Statement of Attorney General Karl A. Racine
Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia
Before The Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety
The Honorable Charles Allen, Chairperson
Budget Oversight Hearing
March 24, 2022
Via WebEx
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, District of Columbia 20004
Introduction
Good morning, Chairman Allen, Committee members, staff, and District residents. I am Karl Racine, and I work as the first elected Attorney General of the District of Columbia. I am honored to appear before you for the final budget oversight hearing of my tenure.
As you can see, several members of my senior team and I are gathered here in person. We are now midway through our phased return to the office, and we will welcome our entire our staff back next week. Although we have learned that remote work has its benefits, we have enjoyed the renewed energy of coming together again.
We know that the pandemic is not over for many District residents who continue to struggle, and we hope that the Council’s budget addresses the critical needs around housing and job loss that too many of our neighbors confront. Importantly, great attention, thinking, and action should be focused on our children, many of whom have fallen behind academically, socially, and developmentally. In addition to the classroom, we must invest in community-based programs that provide our youth with opportunities to engage with each other and consistent reliable adult mentors and guides during the critical period when school is not in session. Community-based organizations, such as DC Action, the Mikva Challenge, reading, art, theater, and sports programs, require greater support.
We’re here today to talk about numbers, so I will start off with just a few numbers that I submit demonstrate that the Office of Attorney General is not only worth every dollar invested in it but provides a great return to District residents and the government. This past year, our office’s legal work on behalf of the District has brought in more than $166 million in collections. This includes almost $70 million in affirmative litigation receipts, $50 million in support payments for District children, and more than $40 million in tax revenue preserved or collected. On the defensive side, our efforts have protected the District from more than $402 million in liabilities.
Not captured in the nearly $570 million that my hardworking colleagues have contributed to the District in the last year is the value of settlements in several cases against distributors and manufacturers of opioids that will bring $80 million into the District in the years ahead. Under court orders, these monies must be used to reduce opioid addiction and support recovery from the opioid scourge that continues to ravage our community, especially communities of color. In one recent contentious settlement negotiation, a highly regarded bankruptcy judge who was mediating the case specifically requested our office’s leadership to finally bring the parties together. In recognition of OAG’s leadership, the District earned a substantial premium—to the tune of more than $20 million—for our role in brokering a final agreement.
Looking back over the last seven years, the independent Office of Attorney General (OAG) has collected more than $1.2 billion in payments to the District and saved more than $2.4 billion in potential liabilities. During this same period, the Council provided OAG $465.3 million dollars of local funding.
Mr. Chairman, you know where I am going.
Every dollar invested in OAG—that is, in our lawyers, professionals, and infrastructure—is an investment in the District itself. I respectfully submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that pound for pound, dollar for dollar, and in the unquantifiable metric of standing up for our most vulnerable residents, OAG is in the top 1% of all District agencies. We certainly could not have achieved what we have without your extraordinary support, constructive criticism, and vigilant oversight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to your excellent Judiciary Committee staff.
Let me turn to this year’s budget: The Mayor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget submission essentially holds OAG flat at its FY22 funding level. This is a positive development; as the Committee knows, in past years, the Mayor has proposed reducing OAG’s budget, which intrudes on the independence of the Office. Fortunately, throughout my tenure, the Council—with your and Chairman Mendelson’s leadership—has protected the Office from cuts and has instead seen the value of investing in us.
I ask that in the FY23 budget, the Council continue the critical investments in OAG that you have made over these last several years.
Priorities
Before I get to the details of our budget proposal, I want to highlight our priorities for the remainder of my tenure. Our most important priority is to institutionalize the progress we’ve made over the last seven years to build the best public law firm in the country and to implement data-driven public safety approaches that help address the root causes of crime.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, the independent Office of Attorney General has succeeded because of the people who work here. The legal work of the Office—and the respect and stature it has earned locally and nationally—rests on our ability to recruit and retain top-notch legal and professional talent. I want to talk for just a few minutes about how we have built a team of talented, diverse, smart, hardworking, competitive, and public-service-oriented individuals who are dedicated to using the law to help District residents. I believe that these efforts can help chart a path forward for the Office in the FY23 budget and beyond.
Over the last seven years, we’ve articulated a clear vision for the Office:
- Provide excellent advice and fiercely defend the District in court;
- Affirmatively and creatively use the law to protect our city’s most vulnerable residents;
- Stand up for District values; and
- Earn recognition as the preeminent AG office in the United States.
Success is never final, and to be sure, our office has room to improve. However, as I testify today, OAG is broadly recognized for eminence in criminal justice reform, especially in juvenile justice reform and violence interruption, housing work that protects tenants, prosecution of wage theft, consumer protection, antitrust, appellate advocacy, voting rights, civil rights, environmental justice, combatting hate, public integrity, and defense of the rule of law.
It bears reminding that when we started over seven years ago, there was little infrastructure and few resources to support the type of sophisticated litigation that our lawyers and professionals engage in against the best law firms in our country. Our litigation practice management support simply was not up to snuff. Today, however, with the Council’s support, we created a Litigation Support Fund, which has allowed us to build the kind of modern law practice that can serve our clients and compete against our adversaries when it comes to electronic discovery, expert witnesses, mock trials, and focus groups. Marta Paravano, who leads our litigation practice management team, is as talented and technologically savvy as any of her peers who work for top 50 law firms.
Lawyers and professionals who aspire to contribute to the District have taken note, and we have been fortunate to attract top talent and to go toe-to-toe with some of the biggest firms in the country, and win.
It is imperative that the next Attorney General be provided with at least the same level of financial support as the first. Simply put, standing up for District residents in need and being regarded as among the best public law firms in the country requires a continuing investment in the professionals who perform this critical work.
One area in which the investments you and the Council have made in OAG have paid off is public safety—where we have innovated tremendously. Over the last seven years, we have helped create new protocols for how courts and the police treat children; built the first restorative justice program in a prosecutor’s office; created new ways to prevent rather than prosecute truancy; and brought a proactive, public-health approach to interrupting gun violence through the Cure the Streets pilot program. These programs would not have been possible without your support, Mr. Chairman, but they also would not have been possible without the innovative leaders—leaders like Seema Gajwani—whom we’ve been able to bring into OAG. Nor would they be possible without the monies that our team has brought into the Litigation Support Fund, which continues to contribute nearly $7 million annually to the District’s violence prevention efforts. In concrete terms, this means that nearly one out of every eight dollars the District currently spends on violence interruption comes from the Litigation Support Fund.
The District continues to face public safety challenges, and I am committed to continuing to find data-driven, evidence-based approaches to addressing the root causes of crime and rehabilitating young people who are on the wrong track. We will stay the course on our restorative justice program, which has been shown to reduce recidivism, and conduct a rigorous independent evaluation to provide meaningful insights not just for the District but for programs across the nation. We will start a similar independent evaluation of Cure the Streets to determine its effectiveness and learn how to build on this important work as we expand our footprint to a total of ten sites. We will continue to advocate for passage of the Redefinition of Child Amendment Act, which would require us to treat children who violate the law as children and rehabilitate them, which gives us our best shot at actually reducing recidivism.
This is a critical moment—crime is rising, and people are justifiably afraid. But we must not react by returning to failed policies of the past that led to mass incarceration, destroyed Black and brown communities, punished children as adults, and hurt the very people these policies purported to protect. Leaders must use this moment to double down on innovative programs that will support our communities, help our children learn and grow to their full potential, and make us all safer.
Requested Enhancements
With these priorities in mind, I will turn to our budget enhancement requests. Overall, we are requesting that the Council make long-term, structural commitments to maintaining the strength and independence of the Office of Attorney General, no matter who leads the agency in the future. As I have testified in previous years, these enhancements more than pay for themselves in the revenue they raise. For example, the tax attorney that we are requesting alone would, in our experience, increase revenues the District would collect by $16 million. That is to say, a single position will bring in more than $12 million more than our total requests.
Promotions
First, I request that the Council invest $2 million in promotions for qualified and eligible OAG staff, which will help place our attorney pay on par with our federal counterparts, as required by the Legal Services Amendment Act. Not only is this a legal obligation to our colleagues, but this funding would permit long stalled raises and promotions for managers and non-attorney professionals. The gap in salaries between our colleagues at OAG and their federal peers can amount to tens of thousands of dollars, which creates significant recruiting and retention challenges. Without adequate funding for promotions, many District attorneys whose work and tenure merit a promotion languish for years. And as the Department of Justice and other federal agencies grow their ranks and as OAG faces a transition, we risk losing some of our best attorneys. Funding these promotions will eliminate OAG’s backlog and help ensure that the next Attorney General can address his or her priorities, instead of this longstanding issue.
Public Advocacy Division Senior Lawyer, Workers’ Rights Paralegal & Housing Investigator
I also ask that the Council continue to invest in the litigation that helps grow and support the Litigation Support Fund, and in turn, the innovative programs and critical infrastructure for which the Fund pays. This requires investment in our affirmative litigation efforts, with a focus on antitrust, workers’ rights, and housing.
We have brought a number of large, national antitrust cases against big technology companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon for harming District consumers and businesses. Although these cases receive lots of attention when they are filed and again when they are resolved, the brunt of the work happens in between. These cases will require deep and sustained attention from lawyers and professional staff through months—or years—of discovery, motions, and appeals. We expect these cases to bring significant recoveries to the District in the next three to five years, but only if we invest now in the intensive work they will require. That is why we have requested a senior attorney for the Public Advocacy Division to move these cases forward. This investment will also allow us to grow our local antitrust practice because we know that corporate concentration in sectors from health care to energy raise costs at a difficult time for District residents. And even beyond antitrust, we have learned over the last several years that our affirmative litigators work best when they work across issue areas. We would thus use this enhancement to recruit a talented litigator that can step in and assist on consumer protection, housing, workers’ rights, or other affirmative litigation matters when needed.
Our workers’ rights and housing conditions cases help us protect the District’s most vulnerable residents by going after slumlords and those seeking to steal hard-earned wages from District workers. The Council has invested in lawyer resources in both of these areas, which has allowed to us to dramatically expand the number of investigations, cases that we brought, and monies that we’ve returned to workers, tenants, and the District in penalties. What’s more, the public nature of our cases deters wrongdoers, which in turn makes the District a safer place to live and work, and increased compliance with our tax and wage laws. But these investigations require extensive document and investigatory work, like reviewing years of payroll documents and pay slips or repeatedly visiting and monitoring rental properties. We are proud of what we’ve accomplished with a very lean staff in these areas, including a single investigator who splits time between housing and other matters, but a workers’ rights paralegal and a dedicated housing investigator could markedly advance our investigations and expand our capacity to bring more cases.
Appellate Litigation Fellows and Deputy Solicitor General
I also ask that the Council fund three additional FTEs in our Office of the Solicitor General. We have built a robust amicus practice using two fellows who are funded by the Litigation Support Fund. These fellows draft and file briefs in cases related to consumer protection, workers’ rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and other topics of local and national significance. During the 2020 elections and in its aftermath, they led the attorney general community on voting rights, filing nearly 20 briefs joined by dozens of states to defend the freedom to vote in Georgia, Florida, and elsewhere. This work promoted the District’s values and elevated D.C. on the national stage; our constant presence and proven excellence in the attorney general room, particularly on issues supporting democracy, help advance statehood. I urge the Council to provide local funding for this fellowship program and a manager to help lead these efforts.
Senior Juvenile Lawyer
Now, turning to public safety, an area that has been top of mind for all of us this year, we request funding for one senior juvenile prosecutor because the mix of juvenile cases is changing. Over the last several years, we have created innovative programs to handle less serious juvenile crime, including through diversion. And even though overall juvenile crime has decreased, a few types of more serious juvenile crimes like carjacking are increasing. So, we need a more senior attorney to take the lead on these cases. Such an experienced professional can also provide training, mentorship, and, frankly, emotional support to less experienced prosecutors who have been shouldering this increasingly difficult and challenging case load on their own.
Public Corruption Lawyer
We also request continued investment in our effort to fight local public corruption by bringing cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) is unable or unwilling to pursue. As you know, Mr. Chairman, the Inspector General does tremendous work, but when he identifies criminal wrongdoing, he has to refer the matter to the USAO, which has historically failed to prioritize prosecuting local public corruption matters. We have built strong relationships with the USAO, OIG, and other District agencies so we are now in a position where additional investment will allow us to detail an attorney to USAO to prosecute these matters and build on the investment that the Council has already made in our efforts to combat public corruption.
Tax Attorney
As I noted, every ask that we have made is paid for and then some because we think additional investment in tax enforcement will generate more than enough review. This is particularly true in light of what we have seen during the pandemic. Simply put, the pandemic and its impact on commercial property is real. With decreased demand for office and retail space, new questions about the value of commercial property have led to a 40 percent increase in filings of commercial tax assessment appeals. Those numbers will undoubtedly go up even further. Additional investment in our tax enforcement will allow us to vigorously litigate these cases when businesses seek to reduce their tax burden more than the law allows. Of course, we will continue to recommend settlement when businesses follow the law, but our tax lawyers are crucial to protecting the District’s fisc, especially in tumultuous times.
Civil Enforcement Lawyer
Just as the pandemic has created a surge in tax matters, it has also generated significant volume of other health and safety matters that our Civil Enforcement Section handles. We are thus requesting another lawyer there. These are the lawyers and professionals that are on the frontlines of enforcing and litigating challenges to the Department of Health’s vaccine mandate for medical providers. They are working to defend dozens of denials of COVID-19 vaccine exemptions to ensure that District healthcare providers are properly vaccinated to protect residents under their care, all while health and safety legal requests from other agencies increase, including, for example, challenges to MPD’s denial of concealed carry licenses.
Civil Litigation Paralegal
We are also seeking one additional paralegal in our Civil Litigation Division to help handle the increasingly complex and document intensive cases against the District. This paralegal support is essential to ensuring that we are fully utilizing the document management and other capabilities that OAG has developed over the last several years.
Budget Support Act Subtitles
Along with spending enhancements, we are also proposing three Budget Support Act subtitles that make modest changes to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the District’s legal operations.
The first would allow for swifter resolution of government employment disputes and save money and staff time by allowing OAG to make offers of judgment in cases before the Office of Employee Appeals (OEA). Currently, when a case is in Superior Court or federal court, the defendant can make an offer of judgment to resolve the case. The plaintiff is free to reject the offer, but if she later prevails and receives a less favorable judgment from the court, she is responsible for her costs of having continued the litigation. The idea is to accurately value claims upfront and avoid unnecessary trials. We would like to extend this same practice to OEA, where, without this settlement tool, cases can persist for five, six, seven years, through multiple rounds of appeals, racking up many times more in attorney’s fees and costs to the District than the value of the original claim.
The second subtitle would improve our ability to investigate consumer fraud and financial exploitation by allowing OAG to ask written questions in these investigations. Right now, we investigate consumer protection and financial exploitation by requesting and reviewing documents from companies and individuals. Although sifting through reams of documents is sometimes the best way to investigate possible violations, it is time consuming and expensive. There are other times when asking targeted written questions with sworn written responses would make it easier to establish basic facts and end illegal practices. This subtitle would simply add written questions to the list of investigative tools in our consumer and financial exploitation statutes.
The third and final request is to centralize the District’s data privacy practices by consolidating HIPAA staff within the Mayor’s office. The District has a Privacy and Security Officer, currently housed at OAG, who is charged with ensuring that District agencies comply with HIPAA when handling sensitive data. But the agencies that hold this sensitive data—agencies like DCHR, DC Health, and DOC—all report to the Mayor. Because OAG cannot issue binding directives to these agencies, OAG and the Privacy Officer have no way to ensure that HIPAA advice is followed. In contrast, the Mayor has the managerial authority needed to ensure uniform data privacy practices. We ask that the Privacy Officer be moved to EOM—a move that will better serve the agencies the position exists to support.
With these smart investments and accompanying policy clarifications, we can ensure that the District’s legal practices are on firm footing for the future.
Conclusion
I’d like to close with a few words of recognition and reflection. Chairman Allen, it has been a pleasure to work with you and your team in pursuit of a safer and fairer District of Columbia. You have been a strong advocate of evidence-backed approaches to public safety, including investing in our Cure the Streets violence interruption program and transforming our juvenile justice system to connect youth to resources that will address the root causes of crime. I am grateful for your leadership and the hard work, collaboration, and the support of your Chief of Staff and Committee Director Kate Mitchell. Her tenacity, skill, and knowledge help us to serve the public better every day. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell.
During my time as Attorney General, my colleagues have grown OAG into the best public interest law firm in the country. In our first six months, we established an Office of Consumer Protection to help consumers and stop unfair business practices. Last year, we received more than 2,500 consumer complaints, our highest number on record. And we recovered and returned more than $600,000 to consumers through mediations and more than $5 million through lawsuits.
When we started, OAG had 14 employees focused on affirmative litigation—investigating and filing the lawsuits that help our most vulnerable residents. We now have 78 professionals who do this work, fighting for consumers, workers, seniors, tenants, civil rights, affordable housing, and the environment.
Before the independent OAG, it was rare for the District to weigh in on cases with a national profile. But over the past five years, we’ve led nearly 60 amicus briefs on questions of local and national importance like voting rights, environmental protection, reproductive justice, immigration issues, and LGBTQ+ rights, and helped our colleagues in other states on approximately 160 additional briefs. We have created myriad channels to interact with community members and promoted public participation, accessibility, and transparency in our work. And through it all we have made the needs and priorities of vulnerable residents our number one concern.
When I took office in 2015, I was struck by the number children who came to court in shackles. We immediately worked with the Council to end that as a routine and unnecessary practice. Now, we instead ensure that children entering the justice system get the services they need to break the cycle of violence. Our data show that most children do not recidivate when we not only hold them accountable but provide them personalized services like behavioral health treatments, mentoring and tutoring, and family supports.
And we’re still making innovative changes to address problems impacting vulnerable residents in the District. For example, the dramatic growth in the District over the last several year has pushed too many long-term, low-income, and often Black and brown residents out of our city. When I took office, there was little OAG could do about this, because we provided confidential legal advice to the Zoning Commission and Board of Zoning Adjustment. Last year, with the support of the Council, we changed that. Now, OAG represents the public interest by ensuring the voices of all District residents—not just wealthy and well-connected developers—are represented in zoning proceedings.
We have come a long way. But there is still so much to do, and we aren’t slowing or stopping anytime soon. We look forward finishing this year stronger than ever, with new resources and renewed commitment to the people of the District.
With that, my team and I are happy to answer any questions you may have.