AG Racine Testimony on the Office of the Attorney General's Work to Stand Up for District Residents

Good morning, Chairman Allen, Councilmembers, and District residents. I am Karl Racine, and I have the privilege of serving as the independent Attorney General of the District of Columbia. As you know, this oversight hearing will be my last as Attorney General. As a point of personal privilege, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your extraordinary and always thorough work, partnership, and yes, constructive criticism. It is an honor to testify before this Committee about the work of my office and of my colleagues—professional and legal staff—who give their all every day to make the District a more fair, just, and safe city. I also want to thank our residents for the opportunity to have served them and to thank the public witnesses—my team and I will reflect the feedback they have given.

As I come before you today, the COVID-19 pandemic is about to enter its third year. While the darkest days are hopefully behind us, District residents continue to face tremendous challenges that reverberate throughout our community. Throughout the pandemic, OAG has done what it does best: defended, enforced, and advocated for changes to laws to ensure that we are protecting our most vulnerable residents.

Indeed, over the last year, OAG has saved the District money, brought in millions of dollars in recompense from wrongdoers, improved the services of District agencies responsible for protecting children, and stopped harmful business practices that have hurt our families and our environment. In Fiscal Year 2021, we helped avoid $400 million in costs to the District by virtue of our legal work, brought in almost $70 million from our affirmative litigation, collected more than $50 million in child support, and preserved nearly $40 million in tax revenue from lawsuits. For example, we recovered $1.5 million from AT&T for overcharging the District government for telecom services and secured $2.7 million from Apple for misleading consumers about software that intentionally slowed cell phones. Just earlier this week, we won an important case defending the District’s ability to paint “Black Lives Matter” on its streets.

We’ve also worked to protect children, elders, and vulnerable adults from exploitation. This past year, these efforts included criminal prosecution of someone who swindled an elderly resident by securing a reverse mortgage on her home and using the funds for his own benefit. This prosecution was the direct result of OAG detailing a prosecutor to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to pursue offenses that had long been neglected. On the civil side, we also sued a nursing assistant who stole from residents of the nursing home where she worked. She had to reimburse the residents and pay another $65,000 in penalties, and we made sure she lost her license so she couldn’t work in a nursing home again. We’ve also trained District residents to recognize and report signs of human trafficking of youth and of financial exploitation of our elders.

While OAG’s representation of the District and its residents is important, there is nothing more sacred than our responsibility to keep our neighbors safe. That is particularly true now, as we are in the midst of an uptick in violent crime, impacting the District as well as cities across the country. It’s one of the most visible consequences the pandemic has wrought—and I expect we will spend much of our time today discussing OAG’s role as the prosecutor of law violations by children. I look forward to putting truth into that discussion. But crime committed by children is just one consequence—the visible tip of the proverbial iceberg—of other, deeper issues. Below the surface are a plethora of factors that drive children to break the law in the first place. To truly make our communities safer, we must address those root problems—trauma, poverty, familial instability and dysfunction, lack of education and economic opportunity, and hopelessness. We must get serious about prioritizing the needs of vulnerable residents.

Fighting Against Displacement of Black, Brown, Senior, and Low-income Residents

One of the most significant issues facing the District is the lack of safe, affordable, and decent housing. We are fortunate that the District is an attractive place that many want to call home. But as new residents arrive and new buildings go up across the District, long-term residents—often Black and brown, senior, and low-income residents—are being priced out and pushed out—creating some of the highest levels of displacement of any city in the United States. This displacement is not just the result of market forces; instead, it is caused by, among other things, a deliberate, illegal, and unethical business model. During my tenure, OAG has been laser focused on combatting these business practices, and over the last year, we achieved positive results and expanded into new frontiers that can serve as a model in preserving and expanding housing affordability.

Let me tell you about one of those successes—which dates back to 2016—the Congress Heights Apartments. To get a real picture, you have to go back to 2010—when 46 of the 47 units in the complex were fully occupied by residents, many of whom had lived at that property for generations. That year, Sanford Capitol purchased the property and immediately began withholding services and, in time, the units and common areas were in extreme disrepair and dangerous housing code violations, including vermin, mold, broken heat and plumbing, and other inhumane conditions, were common. Fast forward to this litigation, and only 10 residents remain. Sanford Capitol’s strategy was clear: neglect the property and effectively force out the existing tenants. The goal was to redevelop the property into market-rate housing, and profit from the sale or rental of these new units to new residents.

Over the years, we stayed in this fight, standing alongside tenants, organizers, and their advocates. We successfully petitioned for appointment of a receiver to repair the property, fought back against the slumlord when it tried to circumvent the tenants’ rights under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), and negotiated to bring our lawsuit—and the tenants’ lawsuit under TOPA—to a close.

We achieved a landmark victory early this year, when we forced CityPartners—the new owners of the property and Sanford’s Capital’s development partner—to sell the property to a respected not-for-profit that the tenants selected. The tenant-led development will create 179 units of affordable housing. What was originally a 47-unit property will now have more than three times the number before the slumlord came in. Of the 179 new units, 5% will be rented at 30% Area Median Income (AMI), 75% will be rented at 50% AMI, and 20% will be at 80% AMI. Significantly, 35% will have two to three bedrooms, and thus can be used for families.

The Congress Heights story is egregious, but unfortunately, not unique. Over the past year, we brought a lawsuit related to Foster House Apartments—a federally subsidized complex in Shaw—where, like Congress Heights, the current owner has let deplorable housing conditions fester with an eye toward pushing out the tenants and redeveloping the property. The tenants there have stood up and filed a TOPA case, and OAG has stood with them. We have achieved an interim victory, with the landlord agreeing to much-needed repairs, but significant work remains. And just last week, we filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Hawaii-Webster Apartments in Ward 5—where there are vermin problems, water leaks, crumbling lead paint, and lack of consistent heat and the tenants are being pushed out to make way for new development.

OAG has not only continued the important work of fighting slumlords who seek to profit at the expense of long-term brown, Black, senior, and low-income residents, we have recently expanded our work to affirmatively support affordable housing. For years, OAG was restricted to providing legal advice to the Board of Zoning Adjustment and Zoning Commission, which inhibited our ability to advocate in the public interest before these critical bodies. But last year, this legal advice function was moved to the Office of Zoning, which allows OAG’s talented land use lawyers to focus on advocating for the public interest—that is, expanding safe and affordable housing, increasing racial equity, and advancing environmental justice. Perhaps if we had been successful in pivoting sooner we could have averted the displacement caused by Brookland Manor.

As part of the new mission, OAG has filed several petitions for rule changes before the Zoning Commission to expand affordable housing, including requests to lower the income thresholds at which a family is eligible for affordable housing; require additional housing benefits when developers move affordable housing offsite; remove the inclusionary zoning exemption in the downtown area—meaning that new buildings there will not be exempted from the requirement that a certain number of units in the building be affordable; and exempt affordable units from parking requirements. In the coming months, we will also be participating in individual land use matters to advocate for the public interest. To this end, we have been meeting with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners and other advocates to ensure that all residents, including vulnerable residents, actually have a chance to impact decisions that will affect their lives.

Beyond these efforts, OAG also successfully defended the eviction moratorium the Council enacted, helping residents facing the dual health and financial menaces created by COVID-19 to stay in their homes.

And, when we heard of the many barriers that District residents faced in accessing federal funds meant to help them pay their rent and utility bills, our staff stepped up to help. We heard from a grandmother, for example, who had been using a library computer in 15-minute increments to fill out an application that took more than two hours to complete without expert help. In partnership with Councilmembers, law firms, community organizations, and churches across the District, we set up and staffed a series of eight clinics across the District to help residents apply for this crucial assistance. These efforts helped tenants stay in their homes. And ultimately, because the amount of federal funds each jurisdiction received was tied to how much it actually used, our efforts helped the District qualify for additional federal funds to help more residents. 

And we’ve gone after those who discriminate against tenants, including those who turn away renters who rely on housing vouchers to cover their housing costs. This year, we successfully resolved six cases against real estate companies and professionals for posting discriminatory advertisements or refusing to rent to voucher-holding tenants in four Wards.

These examples are just a fraction of the work we’ve undertaken to promote housing justice and maintain strong communities in the District. This work takes courage and perseverance, and I’m proud of my colleagues for standing up to powerful interests to protect our most vulnerable neighbors.

Holding Companies that Harm Workers and Consumers Accountable

We have also stood up for vulnerable workers and consumers who have been hard hit by the pandemic.

We moved all our workers’ rights work to a single section and expanded these efforts, because we know that workers need every single dollar they have earned in their pockets, especially during the pandemic. Our new section has gone after companies for stealing wages from their employees and for illegally misclassifying workers so they can pay them less, deprive them of benefits, or treat them worse. Our workers’ rights lawyers have focused their energies on sectors like construction, gig employment, the restaurant industry, and retail that employ a significant number of low-income workers who are vulnerable to wage theft because of language barriers or unfamiliarity with their rights.

And, Mr. Chairman, we’re not stopping. Just last month, for example, we filed a complaint against Arise Virtual Solutions, Inc., and Comcast Cable Communications Management, LLC, for failing to pay their workers properly. Comcast outsourced its customer service needs to Arise, and the two companies denied customer service agents minimum wage, overtime, and paid sick leave by misclassifying them as independent contractors rather than employees. Troublingly, our investigation revealed that Arise targeted women of color for recruitment advertisements and then refused to pay these workers the wages they were owed.

And last week, we filed suit against Azure Healthcare Services, which operated six supported-living residences in the District, for denying frontline health care workers the wages they were due after working extended hours for patients during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.

OAG also defended legislation passed by the Council to protect District workers. We recently prevailed in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the First Source Employment Act, which provides hiring preferences for unemployed District workers in certain District-funded construction projects. Last month, a federal judge issued a detailed opinion upholding the law closely following OAG’s thorough briefs in the case.    

We have stood up for consumers, just as we have stood up for workers. Earlier this week, for example, we announced a settlement against Elevate, a company that marketed high-cost loans and lines of credit with interest rates up to 42 times the legal limit. As a result of this settlement, Elevate will pay $3.3 million in refunds to District consumers, waive $300,000 in interest owed to it, and pay a penalty of $450,000. As families struggle to make ends meet, they deserve to know that they are being treated fairly, consistent with the law.

We’ve also brought significant scrutiny to big technology companies. In addition to our lawsuit against Facebook related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, we have filed major antitrust suits against Facebook and Google. We also brought our first-ever case under the District’s Antitrust Act, challenging significant practices of tech giant Amazon that raise prices across the online retail market for consumers at a time when remote purchases are crucially important because of the pandemic. And we recently filed suit against Google alleging that the company systematically deceived consumers about how their locations are tracked and used and has misled consumers to believe that they can control what information Google collects about them.

OAG not only enforces the law, but we have proposed changes to improve the law to protect more residents from unscrupulous business practices. We introduced landmark legislation to strengthen civil rights protections for District residents by prohibiting companies from using algorithms that produce discriminatory results and lock our most vulnerable residents out of opportunities like jobs and housing. And, along with Chairman Mendelson, we worked to enact essential legislation to end unfair debt collection practices.

Defending Our Democracy and Combatting Hate

Sadly, over the last year and a half, we have seen distressing assaults on our nation’s most sacred values like democracy, tolerance, and our shared humanity as Americans. OAG has been on the frontlines of defending these core values through a campaign of legal and educational efforts against those who would seek to overturn our government, steal our freedom to vote, and sow hate.

Two months ago, OAG partnered with Anti-Defamation League and States United to file a lawsuit to hold accountable the January 6 insurrectionists and to stand up for our brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to protect the District and our democracy. You know this, Mr. Chairman, because you joined me on the lawn of the Capitol to announce this suit. Our case is the first civil suit by a government entity against the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and their members for conspiring to undermine our democracy and harm the District of Columbia. It is also the first time a government entity has sued under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act—which was passed to stop hate groups from hurting our most sacred democratic institutions.

The insurrection was not, however, the first attempt to undermine the will of voters. In the lead up to the 2020 election, we saw unprecedented efforts to suppress the vote. OAG was on the front lines of ensuring that the election was free and fair, leading amicus briefs to protect the right to vote in nearly 20 cases across the country. These efforts continued after the election with an amicus brief in the Supreme Court opposing the attempt by Texas and others to undermine the election results. And they continue in 2022 as states have passed laws across the country to further restrict the right to vote.

The attacks on basic democratic processes are the result of a deeply rooted animosity to an increasingly diverse, pluralistic country. In addition to the efforts to undermine the right to vote and subvert our democracy, we see this animosity in the alarming rise of hate across the nation. Unfortunately, the District has not been immune. Last May, an Asian American shopkeeper in Northeast DC was attacked, and just last month, Union Station was defaced with swastikas.

That is why I spent my year as President of the bipartisan National Association of Attorneys General focused on combatting hate. Through my initiative against hate, I brought together attorneys general, experts, survivors, and community advocates to examine how hate can be prevented through policy, programming, and training. The initiative included a national summit bringing together Democratic, Republican, and Independent attorneys general, as well as law enforcement leaders, survivors, former extremists, and advocates to address hate and hate-related violence. Among the voices that we heard was that of Sarah Collins-Rudolph, the fifth little girl who survived the Birmingham Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

We learned about combatting hate, and we took concrete steps forward. For example, I led a bipartisan group of attorneys general to successfully call on Congress to pass the federal No Hate Act, which will improve hate-crime data reporting and support survivors of hate. And OAG filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit brought against Facebook for falsely claiming that it removes hate speech from its platform, urging the Superior Court to consider claims brought under the District’s consumer protection laws.

Protecting Public Safety

And, finally, I want to talk about our office’s efforts to protect District residents and improve public safety. What we seek to do at OAG is hold wrongdoers accountable; help victims heal; work to rehabilitate children who break the law, and interrupt violence before it happens. Our approach has not been traditional. Rather, we rely on creative, evidence-based approaches that reduce recidivism. That’s why our work enhances public safety.

As the Committee knows, OAG has jurisdiction over certain misdemeanors committed by adults and over all juvenile crime. The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrests adults and, because we lack statehood, the United States Attorney’s Office—a federal entity—prosecutes adults in superior and federal court.

To put it in the proper context, in 2020, less than 7% of arrests in the District were of juveniles.

Notwithstanding the limited criminal jurisdiction of our office, my team and I have sought to have the broadest impact we can on public safety. We’ve worked with MPD to build stronger cases; invested in programs to address truancy; worked with District agencies to connect children with services, including intensive mental health services; met with and supported victims of crime; and developed evidence-based initiatives (diversion, restorative justice, Cure the Streets) to reduce violence and ensure that children get the services they need to get back on the right track. And finally, we work with every agency—federal, local, the courts, the public defender service, and the Council as well as the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC)—to address gaps in our criminal justice system.

But this has been a challenging couple of years for everyone, and COVID-19 has exacerbated the issues that drive crime. So, we are seeing violent crime go up all in many parts of our country, including here in the District. It has been an especially hard time for children. Schools and after-school activities have been closed; families already on the brink were pushed into poverty and homelessness; mental health challenges have been exacerbated; and it has been harder to get services to children and families who need them most. These effects have been felt hardest in low-income communities and have been concentrated in communities east of the River. And, while violent crime by children in D.C. actually has decreased in the last two years, one violent offense—carjacking—has increased.

People are afraid, and they rightfully are asking their leaders what they are doing to keep them safe. Today, we’re going to have an honest conversation about juvenile crime—again, less than 7% of all arrests in the District of Columbia. We will not do what others have done—which is to talk about anecdotes and generalizations. Instead, we will look at the facts and data:

OAG takes violent offenses, including weapons, seriously, and we prosecute cases. In FY21:

  • OAG prosecuted 86.7% of gun possession matters MPD presented to us (137 of 158).
  • OAG prosecuted or approved a warrant in 71.8% of the carjacking matters MPD presented to us (112 of 156).
  • OAG prosecuted or approved a warrant in 65.7% of matters involving crimes of violence (excluding carjackings) MPD presented to us (182 of 277).

Focusing again on carjacking, MPD has told the press and the public that it has received 452 reports of carjacking. But only 149 arrests have been made.

Now let’s focus on juvenile carjacking cases that MPD has referred to us:

  • In FY20, MPD presented 56 carjacking cases to OAG. 
  • In FY21, MPD presented 158 carjacking cases to OAG.
  • In FY21, there were 108 youth with a carjacking case presented to OAG. 

Looking back at the 108 children charged in FY21, how many had prior carjacking offenses?

  • 8 (7%) of those children had prior carjacking charges.
  • 16 (14.8 %) have since been arrested for another carjacking charge. 

The rate of recidivism we saw in the data prompted us to develop further strategies to better prosecute carjackings. Specifically, over a year ago, we partnered with the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Office led by Aisha Braveboy to share and receive detailed information about investigations and cases with the goal of having best evidence to prosecute the case. And, importantly, in cases involving repeat offenders, we ask the court to detain the children and provide them with services that they need.

But let me be clear: when the police bring us enough evidence to prove these cases, we prosecute them. All of them. We don’t divert them. We prosecute them.

With respect to our broader prosecutorial and justice philosophy, when we receive a case, we look at all the tools in our toolbox to determine how to do right by the victim of the crime and keep the child from committing further crime. And so, we scoured the country and even went oversees to identify the best evidence-based approaches to reducing recidivism. Let me talk about a few of these approaches

  • Diversion: For the lowest level juvenile cases, involving low risk youth, we seek to keep them out of the juvenile justice system and instead provide them with high quality treatment services. Extensive research shows that youth who penetrate the juvenile justice system compared to those diverted have worse outcomes for recidivism, high school graduation and employment. OAG partners closely with the Department of Human Services’ ACE Diversion Program and tracks recidivism rates for these youth. ACE has had consistently high rates of success with these youth, with around 80% of them not being rearrested within two years of completing the program.
  • Restorative Justice: We are the first-ever prosecutorial office to host an in-house restorative justice program which includes cognitive behavioral therapy. Research and early internal data demonstrate that programs like this reduce recidivism of young people, and, in turn, keep the community safer. But we want to be sure. That is why we have commissioned a rigorous outside study of our program to determine effectiveness.
     
  • Cure the Streets: In 2018, I proposed the Cure the Streets program to you, and, with Council support, it has now been operating in six target areas. While violent crime has increased in the District, it has increased at a lower rate in Cure target areas. Given that these target areas were chosen because they had the highest rates of gun violence, this is quite a feat.
     
  • 24/7 MPD Hotline: We have also increased our coordination officers on the ground to strengthen prosecution and keep guns off our streets. We staff a 24/7 hotline advising MPD officers on how to handle an interaction with a juvenile suspected of a crime, including what evidence to collect and investigatory steps to take, which has made cases stronger and allowed us to prosecute more of them.

We also have to address the proliferation of guns into the District. We urged the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to clamp down on the spread of ghost guns nationwide. Meanwhile, we’re using our civil enforcement authority to stop the flow of guns into our city by suing Polymer80, one of the country’s largest ghost gun manufacturers, for selling these illegal weapons to District residents. As a result of our lawsuit, Polymer80 has stopped selling to District consumers. 

In the absence of a plan, or any real solutions to address problems created by adults, children are being blamed. My office will continue to do all we can to make the juvenile justice system as fair and effective as possible so that it most effectively improves public safety. And, as always, I am interested in hearing any and all ideas, and working with others to help solve this problem. But in thinking through this challenge, we must be mindful of the lessons of the past: We cannot solve juvenile crime simply by locking up more kids for more time. It does not work. It is not fair. It destroys communities, and it does not make us safer.    

For the last seven years, gun violence and homicide have increased every year. Yet, our city still does not have a comprehensive and well-led plan to reduce violent crime and murder. The District of Columbia certainly has the resources to achieve this, but selfless and honest leadership and capable management is sorely lacking. In the absence of a plan, some leaders have turned to a timeworn scapegoat: our most vulnerable children. That’s not leadership. Adults shouldn’t blame kids for problems that adults refuse to fix.  And of course, because we have no plan, we can’t even dare to dream—to actually think about having families healed, kids thriving, District residents reaching their full potential. Isn’t that what leadership is all about?

Conclusion 

I am proud of the work we have done this year, and over the last seven years, including with the Council, to make the District more prosperous, fair, and safe. This testimony covers only a small sample of that work. It has been the honor and privilege of my life to serve District residents as their Attorney General. I appreciate this opportunity to reflect on OAG’s accomplishments and to identify opportunities to continue our growth. All of us at OAG are committed to making the coming year our strongest yet, and, with that, my team and I are pleased to answer any questions that you may have.