren’t supposed to take into account the nature of the crime when considering early release:

https://twitter.com/kdrkrepp/status/1158839549675618305?s=46&t=pDhSMxxnLsXbwTdY_tEBnA

I don’t know how people can actually read about what Charles Allen does and still be confused as to why he’s controversial.

Notice how none of his supporters ever bring this up, because it's indefensibly ghoulish on Allen's part. But please, Allen supporters, try to defend this.

[Anonymous]

Look, there are a lot of reasons we are seeing this crime spike. One of which is Allen’s disastrous tenure as Chairman of the Public Safety Committee. When a DCPS kid is shot on campus and it only makes the Post page B3 (below the fold) you know we are past the point of no return. On behalf of the other seven Wards I’d ask the good people of Capitol Hill to please push this man into another line of work.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:The obsession with Charles Allen is crazy. He is a single member of the Council, not the Devil incarnate. For all the vitriol cast against him here, nobody even ran against him during his last election.

I too like Charles Allen. DC is lucky to have him on the council.

[Anonymous]

Charles Allen blew it with his failed crime legalization bill. Apparently he had these illusions of grandeur of becoming the first US Senator from DC one day. So a lot in his crime legalization bill was really just virtue signaling to make a name for himself for his future national platform. The actual concerns of many of his W6 constituents - reining back in rampant crime - didn't really seem to factor in for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Allen got my vote two elections ago, and lost it in the last election, because he is completely tone deaf on crime, and it's really annoying. I wrote someone in. I'm not sure who voted for him, because everyone I've discussed it with also wrote someone in.

I agree with this.

A frustrating aspect of the conversation around Allen, for Ward 6 residents, is that obviously the criticism of him from congressional republicans and people outside DC is just a way to take pot shots at DC generally -- it's dumb. And I was actually proud of Allen's performance at the congressional hearings because the people questioning him were idiots.

But also, as a Ward 6 resident -- he is not a great ward rep! I think he is ineffectual and tends to just tell people what they want to hear. I think he does a good job of making people feel heard and stay connected to constituents, but I don't think he has responded well to some of the real issues we've had in the ward, including speeding/unsafe driving, and crime. To me it's obvious that crime, in particular, is going to require a combination of the preventative/deterrent approaches he often touts AND greater police presence and crime enforcement, especially in hot areas and at certain times. When certain businesses on H Street are being broken into and having items stolen EVERY weekend, or when the same people are committing theft outside the Eastern Market metro, we can't just talk about deterrent programs. We need enforcement.

Charles Allen is not a bad guy but I think we need someone more willing to pursue practical solutions and who is willing to advocate for solutions that will solve the problem even if they are not the progressive party line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Allen got my vote two elections ago, and lost it in the last election, because he is completely tone deaf on crime, and it's really annoying. I wrote someone in. I'm not sure who voted for him, because everyone I've discussed it with also wrote someone in.

I agree with this.

A frustrating aspect of the conversation around Allen, for Ward 6 residents, is that obviously the criticism of him from congressional republicans and people outside DC is just a way to take pot shots at DC generally -- it's dumb. And I was actually proud of Allen's performance at the congressional hearings because the people questioning him were idiots.

But also, as a Ward 6 resident -- he is not a great ward rep! I think he is ineffectual and tends to just tell people what they want to hear. I think he does a good job of making people feel heard and stay connected to constituents, but I don't think he has responded well to some of the real issues we've had in the ward, including speeding/unsafe driving, and crime. To me it's obvious that crime, in particular, is going to require a combination of the preventative/deterrent approaches he often touts AND greater police presence and crime enforcement, especially in hot areas and at certain times. When certain businesses on H Street are being broken into and having items stolen EVERY weekend, or when the same people are committing theft outside the Eastern Market metro, we can't just talk about deterrent programs. We need enforcement.

Charles Allen is not a bad guy but I think we need someone more willing to pursue practical solutions and who is willing to advocate for solutions that will solve the problem even if they are not the progressive party line.

Well, while he and the other leftists on the Council with no actual professional or educational achievements to speak of attempt to solve a problem that has plagued humanity for thousands of years, can we at least get a few more police on the street while they deliberate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one ran against him last time and the election before that someone ran to the left of him. I votes for Charles Allen back when Tommy Wells stepped down and he seemed much more reasonable. Maybe I didn't know exactly what it meant to be a progressive back then.

Same here.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:The obsession with Charles Allen is crazy. He is a single member of the Council, not the Devil incarnate. For all the vitriol cast against him here, nobody even ran against him during his last election.

If I could go back in time, I would run against him in 2022 as an independent. I would lost, but it would have given voice to many of us who are increasingly frustrated with how Far Left he is — and how his views are being weaponized by Republicans to make Democrats seem soft on crime and out of touch.

[Anonymous]

Weaponized by Republicans across the country, I should have said. (Obviously Republicans don’t stand a chance in DC local elections.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Allen got my vote two elections ago, and lost it in the last election, because he is completely tone deaf on crime, and it's really annoying. I wrote someone in. I'm not sure who voted for him, because everyone I've discussed it with also wrote someone in.

I agree with this.

A frustrating aspect of the conversation around Allen, for Ward 6 residents, is that obviously the criticism of him from congressional republicans and people outside DC is just a way to take pot shots at DC generally -- it's dumb. And I was actually proud of Allen's performance at the congressional hearings because the people questioning him were idiots.

But also, as a Ward 6 resident -- he is not a great ward rep! I think he is ineffectual and tends to just tell people what they want to hear. I think he does a good job of making people feel heard and stay connected to constituents, but I don't think he has responded well to some of the real issues we've had in the ward, including speeding/unsafe driving, and crime. To me it's obvious that crime, in particular, is going to require a combination of the preventative/deterrent approaches he often touts AND greater police presence and crime enforcement, especially in hot areas and at certain times. When certain businesses on H Street are being broken into and having items stolen EVERY weekend, or when the same people are committing theft outside the Eastern Market metro, we can't just talk about deterrent programs. We need enforcement.

Charles Allen is not a bad guy but I think we need someone more willing to pursue practical solutions and who is willing to advocate for solutions that will solve the problem even if they are not the progressive party line.

Well, while he and the other leftists on the Council with no actual professional or educational achievements to speak of attempt to solve a problem that has plagued humanity for thousands of years, can we at least get a few more police on the street while they deliberate?

I agree, but until there are more prosecutions, a functioning DYRS, and you reform the reform laws--whoever the police arrest will be released (if they are prosecuted at all). People like Allen aren't responsible for all of this, but they are for a lot. During the protests of 2019 which I see as the culminating point of a lot of this, when a flurry of ill thought through legislation was passed and prosecutors and police stopped prosecuting and policing, I was sympathetic to the issues, but not all of the methods or the demands of the movement. I thought (to the shriek of sirens and broken glass), well, this won't end well, and I also thought why is no one protecting store-fronts--it took DC 50 years to recover from the major riots of the 60s on the 14th and 16th street cooridors. What some liberal nitwits who have no knowledge of DC wring their hands over as 'gentrification' was actually re-building a shellshocked hellscape. Anyway, here we are. Anyone who has partial responsibility for bringing an ENTIRE city back to its Gotham days is a bad guy in my opinion, but that's neither here nor there. We need a) Tony Williams b) Congressional oversight c) to be absorbed by MD. Pick your poison. Having seen this trajectory as a kid, I KNOW DC is incapable of solving this in any reasonable amount of time. I can't wait another 50 years--we are house hunting elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Is Charles Allen the Marc Elrich of DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is Charles Allen the Marc Elrich of DC?

Elrich can only climax by ordering business to shut down and go out of business. It’s setting free rapists and lecturing people why that is good that give Allen his jollies.

[Anonymous]

The recent WAMU series makes it pretty clear that the lack of policing is due to mayoral mismanagement, not Council’s recent actions and not from the DFS decertification (though that doesn’t help).

It just reads as classic crap middle management driving everyone out.

[Anonymous]

I did not vote for Allen on the last election. I wrote in Big Bird. The factor motivating my voting in the previous and current electoral cycle is crime.

I don't really care that Allen has decent constituent services. And I am fully aware that he is not the sole person responsible for worsening crime; there are others who also bear responsibility and should not be leading our city, starting with Nadeau and Scwhalb. But Allen's legislation and tone have been instrumental in helping crime flourish in this city.

An anecdote best illustrates the problem with Allen. The day after after the shooting at the Point and Rep. Cuellar's carjacking, I called his office to find out if the previous evening's events had changed the councilmember's soft-on-crime approach. His rep told me that, "We need to strike a balance because incarceration causes irreversible harm."

What his rep never bothered to acknowledge is that being victim of crime causes irreparable harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not vote for Allen on the last election. I wrote in Big Bird. The factor motivating my voting in the previous and current electoral cycle is crime.

I don't really care that Allen has decent constituent services. And I am fully aware that he is not the sole person responsible for worsening crime; there are others who also bear responsibility and should not be leading our city, starting with Nadeau and Scwhalb. But Allen's legislation and tone have been instrumental in helping crime flourish in this city.

An anecdote best illustrates the problem with Allen. The day after after the shooting at the Point and Rep. Cuellar's carjacking, I called his office to find out if the previous evening's events had changed the councilmember's soft-on-crime approach. His rep told me that, "We need to strike a balance because incarceration causes irreversible harm."

What his rep never bothered to acknowledge is that being victim of crime causes irreparable harm.

I do not know a single left-leaning democrat (or otherwise) who voted for Allen. Every single person I know wrote someone in.

This tells me that if someone ran against him, he probably would have lost.