An idea for my fellow D.C. residents and voters

[journalist3072]

I was thinking that we can make a lot of traction on the issue of D.C. voting rights if we truly begin to hold politicians' feet to the fire on this.

As the presidential primary season gets underway and people begin to announce their candidacies for president, we need to let every Democrat running for President know that we will NOT support their candidacy if they are not on the right side of the issue when it comes to D.C. voting rights.

I just left a diary entry about this on John Edwards' site. You may recall that in 2004, our local leaders tried to spotlight the issue of D.C. voting rights by holding the first-in-the-nation primary on January 13, 2004. But because this non-binding primary was held before Iowa and New Hampshire, 5 of the Democrats running for President asked to have their names removed from D.C.'s ballot.

John Edwards was one of those 5 Democrats who sought to have his name removed from the D.C. ballot because of our January 13 non-binding primary. So basically, I left a diary entry on his site, saying that I could not support his candidacy in '08 until I knew for certain where he stands on D.C. voting rights.

And I said I was curious to know whether Sen. Edwards now regrets putting tradition ahead of the needs of D.C. voters by having his name removed from the ballot.

I think we need to make the issue of D.C. voting rights a litmus test for all presidential candidates. But especially, we need to hold the Democratic Party in high scrutiny. They have given a lot of lip service to the issue of D.C. voting rights, but have fallen short when the rubber met the road.

For example, they almost did not give D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton a speaking role at the 2004 Convention so she could address this issue. It was not until the D.C. delegates at the convention threatened to nominate Eleanor for Vice-President (on the night John Edwards gave his acceptance speech) that Eleanor received a speaking role so she could talk about D.C. voting rights.