Danté Anderson wins battle for Charlotte mayor pro tem. What to know about her, the job
Charlotte City Council members elected District 1 representative Danté Anderson mayor pro tem Monday after an uncharacteristically heated debate over the largely ceremonial position.
Two Democratic candidates were nominated for the job: Anderson and at-large representative Victoria Watlington. And both candidates campaigned for the post from the dais.
Watlington told the council she believed she was “uniquely qualified to help improve our internal processes, as well as work with external partners” because of her experience on the council and in the workforce. Anderson’s pitch centered on her background as a Charlotte native from a low-income neighborhood and her willingness to work with everyone on the council “to forge a better solution for the city.”
Ultimately Anderson emerged victorious by a 7-4 vote. Watlington and council members James “Smuggie” Mitchell, Renee Johnson and Lawana Slack-Mayfield were the “no” votes. Anderson was nominated by District 5 representative Marjorie Molina and Watlington by Mitchell.
Slack-Mayfield said during the council’s discussion ahead of the vote that she supported Watlington in part because she was the top vote-getter in the 2023 election and because she had concerns about Anderson’s short tenure on the council. And, she said, she could “never” support a district representative serving as mayor pro tem.
“There is no version in any council discussion where I would vote for a district representative to be the mayor pro tem for our city,” she said. “I also would have a very hard challenge to vote for someone who has literally been in office for 10 months to step into the role of mayor pro tem.”
District 2 representative Malcom Graham, who voted for Anderson, said ahead of the vote he believes the mayor pro tem “position is ceremonial at best.”
“I do think it’s an important part of what we do in terms of how we manage the work,” he said. “This is an internal thing. I don’t think it matters if you’re a district rep or an at-large. I don’t think it matters if you’ve been here 10 months or years. It’s who can help us manage the work, lead this council in the right direction and help us do the work of the council.”
District 6 Council member Tariq Bokhari told reporters after the vote he and District 7 representative Ed Driggs, the lone Republicans on council, previously communicated to the rest of the council they would back whichever of the two candidates had the most support among Democratic members.
Often, the top vote-getter among at-large candidates has taken on the mayor pro tem title, but not always. Watlington was the top vote-getter in 2023, with 65,869 votes. Anderson, who was running unopposed, got 11,471 votes in her district in 2023.
After the vote, Anderson said her focus as mayor pro tem will be on bringing more attention to issues already on the minds of constituents. Watlington did not take questions from reporters after the council meeting adjourned.
Outgoing Mayor Pro Tem Braxton Winston — who was elected unanimously by his fellow council members over fellow at-large member Dimple Ajmera in September 2022 — did not seek reelection to the City Council because he’s running for state labor commissioner in 2024.
The new iteration of the council is largely the same as the last, save for Winston’s departure and Watlington’s move from District 3 representative to an at-large position. Democrat Tiawana Brown was elected to succeed Watlington from west Charlotte’s District 3.
Here’s what to know about Charlotte’s new mayor pro tem and what responsibilities come with the position:
Who is Danté Anderson, Charlotte’s new mayor pro tem?
Anderson was first elected to the City Council in 2022. Her district includes Dilworth, Plaza Midwood, Grier Heights, Freedom Park, Myers Park, Eastover, Elizabeth, Chantilly and Windsor Park.
A Charlotte native, she told reporters after Monday’s vote that she believes her experiences growing up in the city make her uniquely qualified for the mayor pro tem position.
“I think I offer both an authentic experience of being someone who was born and raised in the city of Charlotte, who came from some of the roughest parts of the city, to elevating and being a statistic defier,” she said.
Looking ahead to the new term, Anderson said her priority as mayor pro tem is to bring more attention to issues already on the table, such as homelessness.
“We need to have a solution. And it’s not necessarily a one-pronged solution, it’s a multi-prong solution,” she said, adding that it’s important to build coalitions to address a lack of affordable and workforce housing in the city.
Anderson got her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and cinema studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she has multiple postgraduate degrees, including a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema Studies from New York University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
She is a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
What does a mayor pro tem do?
The mayor pro tem position is part of Charlotte’s “council-manager” form of city government — wherein the people elect a mayor and city council members, and the elected officials appoint a city manager.
Under North Carolina state statute, city councils are required to elect one member as mayor pro tem at their organizational meeting. The statute says that the mayor pro tem is “entitled to vote on all matters and shall be considered a councilman for all purposes, including the determination of whether a quorum is present.”
But when the municipality’s mayor is absent, the council can give the mayor pro tem “any of the powers and duties of the mayor.” And if a mayor becomes “physically or mentally incapable” of fulfilling their duties, the council can hand over the mayor’s powers and duties to the mayor pro tem with a unanimous vote until the mayor is declared fit for office again.
Under the statute, city councils “can, with or without cause, vote to remove the (mayor pro tem) at any time, and appoint a new one,” the University of North Carolina School of Government notes.
In Charlotte, the top vote-getter in the general election has often been elected mayor pro tem, though that trend has been broken at times in recent history, including with Winston’s election.
During Monday’s meeting, Ajmera said she’d like to see guidelines put in place for picking a mayor pro tem so that debates such as what happened this cycle don’t happen again.
“We should have parameters in place that guide us,” she said.
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This story was originally published December 4, 2023 at 10:06 PM.
