Andy Miscuk was once a U.S. Army paratrooper. This week, the four-term Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commissioner took a flying leap of a different kind — into the political fight of his life.
Miscuk on Monday launched his bid to unseat Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, presenting the incumbent with her first Democratic challenge in 16 years. It will be, at the very least, an uphill battle for a relative unknown, though political observers say it is time that Norton faced some resistance.
“Eleanor’s a fighter by nature,” said Joe Ruffin, a local political operative. “The question is, has she been in a fight lately?”
Norton has done little legislatively to advance the city’s lack of voting representation in Congress, and she has failed to spur District residents to action, Miscuk said during his kickoff event at Tryst Coffee House in Adams Morgan. As the member of Congress with the shortest commute, he said, the D.C. delegate should be more active in the community and more assertive in the fight for federal funding.
“D.C. residents haven’t chosen to remain disenfranchised and subjugated to the will of senators from Kansas or congressmen from Michigan,” the candidate said. “No, our situation in Congress is the result of the failure to bring these issues to the people and to inspire us to demand what is rightfully ours as Americans.”
Miscuk started raising money only in the past two weeks. The primary is Sept. 12.
Norton has introduced bills in the past year to give D.C. full voting rights, the mayor more authority, a circulating quarter and statues in Statuary Hall. She is slated to launch her re-election campaign Saturday at Banneker High School.
Candidates web sites:
» www.andyforcongress.org
» www.nortonforcongress.org
