Davis seeks ideas: Legalizing pot No. 1, but nixed

USA Today
By Phillip Rawls,
Associated Press Writer

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Legalizing marijuana turned out to be the top single vote-getter when U.S Rep. Artur Davis used his gubernatorial campaign Web site to solicit ideas for moving Alabama forward.

It didn't rate that high with the candidate, however, and he didn't even mention it when thanking contributors after the Web vote was taken down Friday.

The marijuana idea was posted by Loretta Nall of Alexander City, an independent candidate for governor in 2006 and a longtime advocate of decriminalizing marijuana. She was incensed that he didn't acknowledge the idea even though it came in first.

Campaign spokeswoman Anna Ruth Williams said Friday the campaign spent a week seeking ideas from Alabama citizens, asking them to post an idea on the campaign site or vote for one that had already been posted. She said nothing was censored, and the idea titled "end marijuana prohibition" was the top single vote-getter when the solicitation ended Friday.

"This kind of format is exactly why Congressman Davis is running -- to let more than just a handful of Montgomery insiders talk about ideas," Williams said.

That includes letting people discuss ideas that the congressman doesn't agree with, she said.

When the campaign took the ideas off the campaign Web site, it posted a video of Davis thanking more than 2,300 people for voting for 80 ideas. Davis, who opposes legalizing marijuana, mentioned several of the ideas in his video, but not marijuana.

Nall was delighted Friday that her idea drew 118 votes, but she was outraged when Davis took down the ideas after hers won and did not mention her idea in his video.

"He says everybody is invited to the table, but apparently that's not the case," she said.

More traditional political topics, like creating a state lottery or removing the state sales tax on groceries, trailed Nall's idea in votes. Several people posted different ideas for rewriting Alabama's lengthy constitution. If all those postings had been combined into one, constitutional revision would have had 38 more votes than Nall's idea.
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Told you we wouldn't be ignored and would make Artur Davis answer that question, even if it wasn't the answer we wanted to hear. This shows that he is just like any other politician. He wants to talk about his ideas and what he wants, while posturing and pretending to care about what the voter thinks. I wonder why he didn't just make up his own list for people to vote on. Would have made more sense considering he wasn't going to use any ideas but the ones he liked anyway. It would also have saved him a lot of trouble...like getting this story in USA Today and therefore, nationwide, for example.

Many, Many, Many THANKS to Phillip Rawls.