voting Writeindependent.org – congress district pledge honest candidate No Labels Trans Pacific Partnership NAFTA GATT
I live in Californias District 33, where only the top two vote getters advance from the Primary to the General election. That means I only have to look at two people: the incumbent Henry Waxman and his challenger Bill Bloomfield.
Bill Bloomfield says hes an Independent. He says hell be tough on campaign reform. But I called his office, and hes a Republican through and through, so I dont buy it that hes an Independent, but more importantly, I dont trust that he will be tough on campaign financing because of the following emails between myself and someone working in his office:
Hi Judy,
I certainly like the general gist of what I saw in the video and feel it is in line with Bloomfields general platform. However, one of his objectives with No Labels is to remove the idea of pledges from Congress (except, as Bill puts it, the pledge of office and pledge of allegiance) as he sees them historically as either ineffective or, more importantly, dangerous. No Labels is looking to soften the bargaining positions between parties and sees pledges as signed, ridged commitments to a particular position as opposite to its cause. For more details, please visit www.nolabels.org to see the twelve objectives theyve outlined to work on repairing Congress.
But I would love to find a way for us to work together as we are obviously working in the same direction. Bloomfield has just taken a hardline stance against signing any pledges altogether, but certainly isnt against the well-intentioned nature of yours. Let me know if you can think of any ways for us to cooperate without signing a pledge and lets do that.
Regards,
Name removed here
Bloomfield for Congress
office: (310) 513-5033
www.bloomfieldforcongress.com
My reply:
Dear *****,
I like that you want to work together. I think, though, that your stance on not taking pledges is actually oxymoronic. If you pledge not to take a pledge, then you are taking a pledge!
Think about that one.
Now remember, the reason we pick one candidate over another is because of his convictions. If someone decides not to have a specific conviction, then its very hard to want to vote for them.
I have decided to blog about this problem. It seems like the candidates are trying very hard to dodge the issue of taking what is effectively bribes from lobbyists. If you want another example of a person who is aggressively taking a stance on this issue, visit Rootstrikers. Lawrence Lessig has a pledge for candidates to not take lobbying jobs, ever, after they are in office.
I think I stand correct that most of your constituents dont want Mr. Bloomberg to take any big money or favors from special interest groups that would tend to sway his decisions in congress.
My biggest concern is something called the Trans Pacific Partnership. If Mr. Bloomberg prevails in the upcoming election, I can guarantee you that I will do everything in my power to persuade Mr. Bloomberg to say NO to the TPP. And I will do everything possible to educate our countrys citizens about the TPP, because its even worse than NAFTA, GATT, and all the other free trade agreements combined.
Judy
Here is another candidate dodging the issue of campaign finance. Its not likely that there will be any opposition to the Pledge, unless of course the people opposing it want to make themselves look like people who want to take bribes.
Dear Gail,
Please, I urge you to strongly consider this Pledge because we just discovered that Public Access Stations will air our infomercial. I am reaching out to people in every district across the country to have the infomercial walked into the stations, so that we can exercise more influence in Washington than we are currently receiving via representative government.
Consider it a way of saving our country from the special interests, SuperPACs and whatever companies or countries are funding them.
Sincerely,
Judy Frankel
On Sep 26, 2012, at 8:51 AM, <ggailparker@cox.net> wrote:
Judy,
I am a candidate in Virginias Congressional District 1. We are currently evaluating whether to sign the pledge. We rarely receive donations and compliance is not the issue. (We normally do not sign pledges nor do we respond to surveys as they usually seek to lock down candidates positions in order that the opposition can attack them.)
I encourage you to continue your efforts and wish you much success.
Sincerely,
Gail for Rail Parker
www.GailParker.us
Independent on the ballot in Virginia for eight consecutive years.
