D.C. Shadow Representative Mike Panetta has decided that he won’t be running again after spending three terms as one part of the District’s three-man Shadow Delegation.

Ray Browne, a one-time D.C. Council candidate and former three-term Shadow Representative, passed away over the weekend. He was 71. Browne was a D.C. native, having grown up in the Trinidad neighborhood. He also owned his own insurance company, The Browne Company. Prior to serving as Shadow Rep., Browne was an ANC Commissioner, and an active member in the local Democratic Party. He’s survived by his wife, Barbara, who lives in Ward 4. Our deepest…

Remember those billboards that popped up in the 1980s that counted up the national debt, dollar by dollar? Pretty scary, huh? Well, District voting rights activists want something similar for their cause. Today the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would allow the city to place two large LED billboards — one outside the John A. Wilson Building and the other outside the new Washington Nationals stadium — that would display the amount…

As Sommer mentioned earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to have been invited to speak on a panel on D.C. voting rights at the YearlyKos Convention, a huge gathering of progressive activists and bloggers in Chicago. This morning I will be sitting alongside D.C. Shadow Rep. Mike Panetta, Danny Rose from DC Vote and Kesh Luddewhetty of DC for Democracy, all of whom will detail the current fight for voting rights, where it stands…

For all you liberal/progressive internet/Netroots types in town who are heading to Chicago later this week for the behemoth 2nd annual YearlyKos Convention — and we know there are more than just a few of you — allow us to recommend some programming. On Friday, August 3 from 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., the panel you’ll want to make sure not to miss is Taxation Without Representation: Alive and Well in the Nation’s Capital, which…

Hoyer and Pelosi Need Your Input: Mike Panetta, D.C. Shadow Representative, informed us that voting rights activists are pushing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to bring the voting rights legislation that was derailed last week back to the floor of the House this week. They’re afraid that if it gets pushed off until next week, it may well get lost in the usual congressional shuffle. Panetta has…

Back in the day, people would gather to lobby, write letters and protest for a cause. These days, all it takes is access to a computer and a creative approach to using online tools. And while the fight for District voting rights has involved a good amount of old-school tactics, online activists have more resources at their disposal than ever before. Newly-elected Shadow Representative Mike Panetta has been leading this fight in recent years, employing…

Everyone else has taken their shot, so why not the City Paper? Today the weekly’s local politics column, Loose Lips, threw its support behind a number of candidates for next week’s D.C. primaries. But more surprising than the picks was the biting tone in which they were delivered — this is no Post endorsement, they seemed to remind us. Columnist James Jones sided solidly with candidates that bucked the establishment and railed against those beholden…

The morning after the United States celebrated 229 years of independence, the General Assembly of the 55-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) voted to endorse a resolution calling on the U.S. Congress to pass the legislation necessary to granting District residents full voting rights. The move represents an international endorsement of the District’s voting rights cause, spearheaded by a coalition of activist organizations known as Team D.C. Democracy who last Friday took…

Hot off the presses, DCist has received word that the D.C. City Council will adjourn today at 12:30 p.m. to attend the introduction of the “D.C. Fairness in Representation Act of 2005,” which will take place at 1 p.m. in Room 2247 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The legislation, also known as the D.C. FAIR Act, seeks to grant the District a voting seat in the House of Representatives by increasing the size the…