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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, July 25, 2008
The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics on Wednesday cleared veteran gay and community activist Phil Pannell to appear on the city’s Democratic primary ballot in September as a candidate for shadow senator after representatives of incumbent shadow Senator Paul Strauss dropped a challenge to Pannell’s petition signatures.
Former shadow senator Florence Pendleton and incumbent shadow Senator Michael Brown filed a challenge to some of Pannell’s petitions, claiming more than a hundred signatures had been forged. Pannell called the allegation baseless and said the challenge was aimed at knocking him off the ballot to give Strauss a free ride in his re-election bid.
Under city election rules, 2,000 valid signatures of D.C. registered voters are needed for gaining access to the ballot for a citywide race like the shadow senate contest. Pannell said he obtained more than 3,000 petition signatures.
In the 1970s, the city created two shadow Senate seats and one shadow House seat as positions for lobbying Congress for D.C. statehood and D.C. voting representation in Congress. The shadow posts have no salaries or staff support and have no congressional powers or authority.
Shadow Senator Michael Brown beat Pannell for the other Senate shadow seat in 2006 in a contest that critics said was influenced by voters’ misidentification of him as being another Michael Brown, the 1996 D.C. mayoral candidate and longtime Democratic Party leader.
Pannell’s supporters have said Pannell would have beat shadow candidate Brown, who was a political newcomer, had voters not confused him with the other Brown, who is widely known and admired as a Democratic Party leader.
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