Democratize the District

Bay Area, are you ready to lead the nation again as we take back our democracy? Welcome to the future, where power to the people is not just a saying, but our living government operating principle. 

When I’m elected to Congress, my vote won’t matter more than any of yours. I’m going to truly and fully Democratize the District. 

That’s right. When I’m elected, every voter in our district will be able to securely log into my office’s website using their voter ID, and tell me how THEY want our district to vote on every single piece of legislation that crosses my desk. The people will vote and I will always honor that vote as I cast my own in Congress.

I will always make it my job to inform voters extensively about every bill. I am a trained professor and I promise to not make it boring! I will state my position on each bill and I will describe my reasoning in all cases. But ultimately, the voters of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, San Leandro, Albany, Emeryville, and Piedmont will decide how our district votes in Congress.

THIS is what real democracy looks like. 

Each side is pointing at each other screaming that the other is an existential threat. But the poetry is that they’re showing us their truth, which is that the biggest threat to democracy is our own two-party system. 

The corporate mega-parties are really just two sides of the same coin. They’re two PR teams tasked with speaking two different groups, but to achieve the same corporate military goals. 

They employ some of the smartest and most diabolical marketing psychologists on earth to emotionally manipulate us with corporate-sponsored media. They have this nation so hypnotized with this broken record of tribalist finger pointing that we haven’t been able to press the brakes on this moving trainwreck even though we all want it to go in a completely different direction.  

Well, when we Democratize the District, no corporate interests or lobbyists will get to influence me. I’m showing my people that I trust them. I don’t need to lie to them to get elected like Lateefah Simon. I don’t need to tell them any embellished sob stories to emotionally manipulate them. I don’t need to hide my record. I just need to tell the truth. I will tell voters about every single lobbyist that ever tries to contact me. I will tell them exactly what those lobbyists want.  

When these career politicians’ only end game is power, they become so predictable. My only end game is real progress for my hometown and for this nation. I don’t need my vote to count any more than the rest of my neighbors’.  

I will dedicate permanent local-only staff to administering this initiative. They will ensure the cyber-security of the process, counter any attempts by corporations or lobbyists to influence public votes, and they will build the largest grassroots voter-engagement program in the nation.

We will lead the nation in voter participation rate until other elected officials have the courage to Democratize their Districts. The key threshold will be achieving at least 51% voter participation in our Congressional votes, so we will make the process as streamlined and user-friendly as possible. This is not a fantasy, my friends. The future is here.