I'm running for office and I need your DC vote Tuesday, September 9th!!

I'm running on the Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain slate

Polls are open from 7am until 8pm. Electing our slate means that you will elect the body that will govern the DC Democratic Party for the next 4 years.

The DC Democratic State Committee is the official governing body of the DC Democratic Party chartered by the Democratic National Committee. The primary objective of the DC Democratic Party, as all state parties, is to elect Democrats locally and nationally and to advocate for issues within the Democratic Party platform.

The Obama Unity slate is fielding 48 candidates for the DC Democratic State Committee city-wide. Each voter may vote for 24 positions on the DC Democratic State Committee - 20 at-large positions and the 4 representing your own Ward).

There are other Obama slates, but the one that includes the word "Unity" in its name is the true-blue one, endorsed by DC for Obama and DC for Democracy. The widely respected members of this slate will bring years of experience, leadership and commitment to rejuvenating the Democratic Party of this great city.

I urge you to vote for the following candidates from our slate who are running citywide:

National Committeeman - Arrington Dixon, his Alternate - Douglass Sloan;

National Committeewoman - Miriam Sapiro, her Alternate - Regan Ford;

And the following 6 men and 6 women At-Large candidates: Kemry Hughes, Jeffrey Richardson, Alan Bray, Jeffrey Norman, John Nowicki, Kenneth Ellerbe, Kim Morton, Gaby Fraser, Linda Nguyen, Tamela Gordon, Kirsten Burgard and Robin Kelley.

If you live in Ward 3, please vote for our four Ward 3 candidates: Frank Wu, Kahlill Palmer, Jocelyn Nieva and Shana Mosher.

If you live in Ward 4, please vote for our four Ward 4 candidates: Dwayne Revis, Tony Towns, Faith Wheeler and Ella Gilbert.

Our slate is steeped in the tradition of Democratic grassroots politics and committed to bringing leadership to the DC Democratic Party that is energetic, transparent and engaged in the lives of Democrats of the District of Columbia. We envision a DC Democratic Party that has a clear mission, and works to educate, empower, and mobilize District residents to become more engaged within their communities and to participate in the democratic process locally and nationally.

Our slate is the most diverse slate of candidates for the DC Democratic State Committee since the advent of home rule. If elected, we will automatically increase the representation of Young Democrats, LGBT, Organized Labor, Asian Pacific Islanders, and Latinos on the DC Democratic State Committee.

So, please, GET OUT AND VOTE.

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Recently, in DC, Republican incumbent Carol Schwartz has come under fire for her advocacy of and vote for the paid sick leave bill that made its way through Council. Although the bill was extraordinarily weak and pathetic, it’s still a step in the right direction. Her opponent in the Republican primary has been out bashing her for the endorsements she’s received from labor, while he’s also been intimating that Republicans and unions don’t mix (um, does he remember the 80’s and the unfortunate Teamsters’ endorsements? Or IAFF’s endorsement of DeWine in Ohio over Sherrod Brown?), clearly, he’s an idiot who can raise money and thereby threaten an entrenched Republican (I’m yawning here), good for him, even if he's an idiot.

Now, it appears that this little race, and more specifically the issue of paid sick leave, has some very interesting national implications that the AP (I know, the dreaded AP which seems to be cleaning up their act) actually reported today (not the local race, the implication of it on the nation):

Some 46 million U.S. workers lack paid sick days, but lawmakers in 12 states — including California, Connecticut, Minnesota and West Virginia — have proposed legislation in the past year that would require businesses to provide them.

Snip

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 43 percent of the private industry labor force worked in 2007 without paid sick time, a group primarily made up of low-paid employees at small businesses.

That means that the waitresses at your table, the cooks in your kitchens and the school bus drivers (who aren’t yet unionized through the Teamsters' efforts) are helping you to a nice heaping serving of whatever they are carrying from viruses to bacteria. They’re treating you to more and more sickness. I know, it’s sweet, isn’t it?

But fear not, if you live in DC, and don’t work in the food industry or health care industry, are on the job for at least a year, you might be able to qualify for prorated sick days depending on how many hours you work up to a maximum number of days. I know complicated, I prefer how San Francisco did it:

Paid sick days are already law in Washington, D.C., where employees earn days off based on the number of hours worked and the size of the business, and in San Francisco, which requires one hour sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which represents 900 restaurants, did not endorse or oppose the ballot measure that enacted the local ordinance, but won several changes, such as allowing employers to require a worker give "reasonable notice" when calling in sick, said Kevin Westlye, executive director. The law has been successful, he said.

"There's been some concern that employees are abusing the ordinance. There's been a little bit of that, but not as widespread as people thought at the beginning," Westlye said.

Interesting, no abuse and the association didn't bother to step into it, sweet.

But what you should pay attention to is who currently supports such measures on the national level, because if we’re fortunate enough to elect him President:

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, supports the legislation.

I suppose the real thing to think about here is why vote for anyone other than Obama? But in DC... you have a choice as a Republican in the primary on September 9th, supporting an incumbent concerned with some citizen’s services and a guy who seems to think just like John McCain. Hmm, which should DC voters chose? Hmm, they both kind of suck.

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The Washington CityPaper has the money quote:

Mara cited the chamber and Board of Trade nods as further proof of his Republican bona fides, pointing out, “She’s endorsed by SEIU and the AFL-CIO. That just kind of says how we stand on these issues.…That certainly says something to Republican voters.”

Gee, Mara hate workers much? Does this also mean that you hate Republican workers? Really Mara, is that what you’re saying here about the AFL-CIO and SEIU endorsements of Schwartz? If so, I suppose that really is the difference between the two of you. Or as Schwartz put it:

I am a balancer of interests, always have and always will be,” she says, “and I’m very proud of that.”

Eh, I don’t buy her argument, but I’d rather have a moderate republican who cares about all the rest of us than a guy who seems to only care about the Chamber of Commerce.

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