Pubdate: Sat 25 Jun 2005
Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
Copyright: 2005 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.democratandchronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/614
Author: Joseph Spector, Staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?219 (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

MAYORAL HOPEFUL COLLECTING SIGNATURES

A former Rochester Institute of Technology student who was kicked out in
2001 after protesting the opening of the Louise M. Slaughter Building on
campus wants to run for Rochester mayor.

Chris Maj, 26, is circulating petitions to become the fourth
Democratic candidate in a September primary. He needs 1,000
signatures, and so far said he has a few hundred. The deadline is July
14.

Maj, pronounced May, is pushing a liberal agenda as he tries to line
up support for a mayoral run. While even getting on the primary ballot
may be a long shot, Maj says he's committed to the race.

He's campaigning door-to-door, put out automated phone calls to about
20,000 city residents and has a Web site, http://www.rochestermayor.com
which reads like a daily blog of his views on the city.

Compared with the other candidates, he said he has "a lot more ideas
to move the city forward."

Maj, a native of Springville, Erie County, has plenty of ideas. He
wants to legalize marijuana and prostitution by regulating and taxing
them, offer abandoned city property to young people from the suburbs
and start a lottery just for the city to fund education.

It's the first time Maj has run for office, but he was a vocal
activist at RIT. He helped found Students for a Sensible Drug Policy,
which has grown into a national group.

Yet his outspokenness, he said, led to his demise at the school. He
was kicked out after he aggressively protested the opening of its
Center of Integrated Manufacturing Studies, a building named after
Slaughter. He and others opposed the center's work for the military,
calling it the "Slaughterhouse."

Maj said RIT reinstated him a year later, but he didn't return.

"I didn't think it was in the best interest of an international
university to recruit students from all the world and then have them
make bombs for the U.S. military that will eventually be used on their
own home countries," he said.

Maj said that if he doesn't get enough valid signatures to qualify for
the primary, he might try to get on the November ballot as an
independent candidate.

Three Democrats -- Wade Norwood, Robert Duffy and Tim Mains -- are
vying for the party's nomination in a primary.

Assemblyman Joseph Morelle, who heads the Monroe County Democratic
Committee, knew nothing about Maj and hadn't spoken to him.

But Morelle said, "We're respectful of other people's opinions."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin