By Heather Coppley
Capital News Service
Friday, Sept. 6, 2002

WASHINGTON - How do you get from Jessup to Capitol Hill? For Charles
McPeek, the answer is through the 5th District.

And the 6th District.

And the 7th.

The new-and used-tire salesman will ultimately show up on Tuesday's ballot as a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 7th District, capping a seven-month odyssey that saw him register to run in three districts.

Originally, the Laurel resident ran in his home district -- the 5th -- but withdrew after his "research showed that it would be almost impossible" to unseat incumbent Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Mechanicsville.  

McPeek anted up another $100 candidate registration fee and re-registered in the 6th District, where his Jessup business is located.

That was in February.  

He had been campaigning hard in Columbia when, in June, redistricting moved that part of Howard County into the 7th District. So McPeek went back to the elections board and registered in the 7th District.  

Because redistricting was partly to blame for the shift, state elections officials waived the $100 fee for McPeek's third registration.  

For the past three months, McPeek has been campaigning against incumbent  Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Baltimore, in the district that includes west Baltimore  and parts of Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties.  

Candidates typically run where they live, but McPeek is quick to point out that it is legal for a candidate to register and run in another district.  

What is not so typical is for a candidate to register in his home district and two other districts in the course of one race. Ross Goldstein, director of the State Board of Elections, could not say whether McPeek is the first candidate to be registered in multiple districts, but he did say that it is unusual.  

But McPeek is not your usual candidate.  

His United People's "Tax-tics Club of America" Web page opens saying, "By now you must know that politicians run the country and big businesses run the politician."

Running not as a politician, but as a working man, McPeek advocates doing away with the party system.  

Maryland Democratic Party spokesman David Paulson said that the party "would disagree vehemently on that part of his platform."  

Other proposals from McPeek, a registered Democrat, include decriminalizing prostitution and replacing the income tax with an across-the-board consumption tax.  

McPeek says he feels good about his prospects in the election. But Paulson said that McPeek faces "not an uphill but a mountain of a battle against a popular vote-getter like Cummings."
 

Copyright © 2002 University of Maryland College of Journalism