If you didn't hear the episode of "This American Life" about fundraising and Congress, then please listen. 

This should have the same impact as the "60 Minutes" segment about insider trading by Congress members.  The public must demand immediate action.  The truth is that money taints everything in Congress.  Until we force the process to change, effective representation won't happen. 

I can't think of a more serious issue facing us as a nation. 

With 90% disapproval rating, Congress voted almost unanimously to eliminate insider stock trading by its members.  Unfortunately, that is like using a bucket to save the Titanic.  

In case you missed it:

 Sixteen members of Congress have directed federal tax dollars to companies, colleges and community groups where their relatives work as salaried employees, lobbyists or board members, according to an examination of federal disclosure forms and local public records by The Washington Post.  The full story here.  

We also learned this week that being a former member of Congress, even one who lost reelection by 17 points, is pretty profitable.  

 Rick Santorum grew wealthy over his four years working as a corporate consultant and media commentator after leaving the Senate in 2006, his newly released federal tax returns show.

Our democracy has inspired others around the world for more than two centuries.  It is time that voters realize they have the power to make it great again.  

Every candidate hears and sees things that make him think he is the best candidate for the job.  I am no different. There is no way I can become a full-time candidate because my family needs my income.  So I will continue to work while I campaign on nights and weekends.  Of course, I think having a 40+ hour-a-week job is an asset.  The fact that I am a long, long way from independently wealthy is a strength.  It is also apparently a rarity.  

This just makes me more committed to my campaign.  I have heard scores of people say that the problem with Congress (or Washington) is that there are no regular people there.  That does not need to be the case.  I am running because I already represent most of the citizens in the 5th district: the unemployed; the family members trying to help parents deal with Medicare and Social Security; the parents arguing before town councils to keep school funding at levels that will benefit each student; and the voter frustrated with officials that listen more attentively to big-money donors.  

My observer bias finds two or three news items every week to keep me working to make the House more representative.  

As I mentioned in my last post, our Congress is catering to the wealthy and powerful.  But it is worse than that, the wishes of the poor and middle-class are ignored.  As Ezra Klein stated in a recent blog post:

Martin Gilens, a political scientist at Princeton University, has been collecting the results of nearly 2,000 survey questions reaching back to the 1980s, looking for evidence that when opinions change, so too does policy. And he found it—but only for the rich. Policy changes with majority support didn’t become law except when that majority support included voters at the top of the income distribution. When the opinions of the poor diverged from the opinions of the rich, the opinions of the poor did not appear to matter. If 90 percent of the poor supported a policy change, its chances of passage were no better than if 10 percent of the poor supported it.

The link to Professor Gilens's research is here: http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/5/778.full.pdf

Folks have asked me why I think I am qualified to run for Congress.  I answer them in all seriousness that one of my main qualifications is that I lost my job in 2007 and know the toll unemployment takes on an individual and his/her family.  It is time that the House of Representatives begins to represent everyone.  If the trend that Professor Gilens found continues, the dream of the Founding Fathers will be broken and unattainable for future generations. 

Two issues that are central to my campaign for Congress have been prominent in the news recently.

1. People are fed up with Congress.  A new Gallup Poll found that an all-time high of 81% of the public is dissatisfied with our legislative branch.  More than 2/3 have little or no confidence in the current members of our national legislature and half feel the same way about everyone seeking elected office.  The Gallup poll is here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/149678/Americans-Express-Historic-Negativity-Toward-Government.aspx
2. The listeria outbreak related to cantaloupes is likely to be linked to more deaths.  This is the issue I wish I were wrong about.  When I began talking to folks several months ago, I was the only candidate making food safety an issue (in fact, when I wrote the Issues portion of my website two months ago I didn't even include any mention of listeria).  My career in insurance has taught me that a problem that occurs repeatedly is often the prelude to a catastrophic event (in insurance circles we say frequency breeds severity).  If we do not fully address the problems with our food production and delivery systems, I fear that the next outbreak could have hundreds or thousands of victims.  The time to improve our laws is now.

These two issues are really linked.  Many people have told me that the "cost" of getting into Congress is raising more than $1,000,000.  As long as this is true, corporate lobbyists, whether with the food industry or the financial industry, will be much more satisfied with how Congress operates than the majority it supposedly serves.