How D.C. became a District of Corruption

. . . We don’t have statehood or voting rights in Congress, which means there is limited political space in the District. School board member, council member, mayor, non-voting delegate to Congress, and soon, attorney general. That’s it. Those are all the available opportunities for elected office in the District of Columbia. (Okay, if you insist, there are the positions of advisory neighborhood commissioner and statehood senator and delegate. But, quick, name your ANC and your statehood senator! I rest my case.) This is not a place you come to channel political ambition by way of local politics. Ask Jesse Jackson. He was elected shadow senator in 1990 with the hope and expectation that the Voting Rights Act would make him a voting U.S. senator. He quickly divested himself of that notion and headed back to Chicago. If you happen to live in a smaller suburb of the city, you have all of those opportunities plus the state legislature, the Congress or the governor’s mansion. Instead, in the capital of the United States, local politics can’t lead beyond the mayor’s office, so no ambitious political operations or machines exist here. Political operations proceed in fits and starts, and change from election to election. . . .

To read the full article, follow the link below.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-dc-became-a-distr ict-of-corruption/2012/07/13/gJQA1ZhiiW_story.html

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