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 Brown, who plans to file his petition with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics next week, said this demonstrates that he's a sleeper candidate -- if there is to be one -- in what appears to be a two-man race between Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D). "We got out there and hit the ground running," Brown said. But according to D.C. for Democracy - a group that pushes for statehood and a variety of progressive causes - Brown isn't worthy of vying for the group's endorsement. Brown, 40, was excluded from the group's candidates forum last night, even though Gray and Fenty and former television reporter Leo Alexander were invited to appear. "They are going to regret this," Brown said after being excluded. "How can they stand for democracy and not stand for democracy in their own city?" Jesse Lovell, communications chairman for D.C. for Democracy, said Brown was excluded because no members of his organization suggested that he should be there. "If any member would have come along and said, 'I think such and such person should be added,' " I would have gone ahead and added him," Lovell said, noting that there are 11 declared candidates for mayor. "If we included him, we would have had to include virtually every candidate in town." Brown's exclusion highlights the dilemma organizations face when trying to sponsor candidates forums. As Lovell noted, a forum with 11 candidates will probably be either dull or unruly, leaving little time to question the candidates widely believed to have the best shot at winning. But, as Brown noted, is it fair to include Alexander but keep him out? Not only is Brown apparently the first candidate to collect the signatures - which arguably is a sign that he has some grass-roots support - he also ranked third behind Fenty and Gray in a Washington Post poll conducted in January. Brown received 3 percent of the vote compared with Alexander's 2 percent. -- Tim Craig
On Wednesday evening, June 3, three civic associations in Ward 3 — the Cleveland Park Citizens Associations, the Foxhall Community Citizens Association, and the Palisades Citizens Association — will hold a candidates forum with three of the leading Democratic candidates for mayor, Leo Alexander, Adrian Fenty, and Vincent Gray. The forum will being at 7:30 p.m., and will be held at the Field School, 2301 Foxhall Road, NW. The sponsoring organizations had to change the location for the forum at the last minute when Attorney General Peter Nickles intervened and ruled that the civic organizations could not hold a candidates forum at a DC public school facility, the Key Elementary School. The organizations had completed the Application to Use DCPS Facilities, were in compliance with DCPS’ policies and procedures for the use of school facilities, and had been approved by DCPS’ Office of Realty. Then Nickles intervened and overruled DCPS’ Realty Office and legal counsel. The Attorney General’s office complained that the organizers weren’t including all the Democratic candidates for mayor, and implied that the meeting could be in violation of the federal Hatch Act and the District’s campaign finance laws and regulations. On May 15, Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, chair of the council’s Government Operations Committee, which oversees the Office of Campaign Finance and the Board of Elections and Ethics, held her reelection campaign at a DCPS facility, Murch Elementary School. The May 15 event was a true partisan political event, while the June 3 candidates forum is essentially a civic meeting. In both instances, DCPS’ Realty Office held that both events met DCPS’s guidelines for the use of its facilities. So what explains Nickles’ intervention to squelch the mayoral candidates’ debate?
With as many lawyers in Ward 3 this would be the biggest joke, if it weren't true. I guess if a Fenty staffer told the Ward3ers that the sky was green it would be deems true. Let's face it Ward 3 is the pocket book of the political hacks and does not even have the power to see that laws on the books are upheld by the so called AG that in every other BIG CITY serves the people ~ not the Mayor.
I guess when the Control Board comes back we'll get some accountability. • ABC 7 News Article: September 29, 2009 Exclusive Poll: 51% Disapprove of Fenty's Job Performance
• Fox News Interview: September 29, 2009 http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/dc/092809_candidate_for_mayor_sulaimon_brown
• News Channel 8 Interview: October 2, 2009 http://cfc.news8.net/news8/shows/newstalk/videoplayer.cfm?video=ntbrown100209.wmv
• The George Washington University Newspaper: The Hatchet
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