The D.C. Council quietly rewrote the rules on who gets to watch

For most of D.C.'s home-rule era, a simple rule governed how your elected representatives could do business: if a quorum of the Council got together to talk about public affairs, the public got to watch. That rule is now gone. It didn't go loudly.

The Open Meetings Clarification Amendment Act of 2025 passed its second and final Council vote on June 23, 2026, by a margin of 10-2, and was transmitted to Mayor Muriel Bowser for signature or veto. The projected law date passed. The mayor never announced a veto.

What the law does is straightforward, and its supporters say that's the point. It allows councilmembers to meet among themselves and with the mayor in private if no vote is scheduled and no action is being taken. In practice, that means a majority of the Council can now sit down behind closed doors with the mayor, hash out strategy on the budget, on federal threats to home rule, on a stadium deal - on anything - and D.C. residents have no right to be in the room or even know the meeting happened in real time.

Only two members voted no on the final reading: Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen and Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George.

How it got here

This law didn't appear out of nowhere. The legislation cites "consequential, large-scale business and economic development" - like the arena deal with Monumental Sports and Entertainment - as an example of when a closed-door meeting may be necessary. It also points to the need for privacy when strategizing on federal issues, after Congress passed a spending bill that cut $1 billion from D.C.'s budget. "This emergency legislation is particularly necessary in the current political climate to allow the council to be briefed as a body in a timely manner and to develop appropriate responses to rapidly unfolding issues," the legislation states.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has been the central architect of this change, running it through multiple legal vehicles since 2025. There was an emergency act, then a temporary act, then a congressional review period, then the permanent bill. A temporary (90-day) amendment enacted as D.C. Act 26-297 went into effect April 18, 2026. The permanent version followed two months later.

Mendelson's argument, laid out in a statement on the Council's website, is that the old Open Meetings Act created an uneven playing field. If, prior to a major discussion like the budget or a negotiation like the Wizards and Capitals deal, the mayor could bring her entire team together behind closed doors to hash out a proposal - since mayoral cabinet meetings are explicitly exempted from the open meetings law - there was no parallel allowance for the Council. Requiring the Council to craft initial policy proposals exclusively in public, or only in a sequence of multiple one-on-one conversations, is a barrier to efficiency that hampers collective strategic and policy planning.

He has a point about the asymmetry. He does not have a point about secrecy being the only fix.

What watchdogs said - and who they are

The American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia is among several open-government advocates that opposed the bill and signed a letter of opposition. Other opponents include the D.C. Open Government Coalition, the Council for Court Excellence, the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists D.C. Pro Chapter.

That's five organizations. They cover lawyers, journalists, court reform advocates, and civil liberties groups. They don't often agree on the same letter.

Alicia Yass, the policy advocacy director at ACLU-D.C., put it bluntly after the second vote. "Moving deliberations into private breeds the appearance of bad behavior, even if people in our government have no ill intent," she said. "It suggests they have something to hide."

The ACLU pressed: "The people of D.C. deserve to know what is happening with our government. And while the federal administration's actions have received a great deal of attention recently for their impact on D.C., there is a lot happening at the local level, too, from budget decisions to new development to the District's interactions with the federal government. This is no time for more government activity to happen behind closed doors. We hope the mayor vetoes this overly broad bill."

The mayor did not.

The temporary version was already in effect for months

D.C. residents may not have noticed, but the practical effects of this change were already playing out before the permanent law passed. The D.C. Open Government Coalition, joined by four other groups, had urged the Council to vote against the temporary version, "Open Meetings Clarification Temporary Amendment Act of 2026." That measure was approved on an 11-2 vote on May 5, 2026 - again, only Allen and Lewis George voted no.

The temporary legislation prevents D.C. residents from attending meetings between the Council and the mayor, and allows the Council and its committees to shut out the public in any meeting at which no votes will be taken.

The temporary act was transmitted to Congress with a projected law date of August 8, 2026. That date has passed. The permanent bill was already in the pipeline.

What the law preserves - and what it doesn't

Supporters of the change have been careful to say it doesn't gut the Open Meetings Act entirely. The permanent measure retains the original core principles of open meetings - that any actions such as votes must occur at public meetings, and that the public must receive adequate notice of any such meetings.

The bill specifies that legislative meetings, committee markups, hearings, and roundtables will remain covered by open meeting requirements.

So the full Council cannot take a secret vote. Committee hearings stay public. What's gone is the rule that stopped a quorum of councilmembers from gathering with the mayor - or with each other - to decide what they think before they ever get to a public meeting. That pre-deliberation space is now dark.

As introduced, the bill would clarify the definition of "meeting," establishing that a meeting shall be deemed open to the public if the public body takes steps reasonably calculated to allow the public to view or hear the meeting while the meeting is taking place, or, if doing so is not technologically feasible, reasonable, or practicable. That last clause - "not technologically feasible, reasonable or practicable" - gives public bodies wide discretion to close the door.

The federal dimension

One of the Council's most consistent arguments is that the federal government's aggressive posture toward D.C. home rule makes private strategy sessions a necessity. In the present moment, the Council must often strategize how to respond to intrusions on District home rule by the administration. While those intrusions are conceived and implemented behind closed doors, requiring Council meetings regarding strategic planning and potential counter-responses to be noticed and open to the public effectively amounts to unilateral disarmament in this struggle.

It's an argument that resonates in a city watching Congress vote on its local laws. But critics note the logic is circular: the Council uses federal opacity to justify its own opacity, with no sunset date, no independent oversight mechanism, and no requirement that closed meetings be recorded for later public release.

Worth noting: U.S. Senator Mike Lee introduced a joint resolution in the Senate disapproving of an earlier version - the Open Meetings Clarification Temporary Amendment Act of 2025 - under the home rule review mechanism that gives Congress authority to block D.C. legislation. That resolution does not appear to have advanced. Congress's inaction cleared the way for the permanent version.

The two no votes

Charles Allen, who represents Capitol Hill and Navy Yard in Ward 6, and Janeese Lewis George, who represents upper Northwest D.C. in Ward 4, cast the only dissenting votes at both the first and second readings. Lewis George is also running for mayor - a race in which her opposition to this bill is now a documented part of her record. Allen secured an amendment requiring some form of post-meeting notice, which the full Council adopted unanimously before the first-reading vote on June 2, but that amendment did not change his or Lewis George's final position.

The ACLU thanked Allen for his post-hoc notice requirement amendment and both Allen and Lewis George for voting no, urging the Council at its second vote to "keep the door open to democracy in D.C." The Council did not.

What D.C. Residents Should Watch

• Mayor Bowser's final action. As of September 1, 2026, there is no confirmed public statement from Mayor Bowser announcing she signed or vetoed the permanent Open Meetings Clarification Amendment Act. Residents and reporters should press her office directly. A signed bill means the change is permanent; a veto would send it back to the Council, which has the votes to override.
• The next mayoral candidate forum. Every major candidate for mayor - including Lewis George, Kenyan McDuffie, Robert White, and Randy Clarke - will inherit or repeal this law. Ask them specifically: will you convene a closed strategy session with councilmembers in your first 90 days? Under this law, they can.
• ANC and community input. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are not covered by the same exemptions. ANC meetings remain fully public. If you want to watch elected officials talk openly, your single-member district ANC commissioner is still required to do it in front of you.
• The Office of Open Government's rulemaking. The Office of Open Government has proposed rulemaking to establish a clear and uniform standard that ensures meaningful public notice of closed session topics while preserving the confidentiality interests protected by the Open Meetings Act. That rulemaking, if finalized, could add procedural teeth that the law itself lacks - but it is not yet final.
• The D.C. Open Government Coalition's next move. Coalition Chair Robert Becker wrote letters, organized opposition, and still lost 10-2 twice. Watch whether the coalition pursues litigation under the existing D.C. Sunshine Act, or pushes a future Council to revisit the law after the November election reshapes the chamber.

The Council's own website frames the change as a pragmatic fix to an imbalance. The last line of its public statement on the vote noted that the permanent bill had already received its first reading. That first reading was June 2. The second was June 23. The door closed fast.

Sources

• ACLU of D.C. - statement on second reading, June 23, 2026
• ACLU of D.C. - statement on first reading, June 2, 2026
• D.C. Council - official statement on permanent bill, June 5, 2026
• D.C. Open Government Coalition - blog post on temporary act vote, May 6, 2026
• WUSA9 - reporting on the bill's provisions
• DC News Now - reporting on emergency legislation
• LegiScan - B26-0208 vote record
• LegiScan - B26-0633 temporary act record
• D.C. Law Library - § 2-575, Open Meetings Act text and amendments
• Office of Open Government - second proposed rulemaking