The DC Mayor's Race: Why Should Teens Care?

The answer is simple. The new mayor will represent YOU. Many decisions that you, as a teen want to make, happens through the mayor’s office. If you want a later curfew, you have to go to the mayor. The mayor's race is a forum for the mayoral candidates to tell you why you should vote for them. The candidates want your VOTE. They want to work for YOU. So you should take the time to find out about who they are and then pick the candidate you want to represent YOU. If you aren't old enough to vote you can volunteer to help the candidate you think will represent you best.

This summer our magazine staff came up with five issues we felt were most important to us: minimum wage, the environment, teen crime, gentrification and using money from the cigarette tax to fund city programs. And we went to a teen forum at the Cosmos Club on July 20, 2006 to hear the candidates speak and ask them questions based on those issues. We were able to interview three out of the five main candidates. We did not receive the opportunity to interview Adrian Fenty, who is in the lead. My staff and I learned how important the mayoral candidates are to us. We realized why we should care about who the mayor is.

Based on our research and interviews, we came to the conclusion that Marie Johns should be mayor because we felt that she was the candidate who was the most real to us. We felt that most of the past DC mayors made false promises to the citizens of DC. Out of all the candidates, Marie Johns just seemed the most real and determined to do what she said. We need somebody like that to be mayor of DC. But you can decide for yourself by reading our results on the following pages.

—Tiara Marshall, Rated-T Magazine Editor-In-Chief