I am an attorney, an education reform advocate interested in special education, a D.C. native, a D.C. Public Schools graduate and a D.C. Public Schools parent. And I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and now Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ-6) trying  to run the school system of Washington, D.C.

First, it was Senator Hutchison and her colleagues capping attorney's fees awarded to lawyers representing children in the city's special education program. I have wanted to do something about Senator Hutchison and company and their incessant interference in this arena of D.C. affairs. Now, Mr. Flake seeks to bring vouchers to D.C. So, at Lobbyline, we approached these education reform issues in this manner. We decided to challenge Congress' authority on substantive and process grounds.  Read more about it below, and visit www.lobbyline.com/leavedc to help us in this. 

We are targeting Rep. Flake first at www.lobbyline.com/flakeleavedc, but we'll be going after others soon as well. Why should I, a native and educated life-long resident of D.C., who is herself a DCPS graduate and a DCPS parent and reformer, stand by and let Congress continue to impose their experimental policies on a school system that I am committed to reforming? What makes Mr. Flake more qualified than myself and the many active, informed and smart parents working themselves to improve the system for our children? The answer is nothing. I want Congress out of D.C. affairs. I think that voucher system supported by Mr. Flake will further erode the financially devastated D.C. public schools system where I am trying to get my second child enrolled. (That is how committed I am to DCPS). 

The lip service paid to improving the schools to attract and keep residents, to deliver economic justice to the predominantly African American DCPS student population is just lip service. Besides, one study done by a state university in Mr. Flake's own home state - Arizona State University - says that vouchers do not work. But again, what business is it of Mr. Flake's? He does not even sit on a Congressional subcommittee on D.C. and he is taking time out of his surely full Congressional schedule to intermeddle in our affairs.

Well, what if we turned the tables? What if we went en masse to Mr. Flake's hometown to tell him how to run his government? What if we joined in with Governor Napolitano of Arizona to accuse him of neglecting his home district and his state. Ms. Napolitano thinks so little of Mr. Flake's performance on  her state's behalf that she is planning to set up an office in Washington, D.C. for herself to do the job he is not doing - representing the issues of Arizonans.

All these congressmen and senators have in their home towns, political rivals who will be only too happy to make their lives hell for wasting their time meddling in DC affairs when they should be looking after the interests of their constituents. So, as Governor Napolitanto represents, the people want Congressman Flake to return to Arizona affairs while he is meddling in those of D.C. Let's get Arizonans to get Mr. Flake out of D.C. affairs.

 In fact, maybe Arizona can be the launch of a campaign, to join all the other voting rights campaigns, to get the whole of America to call
their Congressmen home, out of D.C. affairs and back to the matters of their own home districts. Visit Lobbyline's new education reform and voting rights campaign that seeks to (a)educate Americans from the home districts of Congressional members who legislate on D.C. issues (b) mobilize these voters to tell their Congressmen to resign from any D.C. subcommittees they sit on (c) abolish all of the subcommittees (d) support and supplement legislation to get Congress out of D.C. affairs for good . 

Visit www.lobbyline.com/leavedc  and tell the home districts through their newspapers that Representative Jeff Flake is cheating on his home District, neglecting their issues. Every week we will introduce a new member to home district education campaign.   No wonder, as surveys suggest, fewer than half Americans know of the plight of D.C. residents - the disenfranchised stepchildren of this republic.

You can read more details about this, and about how to help, at www.lobbyline.com/leavedc.  Here are the highlights.

-  Many members of congress will not accept emails from D.C. residents, even though our analysis argues that they are supposed to vote on our behalf, and that we are their non-elective constituents.
-  Members of congress do not tell their elective constituents about the work they do in D.C. affairs. You won't find it highlighted on their web
sites, and they get off the D.C. subcommittee as soon as they can.  It's as if they are ashamed of what they do in D.C. affairs.  However, like a philandering man, they still can't help themselves.  We have charts on www.lobbyline.com/stepcommitteeleavedc to back this up.
-  It's time that America learned what their representatives are up to.  We are not going to appeal to America's better nature; we're going to point out that their representatives are ignoring them, and have a D.C. as their other woman.