An unattainable primary goal

Most of the big-name Democrats seeking their party’s nomination do not care and most D.C. voters probably do not even know it, but the District will hold a presidential primary next week. It is not a sanctioned primary. In fact, it is nonbinding. Republicans will not be voting in the Jan. 13 primary — and the vast majority of the city’s registered Democratic voters probably won’t be lining up at the polls. D.C. lawmakers and the D.C. Democratic State Committee knew all those facts going in.

The chief reason for switching the primary from May to January was to draw attention to the District’s lack of full congressional representation. A. Scott Bolden, chairman of the D.C. Democrats, said this week that he and other D.C. leaders will “continue to push and continue to fight” for full voting rights.

Yet, the presidential candidates themselves are not playing along. The names of only four major Democrats are even on the ballot — Carol Moseley Braun, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton — and none is a leading voice for D.C. voting rights. They haven’t even tried to rouse the interest of D.C. voters.

If the 2000 primary stands as a clear indicator, Mr. Bolden and the others shouldn’t set their voter-turnout expectations too high. While registered Democrats outnumber Republicans better than 10-to-1 (257,330 vs. 25,707 as of Oct. 31), only 8.8 percent of Democrats even bothered to cast ballots in the 2000 primary.

Indeed, there are two certainties following next week’s primary: 1) either Mr. Dean or Mr. Sharpton will emerge victorious; and 2) the District remains without full voting representation. That is because try as D.C. leaders might to change the city’s status, the Constitution mandates limited home rule for the District — and that is as things should be.

To the financial misfortunes of D.C. taxpayers, the Jan. 13 Democratic primary (or “beauty contest,” as D.C. Republican Chairman Betsy Werronen rightly characterized it) will cost $350,000. That is money that could have been well spent on schools, social services or law enforcement. It certainly can’t buy the two-thirds votes needed in Congress to change the Constitution.