A Q&A with Phil Thomas, Ward 3 Democrats chair, about what they do (and they’re seeking at-large delegate nominations now)

In November, the Ward 3 Democratic Committee elected precinct delegates. Now through December 4th, the local party is inviting people to nominate themselves for at-large delegate seats.

But who are the Ward 3 Democrats? What do they do? How do people get involved? For answers, we turned to Phil Thomas, the Ward 3 Democratic Committee chair. Thomas became a familiar face in the neighborhood during his two years as Mayor’s office community relations representative.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. My mother’s family lived in Washington, DC. This is what drew me to DC. Currently my grandmother lives in the Hawthorne neighborhood and my sister lives downtown. I have lived in Ward 3 for 11 years and presently live in the Palisades. Former Mayor Fenty suggested I get involved with the DC Dems, and as a result I have been on the Committee for ten years and have been Chair for two.

Could you tell us about the local Democratic Committee?

Primarily, the role of the Democratic Committee is to promote the national mission of the Democratic National Committee. But we can craft it to our local issues. We hold at least ten monthly meetings annually, with no meeting in August and a tentative meeting for July. One meeting is with the current Ward 3 Council member. The meeting in January is with the mayor. They each get to choose what they want to discuss. Other than those meetings, delegates choose the topic of the meetings by proposing topics. We also endorse candidates and ballot initiatives.

In addition, we have four ward committees which are formed at the beginning of a new two-year term. There is a fundraising committee which raised $600 that was distributed to other organizations to flip state legislatures and stop gerrymandering. The other committees are voter education, issues and programs, and bylaws.

There are no special committees, but in 2019 we adopted the library at The Brooks, Ward 3 short-term family housing site, and donated over 1,000 books to fill its shelves.

And the reporting at the beginning of our October meeting illustrates how active the Democratic Committee has been in writing postcards, phone banking soliciting donations to focus on swing state elections.

Tell us how the pandemic has impacted your meetings.

We are holding virtual meetings on Zoom and our attendance has actually improved. We had record number of attendees, over 300, on our meeting about reopening our schools in September with guest speakers Michael Minna at Harvard’s School of Public Health and head of the Human Immunomics Initiative along with Amy Maisterra, Deputy Chancellor of DC Public Schools and Council Member Vincent Gray, Chair of the Committee on Health.

Tell us about the elections of precinct delegates and nomination of At-Large representatives to Ward 3.

We have 18 precincts in Ward 3. We just held an election for six delegates from each precinct (ANC 3F included precincts 138, 33, 34 and 29). We are now holding a self-nomination election of at-large delegates with no cap.

How do people nominate themselves for at-large delegate?

They need to be a registered Democrat, live in Ward 3 and fill out the form at ward3democrats.org/atlargeelections by 10 p.m. on December 4 or call me at 202-262-0606.