End Corruption

Where does your Congressperson’s money come from?

Anyone else been getting the emails from the Democrat and Republican parties about how they need just a little more money to defeat the other guy? Why are you asking us, the ones with the least amount of money to give, for 2 or 3 dollars when you won’t even talk to us? Plus, it’s not like most Representative even need the money from us when most of it comes from non-humans anyways. 

To me it is more than clear—I do not matter to my Representative if I cannot give you any money. 

I have never even see Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco just hanging out, or even talking with people in public about what she’s been doing for us. I guess she is too busy the hundreds of fundraisers she attended this last year. I could have swore I hired her to do something else… I feel like it was to debate something… or be somewhere doing some sort of job… perhaps trying to pass legislation… Maybe I am wrong. 

Anyways, seeing that she is elected from the 12th Congressional District of California—which is only San Francisco—I was hoping to find that she is mostly fiscally supported by San Franciscans. I seem to have found otherwise…

Mis. Pelosi would accept $70,000 from Occidental Petroleum 2011-2012 fundraising campaign when Occidental Petroleum has a past indictment of not just murder, but of an outright massacre in Columbia?  Here is another link. Now, maybe I am wrong about this whole thing, but I personally don’t think it is a San Francisco Value to be taking money from those indicted in the murder of Innocent civilians. And also, the with the whole gas prices being over $4.00 a gallon now, I just don’t think getting support from Petroleum companies is the best idea.

Like many San Franciscans, I ride public transit and my bike around the city as my main way of getting around. About 1/3 of San Franciscans are with me in our endeavor just to get around and to try to do it in a cleaner, cheaper way. 

She has also taken $117,000 from the Torchmark Corporation in the 2011-2012 fundraising cycle. If we follow the green rabbit hole, we will find that Torchmark is owned by Protective Life Insurance Corporation. Now what I don’t understand is why is Pelosi’s biggest contributor is from Alabama? Just as I think Alabama would like for San Francisco Corporations not to go down there and screw around in Mis. Swell’s district, we should let it be known that we do not welcome Protective Life Insurance money in San Francisco Politics. 

In light of all of this, I think I should make it clear that I, Erik Cason, hereby pledge that I will not take any money from any company, or ‘person’ that are indited in murder cases.

It’s just not one of my values.

I also will not take any money from non-humans, especially from ones that are outside of my district. Non-humans cannot vote, therefor they should not be able to contribute to the political process of voting in anyway, shape, or form. 

That is also not one of my values.

Remember Ms. Pelosi, We are not going back to the failed policies of the past. We are fighting for the middle class! I think that we would all agree that campaign financing is failing the american people—Why don’t you support and get the Lessig Amendment to pass?

You were the one that said that you have not gotten credit for what you have done. And you are very right, you have not gotten credit for what you have done—or not done.

It is stupid that non-humans can contribute to the voting process for the people. It is stupid and I would love to hear from anyone who thinks they could debate around the process. 

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

-James Madison

Have you met your leaders?

The time to get in action is now. There is no way that I could ever raise billions that the Democrats and Republicans can, nor do I want to. I do not want to know what was promised to get that money, all I simply want is to feel like my voice matters at least as much as it should in our democracy.

I am just curious, how many of you have met your U.S. Congressional Representative? I’ve never had a chance to meet Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco in the 12th Congressional District of California—I cannot afford the low-ball price of $5,000 to attend a dinner with her. It would be really great of her to start showing up at some rallies in SF to show she really supports the people and not just the people with money.

We could also have lunch at Dolores park on a sunny weekend day. I’ll even pack some PB&J sandwiches—my treat. Just tweet me, we will figure out a good time for both of our schedules. Do you prefer strawberry or raspberry jam?

Do you think it is fair that Mitt Romney is charging $2500 for a photo with him—isn’t this guy trying to win the votes of Americans? I wonder if he would meet up with those that can’t pay a fee to see him speak?

I would love to have dinner with the President to let him know how much I really think we need to get private money out of public elections, but I cannot afford a $35,000 dinner with him—I won’t even make that much money this year. I guess I don’t matter if I cannot afford to have dinner with the guy that I helped hire…

I just think that maybe I should have an equal voice in our democracy as our founding father’s intended. I really don’t want to have to pay any money for my voice to matter. My voice is sacred and cannot have a price tag put upon it.

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”

-Samuel Adams

How we can save more than $82 million from the federal budget right now!

I understand that money is really tight right now and we all need to cut back where we can.

Hmm…well we could slash the budget all over the place, but I think I have a plan that we the people could all agree on. This plan will save us at least 82 million dollars, just in the first year!

What do you think your local schools could do with that money?

When I was at my last job I had quarterly reviews, and if I was not performing up to snuff they would not give me a raise. In fact, if I did a really bad job, they would actually fire me! Generally, if I was performing below 50% of my metrics, I would get fired. Seeing that Congress’ approval rating is so low, I think a review is long over due. 

So in light of Congress not doing the best job. How about we pay them say… $20,880. That is 12% of their current salary of $174,000—which is also close to their current approval rating. We could also save even more money by going after them for their travel expenses, but lets just leave it at the salaries for now.

I mean, normally we couldn’t do that, we have the 27th amendment to the Constitution. However, thanks to Mr. Boehner’s proposal, we could just have them not take the pay. Now, I would like to challenge Mr. Boehner to a stand up and take charge on this issue—Just don’t take your pay any way about it. I know that a lot of people follow his lead, so Mr. Boehner could you take point on this and see if you could whip Congress into shape and have them start cracking away at resolving our countries debt crisis? I think most of us Citizens would appreciate it.

The other thing Mr. Boehner, is why don’t we just reduce all of Congress’ pay down to  $0 until you call can start getting us a balanced budget that is not going to hurt most Americans? I mean, you did use the COLAs to get yourself a pay raise (here is the court document as well), so why don’t we just do the opposite and decrease all of your pay until we can get our federal budget working again. This will save tens of millions of tax payer dollars, and I think we can all agree that this would help. 

Plus, it’s not like anyone is in politics for the money, right?

The Poll Tax for the 2012 Election

This story starts on Wednesday March 7th 2012, when I decided that someone needed to stand-up and fight for campaign finance reform. I went down to the department of elections in San Francisco to get my paperwork for my candidacy. When I arrived I was told that the ‘window’ for collecting in-lieu of signatures was over and had closed on February 23rd. But it just so happens that signatures are worth about $0.58 a pop, so you can just buy them for the good old price of $1740—a real bargain! So with no other choice, I forked over about half of my student loan payment that I use for rent and other things, and got my paperwork and set out to run for U.S. Congress in the 12th Congressional District—San Francisco. 

I gather up my  60 signatures, review them and found 7 of them I had to crossed out on my own for things like being about 200 feet from the district boundaries, or one gentleman I had to cross out as he was homeless. So that puts me down to 53, still far more than the 40 signatures of registered voters that I needed. I submitted them at 4:30pm on March 9th, 2012—just before the deadline.

A few days later I get a phone call from the department of elections that I had been disqualified from having my name on the ballot. I needed more information so I decided to go into their office on March 14th to see what could be worked out.

They told me that 7 had the wrong address and 10 were not registered (perhaps several of the homeless who signed my petition had ‘invalid address’ as they have no address). That leaves me with 36 signatures as being valid in the opinion of the state election officials.

In order for stand on the ballot, you must have 40 valid voter address. So they are not going to let me be on the ballot because of 4 ‘invalid address’ and because 10 of the people that I had sign the petition thought they were registered and were not. 

In addition to that, when I asked what recourse could I take to resolve this. they said nothing.

I asked if I could take some notes or video. No.

Well, could I at least have my money back—I kinda need it. No.

Ok, well, I really did not want to pay a poll tax anyhow, so I’ll just issue a stop payment on the check. If they don’t want to play fair, I am at least not going to give them my money. 

And then this week they sent me the letter you see below, telling me that if I don’t give them the $1,740 for the paperwork that they threw out, that I cannot run. Well, I believe in Democracy and also in free and fair elections—this surely is not free, and it seems quite unfair.

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