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At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson (I) briefed the commission on the DC Council’s FY25 budget discussions. Henderson, chair of the Committee on Health, detailed recent legislative achievements.

D.C. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At large), chair of the health committee, on Friday sent a letter to Unity urging management to improve relations with the newly formed union. She said a thriving community health network is critical to the District reversing stark disparities in health outcomes for Black residents.

On Wednesday, Henderson had a smile on her face, with funding for the program back in the budget. "I'm excited," she said. "$70 million investment to pay equity. It's not the whole, but it's certainly better than zero."

“I don’t want to say the baby bonds is not important, but the council has gotten in a pickle in the past with this particular contract,” Henderson said. McDuffie argued that the bill had already had a hearing and defended his committee’s work to develop the bill. Nadeau has long said she is against sports betting, noting that opening the market could “escalate the growing public health crisis.”

D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) said she wanted a deeper exploration of the legislation, and online sports betting as a whole, outside of budget deliberations. D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) later alluded to public health drawbacks of gambling, which she said overshadow the programs funded by gambling revenue.

“Because the Senate is so broken, there are no judges that can get confirmed through unanimous consent,” says Christina Henderson, an at-large independent member of the D.C. Council and herself a former Democratic Senate staffer. “No one is talking about it and nobody cares because D.C. doesn’t have any Senators.”

D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson told The Informer that the allocation culminated a process that involved District residents, specifically those who lobbied council members for these investments. “The committee was pleased to hear at the budget oversight hearing that, after the program experienced high vacancies during the fall semester, 95% of school health suites are now staffed by trained health professionals at 40 hours per week,” Henderson said. “This is remarkable given that one year ago, only about half of schools had full-time staffing.”

D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large), chair of the council’s Committee on Health, told The Informer that the legislation should address the challenges that healthcare professionals often encounter. “I hope it would streamline processes for licensure and licensure renewal and streamline the process for disciplinary processes and investigations regarding a particular provider,” Henderson said, later pointing out what she’s heard from healthcare professionals in council testimony. It’s [also] just been more difficult for smaller professions within the health landscape that are all piled into the Board of Medicine,” Henderson continued. “Acupuncturists didn’t have a seat at the board [so] we’re moving acupuncture to its own board with other professions. It gives them a chance to have a voice and a bigger role in shaping policy.”

Councilmember Christina Henderson became emotional in opposition to eliminating a program that helps with pay equity for child care workers and another program that’s getting deep cuts that helps with subsidies for day care for low-income families. “It feels as though we are proposing to balance this budget on the backs of Black and brown women and the child care sector with the elimination of the early childhood pay equity fund,” she said. “There is no other group of women who we are saying, we told them, there’s a career path for you in early childhood, go get your associates degree, go get your bachelors degree, but now we are telling you you have to go back to making minimum wage,” she said tearfully.

“It feels as though we are proposing to balance this budget on the backs of Black and brown women,” At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson said Wednesday as Bowser presented her budget, briefly choking up. “This is at odds with our overall goals and what we claim to care about.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser released her budget proposal on Wednesday calling for some tax increases and hefty cuts, including to the Early Childhood Pay Equity Fund. The cuts were met with pushback from some councilmembers, including Christina Henderson who made an emotional plea to save the fund. She explained to Kojo and Tom why paying a fair wage to caregivers and teachers who work with babies and toddlers goes beyond equity. “Child care is not just about care and education. It’s not just about a woman’s issue. It’s an economic issue. It’s a workforce issue. And I felt there was a contradiction here. We say we want people to come back to work. We say we want folks to come downtown. I don’t see how you do that if you don’t have any place safe, stable, and affordable for young people to go.” She also explained why she voted in favor of the District committing $515 million to renovate Capital One Arena.

Between the first and second reading of the Street Vendor Advancement Amendment Act last year, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) crafted an amendment in the nature of a substitute that created a new licensing category for vendors who sell home prepared food.