Why Sincere Political Donors Stop Contributing To The Dysfunctional Beltway Committees

This morning, the first Blue America contribution after we sent out a letter about Lee Rogers' race in CA-25, was from someone whose name I didn't recognize, Chris Horwitz, a PhD and the CEO of Electrogrip, a respected company in Pittsburgh known worldwide for advanced electrostatic gripping solutions. When I spoke with him, he mentioned he used to contribute through the DCCC and the other Beltway committees but when he explained why he had stopped, I asked him if he had time to write a guest post for DWT. This is what he came up-- and he has come to the right place. Everything he talks about, describes Blue America:

Guest Post
by Chris Horwitz

I run a manufacturing company in Pennsylvania which provides high-tech equipment for making computer chips. That is a global market and so I get to see how other countries take care of their citizens. While many in the U.S. are scornful of Europe and Canada, I have experienced easy express train travel overseas (and in New York City, happily), and gridlocked highways in California... so I have seen that an activist and involved government is a clear plus for its citizenry. The Democratic party has generally pushed for such socially beneficial policies, so has attracted most of my support.

For more than a decade I have contributed to DNC, DSCC, and the DCCC-- but no more. The Toomey-Manchin gun background checks Senate vote changed my view of the Democratic party. Some Democratic senators voted against the clear polled preference of the majority of their constituents, and left in danger thousands of American lives every year, just to preserve their own jobs-- or so they thought. That was a wake-up call for me. And it has sullied the Democratic brand. Since then I have mainly contributed to the PCCC, Emily's list, and through Act Blue to specific candidates.

What I would like is a fund to which I could contribute such that NO money would go to any candidate who sees perceived job security as being more important than making our lives better.

In addition I would like to see another fund devoted to taking down those who see being in politics as a job and a business venture rather than a chance to do good. Of course that's most Republicans, but would include those Democrats who are against fair treatment of their constituents.

In my mind such "fair treatment" ranges from enacting better laws to make our communities safer (both from gun violence and from chemical and industrial accidents and from climate change), supporting independent electoral commissions to eliminate safe gerrymandered seats, and enacting fair taxation policies that help our country to grow most effectively by more heavily taxing speculative and unearned income sources. Of course fully implementing the new Health Care law is another way of treating citizens fairly, as is taking this country out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran…-- for which I am grateful to those good parts of the Democratic party. Let us try to enable those good actors, get rid of the time-servers and self-servers, and build a more effective government and country.