Nothing Wrong With Washington That Some Fundamental Change Won't Fix-- Darcy Burner

Darcy with Jim McDermott -- what a winning
team for the Seattle area that will be!

This week we took long drives through the Yucatán to Uxmal and Chichen Itza to see what we could make of the Mayan civilizations that built sacred cities in the jungle in those places. On the way, my friend Mike, who I've known over 40 years and who's never been overly political, mentioned that the way to get serious about Congress solving the country's problems would be to mandate that each member wear a Nascar-style jacket with the logos of his biggest corporate campaign contributors on it. I guess some of these characters-- like Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Fred Upton on the Republican side of the aisle and Joe Crowley, Jim Matheson and Mike McIntyre on the Democratic side-- would have to wear floor-length dressing gowns to work.

When we got back from climbing around the rubble and trying to make sense of the collapse of a highly sophisticated civilization, I found an e-mail from Darcy Burner, the progressive congressional candidate running in Washington state's open 1st CD. Like Mike, she remembers a time, in our lifetimes, when --

Congress worked for the American people. Congress fought for equality by passing civil rights legislation; they cleaned our air and water by passing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act; they ensured our food was safe by creating the FDA; they helped all Americans have opportunity to live up to their potential with the Americans with Disabilities Act and IDEA.

She has a different solution from Mike, though. In fact, she has ten of them, things she seems to have learned from her time working with Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison at a progressive think tank in DC:

– Restore democracy in the Senate by fixing the filibuster;

– Put a halt to buying of elections through campaign finance reform and overturning Citizens United;

– Restore due process protection for every person detained by the U.S. government;

– Open up government by ensuring that the public can view and participate in any Congressional hearing a lobbyist is allowed to participate in;

– Make Senators take responsibility for blocking nominations and legislation by ending anonymous holds;

– Attach the name of the member of Congress to every change made to a bill in the legislative process so that they’re accountable;

– Make members of Congress disclose every earmark they request;

– Protect checks and balances by ensuring that neither the legislative nor executive branches messes with the integrity of the judicial branch;

– Ensure fair and accountable representation by ending gerrymandering practices in all states;

– Guarantee that every American has the right to vote, and that nobody can block that most fundamental democratic right.


It's the end of the last quarter and the end of the year, and we just added Darcy to the DownWithTyranny ActBlue page. Please help us welcome her aboard. She has a couple of conservative primary opponents she'll have to defeat before she can get to DC to work toward those awesome goals. That page happens to also have some other exceptionally good candidates, all of whom can use some help to close the year with a bang.