District votes in symbolic primary

D.C. residents go to the polls today in a Democratic presidential primary that is the first of the 2004 campaign.

But while making their voices heard in the presidential campaign, many Washington voters also will be voting in symbolic support of statehood for the District, where “taxation without representation” has become an official motto.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the only candidate campaigning in person in the city, says he has mentioned statehood for the District in every Democratic presidential debate. Mr. Sharpton, who has gone door to door and appeared on television and radio news broadcasts in Washington, says he is the only candidate actively voicing the District’s plight.

“Everyone is trying to vote based on who they think will win,” Mr. Sharpton said. “Don’t waste your vote trying to guess who’s going to win; use your vote to stand up for yourself, your children and your community; stand up for statehood.”

The District is barred by the Constitution from having a vote in Congress, because it is not a state. The Constitution provides that Congress shall have jurisdiction over the “ten-mile-square” federal district.

In May, the D.C. Council and Mayor Anthony A. Williams rescheduled the primary for today — making it the first in the nation — to call national attention to the city’s lack of congressional voting rights. The original primary date was the second Saturday in May.

The Democratic National Committee pleaded with the D.C. Democratic State Committee not to support the primary, saying otherwise the party would be forced to disqualify half of the city’s 28 delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. To avoid that punishment, local Democrats did not sanction the primary but struck a deal to make its results nonbinding. The District’s convention delegates will be chosen at caucuses on Feb. 14 and March 6.

The local party has not wavered in its mission to promote elections in the city, said A. Scott Bolden, chairman of the city’s Democratic Party. But many residents remain unaware of the vote today, and local Democrats are playing down the probability of a low turnout.

“We are trying to manage expectations because we are on new ground here with a new primary date and the complexities of it being nonbinding,” Mr. Bolden said. “I am cautiously optimistic that registered D.C. Democrats will stand up and make their voices heard.”

Public officials have been promoting the primary on radio and television, but the city will not be providing senior citizens with transportation to the polling places.

“We are working diligently to find private buses for seniors, but it is disappointing that the city will not be providing them,” Mr. Bolden said.

Several churches will be offering their buses to transport seniors.

Local Democrats and members of the Alliance of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees have volunteered to man the precincts and put up posters. Close to 15,000 postcards containing information about the primary are being distributed.

And, in addition to advertisements on cable television and radio public-service announcements that began running Saturday, private groups such as D.C. Democracy Fund have placed telephone calls to more than 50,000 reliable Democrats, urging them to go to the polls.

A number of public officials went to churches on Sunday to promote the primary.

Along with Mr. Sharpton, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun are the only major presidential candidates on the ballot.

Five major presidential candidates — Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and John Edwards of North Carolina, plus Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Wesley Clark, a retired Army general — asked to be left off the D.C. ballot. They said they did not want a conflict with the Democratic National Committee over New Hampshire’s holding the nation’s first binding primary.