Grant presents award to the Honorable Linda W. Cropp

Distinguished Service Award to the Honorable Linda W. Cropp

Presented by GLAA Vice President for Administration Will Grant

GLAA 34th Anniversary Reception
Radisson Barcelo Hotel
Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Linda Cropp has been a highly effective and non-partisan D.C. Council chair. At the start of each Council session, she has resisted calls to reserve committee chairs for Democrats only, which would have cut out two of our most effective government reformers on the Council. At the beginning of the current session, she successfully proposed a restructuring of the standing committees that took oversight of the Department of Health out of the Committee on Human Services and placed it under a new Committee on Health; GLAA had recommended this change after experience demonstrated the unwieldy nature of the previous Committee on Human Services, which oversaw fully 25 percent of the District budget. The new committee, chaired by Councilmember David Catania, will provide better oversight of the city's health-related services. GLAA was also impressed by Cropp's assertiveness when she quickly and publicly corrected Mayor Williams at a Congressional hearing in 2002 after he made a false statement about the costs of domestic partnerships.

As Council Chair she has also skillfully shepherded legislation through the full Council once it has been marked up at the committee level; the most recent example is the First Amendment Rights and Police Standards Act of 2004, which was supported by GLAA and ACLU, and which was the target of a lengthy series of weakening amendments introduced from the dais by former councilmember Harold Brazil. The bill emerged largely unscathed, and was passed by a 12-1 margin.

On a personal note, as a former ANC Chair, I always appreciated the support that Linda gave to myself and my Commission. That support was further evidence that while keeping the big picture in mind, she has never lost sight of the little details that matter in the day-to-day lives of Washingtonians. As such, it is my great pleasure and privilege to present GLAA's Distinguished Service Award to the Honorable Linda W. Cropp, Chairman, Council of the District of Columbia.