Politics

This week, Let’s Choose DC —a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington, and DCist—asked candidates for the April 23 at-large special election about crime.

We asked the candidates:

Chief Lanier and Mayor Gray have made a lot of the drop in homicides, but other crimes—assaults, robberies—remain stubbornly high. How should DC police deal with those challenges, and do you have an opinion on how many officers MPD needs?

Read and vote on candidate responses here. Let’s Choose DC gives you one candidate response at a time, selected randomly. Your vote will count toward the results once you vote on 5 responses.

We posed the question on January 8 to all of the candidates who had taken out petitions by that point. Nine candidates replied: Diallo Brooks, AJ Cooper, Matt Frumin, Jon Gann, Patrick Mara, Pedro Rubio, John Settles, Elissa Silverman, and Paul Zukerberg.

Voting on the first question, about candidates’ vision for the future, has ended; we will tally the results and post them later this week.

Cross posted at Greater Greater Washington and DCist

I’m pleased to announce a new site to help DC voters get to know the candidates for the upcoming April 23 special election for DC council at-large: Let’s Choose DC, presented by Greater Greater Washington, DCist, and PoPville.

Let’s Choose DC’s goal is to dig into the candidates, and their stances on the issues that matter most. It will help you decide, and also help you better understand how other people view the candidates.

Each week we’ll send each of the declared candidates a question on an issue of importance to DC, like education, crime, affordable housing, and so on. We’ll post their responses on the site. You’ll not only get to read them, but also vote on them. If you think a candidate is too vague, say so! If there answer is detailed and precise, even if you don’t agree with it, you’ll get to tell them—and other readers—as much.

As the weeks go by, we hope to build more detailed profiles on each of the candidates, and challenge them all to think beyond traditional sound bites and talking points. And by the time the election rolls around, you’ll have a single place to come to see where the candidates stand.

We asked all of the candidates the first question during the holiday break, and almost all of them have responded to the question:

The District has changed a lot since 1993, and will likely change much more by 2033. What are 2-3 changes you hope to see by 2033, and how will electing you to the DC Council help bring them about?

See their responses and give your votes at Let’s Choose DC.

Photo by PoPville flickr user ekelly80

From a press release:

DC Vote has filed a petition on the White House website asking that the Taxation Without Representation license plate be placed on the presidential limousine prior to Inauguration Day.

The presidential limousine currently displays DC plates that do not carry the Taxation Without Representation message. District residents pay federal taxes and serve and die in wars, but have no vote in Congress. The District adopted Taxation Without Representation as its official license plate motto in 2000 to give the country a visible demonstration of the political reality in the nation’s capital.

“With the help of thousands of Americans who believe in equal rights, we expect to see the Taxation Without Representation plates rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue during the inaugural parade,” said DC Vote Communications Director James Jones.

The early response to the petition has been strong. So far, nearly 3,000 people have signed it on the White House on-line petition site. If 25,000 people sign by January 18th, the administration will provide a response.

“We are beginning a major new, nationwide social media push to reach our goal prior to the inauguration,” Jones said. “The support we have received from people across the nation sends a strong message to the White House, but we need to maintain the momentum.”

The petition provides an opportunity for the people of DC and for supporters of our fight for full democracy everywhere to elevate the struggle for full democracy to a new level. DC Vote is very grateful for President Obama’s support for our struggle for equal rights. He has stated publicly that we should have the same voting rights as all other Americans. Displaying the Taxation Without Representation plate is simply an expression of the truth about DC’s political status.