Photo: Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colorado) is honorary co-chair of this year’s Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Legislative Conference. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
This story by William J. Ford appeared on ‘News of the States’ on September 24, 2025.
With national anxieties over the state of democracy and National Guard troops deployed to the city, the Congressional Black Caucus began its conference Wednesday in a neighborhood center. Elected officials and community leaders have called for unity and urgency to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda that has struck down diversity, equity and inclusion policies, detained immigrants and attempted to rewrite election rules.
But on Wednesday morning, officials said it was important to stand with the community and reaffirm that they hear citizens.
“We could be the convention center in this moment… but this moment demands that we are here in the community, and that we stand firm with the people of the District of Columbia as they go through the challenges that are presented by the current administration,” U.S. Rep. Yvette Clark (D-N.Y.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said during a press conference at Sycamore and Oak Cultural Center. “We are made for this moment because our communities demand it.”
Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Col.), who serves as honorary co-chair of the conference, said this year represents a watershed moment.
“Americans across the country have a very simple and yet profound choice to make. To sit back or to stand up, and the answer to that question, as far as the Congressional Black Caucus is concerned, is without a doubt the latter,” Neguse said. “Because I could not think of a single time in which the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) and the CBCF (Congressional Black Caucus Foundation) has chosen anything other than the latter believing that progress is not inevitable, but intentional.”
The caucus is resolved in its commitment to equity, Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, told Maryland Matters/States Newsroom in a recent interview. “Equity is about ensuring that there is a level playing field for all people, not just Black folks. We’re not going to run away from that word, nor are we going to run away from trying to make systems better and more fair and more just.”
Tens of thousands of elected officials, community leaders and experts are expected at the 54th annual legislative conference, starting Wednesday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Under the theme, “Made for this Moment: Power, Policy and Progress,” sessions will focus on election reform, DEI policies, democracy, Black representation and deportation. The nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which conducts policy research and implements programs, sponsors the conference.
Trump’s executive orders and his cabinet have targeted DEI policies, programs and funding integrated throughout the government that address the needs of Black people, other minorities and underserved communities in health care, scientific research, education and business.
“We are being challenged in terms of supports that our community, as well as other communities, have been able to traditionally rely upon … and those supports are being stripped away,” Austin-Hillery said.
Many sessions will discuss how the Trump administration continues to use executive orders to dismantle federal agencies, to press states to redraw congressional districts before the decennial census and use ICE and local law enforcement to arrest and deport people in Democratic-led states and cities.
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) will host a panel Friday on how immigrant deportations threaten Black and brown communities. The discussion will look at the importance of immigration legal aid groups such as UndocuBlack Network, Black Alliance for Just Immigration and the Haitian Bridge Alliance to help immigrants understand their rights.
In June, Frost, 28, who is Afro-Latino, introduced the “Stop Unlawful Detention and End Mistreatment Act of 2025,” which seeks to increase transparency of ICE detention center operations. It would require the agency to disclose the names of individuals who are detained, where they are being held and why.
With a GOP-controlled Congress, Frost acknowledged it will be a challenge to garner bipartisan support for the bill.
“There’s not a bipartisan consensus on anything relating to making sure that there’s oversight and accountability over this president and his actions and how his actions are impacting our communities,” Frost said. “It just shows the fact that this Congress is, essentially on the Republican side … they’re true believers in his authoritarian agenda that’s really ripping this country by the seams, or they are more scared of the president than they are of their own constituents.”
Also included among the 100 panels and sessions is a discussion about the Supreme Court’s “assault on democracy,’’ and proposed changes to elections, such as ranked choice voting, which asks voters to rank candidates based on preference, versus casting a ballot for one candidate.
Some state legislatures have considered the issue, including Michigan, where a Republican-led House elections committee seeks to ban the practice because it eliminates the “one person, one vote” principle.
Tamaya Dennard, a programs and partnership manager at the nonprofit and nonpartisan RepresentWomen in Silver Spring, Maryland, said ranked choice voting gives voters “a larger voice and more choice” in selecting candidates.
“I think what we find is, whatever party is in power, there’s no enthusiasm around changing that dynamic. It’s not party specific,” said Dennard, who works remotely for the organization in Cincinnati, Ohio. “This panel is about educating people on just political power in general, but specifically what that could look like for our community.”
U.S. Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) reintroduced legislation in July that would include ranked choice voting in U.S. Senate races.
The nonpartisan Fair Elections Center, based in Washington, D.C., also plans to encourage conference attendees to continue the fight for voting rights. Trump has vowed to end mail-in voting and the use of electronic voting machines over unproven claims of voter fraud. The U.S. Department of Justice also has directed state elections officials to turn over voter data.
“There will be a rallying cry encouraging people not to give up on voting rights,” said Rebekah Caruthers, who became president and CEO at the center July 1.
The conference will mark its largest membership of 62 Democrats in its history, including two Black women U.S. senators, Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. There are 67 Black lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the five Republicans who aren’t members of the caucus.
Alsobrooks, who also became the first Black woman from Maryland elected to the U.S. Senate, will co-host the conference with Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado. She will lead a panel on how Black businesses and entrepreneurs can use artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies to capitalize on new opportunities.
“I’m really honored to be a part of history where I know that we will not only survive it, but thrive through it,” Alsobrooks said in an interview Friday. “We’re going to do so because of our unity during this time in the faith has gotten us through so many other difficult moments in our history.”