District of Columbia CER 24-0186: Walter Smith Recognition Resolution of 2022

Bill Text

ENROLLED ORIGINAL
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A CEREMONIAL RESOLUTION
24-186
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
May 3, 2022
To honor and celebrate the extraordinary contributions of Walter Smith and to acknowledge him
as an inspirational local leader whose work and decades of advocacy have helped shape
the civic and political life of the District of Columbia.

WHEREAS, Walter Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of
Oklahoma, after having once been named the hula hoop champion of Oklahoma, and achieved a
Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge Charles Clark
on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, served in the US Navy Judge
Advocate General’s Corp, and has argued numerous cases before the US Supreme Court, the US
Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and the DC Court of Appeals;

WHEREAS, Walter practiced for 16 years at the law firm of Hogan Lovells, where he
specialized in appellate litigation. For several years, he served as a partner and full-time director
of the firm’s pro bono practice. The practice undertook a successful effort to prevent the
collection of a multimillion-dollar judgment against the NAACP for its boycott of merchants in
Port Gibson, Mississippi. While working at Hogan Lovells, Walter also collaborated with other
law firms to maximize essential pro bono legal services in the District of Columbia;

WHEREAS, after leaving Hogan, Walter, an avid cyclist who could often be found
discussing thorny constitutional questions while wearing a bike helmet, completed a cross-
country bike ride to raise awareness for DC voting rights, and throughout his career, Walter was
a nationally-competitive bridge player and was active in the region’s musical theater community,
including one turn as Emile de Becque in South Pacific that garnered rave reviews from his staff;

WHEREAS, Walter served as the Special Deputy Corporation Counsel at the District of
Columbia’s Office of the Corporation Counsel, now the Office of the Attorney General. There,
he focused on supervising litigation affecting the school system, setting up pro bono assistance
for the District from private law firms, and bringing a suit by the District and a number of
residents before a three-judge federal court seeking voting representation for the District in the
House and Senate;

ENROLLED ORIGINAL
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WHEREAS, Walter has worked tirelessly for the DC Appleseed Center for Law and
Justice (“DC Appleseed”) since 1991, becoming its Executive Director in 2001 and leading it
forward in the 21 years since. DC Appleseed, a 501(c)(3) organization, has helped make the
District of Columbia a better place to reside for the last 25 years through its efforts in litigation,
teamwork, and advocacy, taking on some of the District’s toughest problems, developing
proposed solutions to those problems, and then working to get those proposed solutions adopted
and implemented;

WHEREAS, the work that Walter did at DC Appleseed has left a legacy in the District
that few can match, including the creation of the Department of Energy and Environment in part
because of a recommendation in a DC Appleseed report, and Walter’s leadership in making the
District’s Attorney General an elected office, working to ensure timely consideration;

WHEREAS, Walter worked with the Council of the District of Columbia, through DC
Appleseed, to develop a DC statute to ensure that CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s
(“CareFirst”) health insurance subsidiary in the District known as GHMSI, adheres to its charter,
requiring it to dedicate any ‘excessive’ surplus to public health or lower premiums. After almost
2 decades of effort, DC Appleseed reached a settlement with CareFirst in 2021, resulting in the
creation of a $95 million fund to address public health needs in the District;

WHEREAS, Walter and DC Appleseed have worked tirelessly for statehood,
collaborating, again, with the Council of the District of Columbia to introduce the Delegate
Voting Rights Act of 2022, which would further the District's goal of self-governance by
providing the Delegate to the House of Representatives from the District the right to vote in the
House on any matter restricted in its application exclusively to the District;

WHEREAS, DC Appleseed has worked on many other important issues throughout
Walter’s tenure as executive director, including HIV/AIDS, Anacostia River cleanup and
economic development, the working poor, special education, clean drinking water, end of life
care, and child support;

WHEREAS, the Legal Times, now the National Law Journal, named Walter one of the
“90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the last 30 years” in 2007, recognizing him for having one
of the greatest impacts on the Washington legal community;

WHEREAS, Walter received the President’s Award from the Washington Council of
Lawyers in 2011, an award presented to an individual whose work exemplifies the values of pro
bono and public service that the Washington Counc