Why does the Obama administration favor "free and fair elections" in Egypt but not in Washington, D.C., Ralph Nader wrote Wednesday in a letter to President Obama.



Nader, the consumer advocate who twice ran on the Green Party's presidential ticket, pressed Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonHillary Clinton after debate: 'Everyone better vote' Hillary Clinton: 'Black Lives Matter' is 'very profoundly a theological statement' House in near-unanimous vote affirms peaceful transfer of power MORE on voting rights for D.C. residents, in light of the situation in Egypt.



"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reflected your sentiments when she commented on the Egyptian uprising with the words 'We want to see free and fair elections,'" Nader wrote.





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"But in the District of Columbia, where you and Secretary Clinton reside, there are no 'free and fair elections' for electing representatives with full voting rights to Congress," he added. "There is only the continual disenfranchisement — unique to all other national capital cities in purported democracies — for the hundreds of thousands of voting age citizens in the District of Columbia."Obama's stated support for District voting rights, and Democrats had been optimistic last Congress about the chances to advance legislation to do so.However, that legislation died after Republicans attached an amendment to a D.C. voting rights bill that would have significantly expanded gunowners' rights in the District, which has relatively restrictive gun laws. That effectively forced the bill's death, because Democrats in the House and Senate didn't want to advance such a bill, and Republicans vowed to attach a similar amendment to any other effort to allow the District a vote in Congress.That legislation has even less of a chance of advancing in the current Republican-held House. One of their first votes was to exclude Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) from the Committee of the Whole — or, the right to vote in committee."So, come home with your rhetoric, Mr. President, come home to liberate your District of Columbia. What is your response?" Nader asked.