In Congress I will represent you - not Corporations. More than that: I will represent the interests of our children and grandchildren - for their prospects are daily diminished by our failure to adress the Climate Crisis. The words that MLK spoke are now writ large before us: 'We will all learn to work together as brothers, or we will die together as fools.'
As surety of these things I pledge:
I will not knowingly take a dime from lobbyists for corporations, their PACs, or their corporate officers.
Why do I so pledge? Because this is how our country was built. Until the 70's, that which I pledge was the law of the land. Those contributions that I reject were clearly recognized as bribes and illegal. The Supreme Court has legalized corruption by a series of specious decisions from '76 Buckley vs. Valleo forward - the 2010 Citizens United decision being the most recent and grotesque of these.
Though this pledge is more general, it seems important to specifically note that dollars from all fossil fuel companies, from BigPharma and BigAg, from heath insurance companies, the Military Industrial Complex, Wall Street and Big Banks, from private prisons and for-profit schools will not be accepted. These are industries influential in creating present the corporate welfare state.
Does this mean I don't like corporations? Not at all. Corporations are central to our economy - I want them to prosper. But their profits should be earned in competing for our dollars with their goods and services [1]. Not by funding the election of people to Congress who then pass Laws that build a corporate welfare state [2].
We will fund this campaign without help from any special interests. By this we can be certain our democracy is once again powered by the people. By living breathing people - not "corporate people".
Were it possible I would likewise disallow any support from Super PACs and Dark Money Groups. But the Supreme Court in its confusion between corporations and living breathing people, in equating money with speech, has enabled unlimited spending by such entities in support of or opposition to any candidate irrespective of that candidate's principled opposition to such spending. I will disown any support for my campaign by such groups. As to opposition thereby - I welcome their hatred.
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