[Sosfbay-discuss] Shadowing Congress: EshooWatch - Dislodging & Recalling Incumbents - guerilla politics

[JamBoi at Greens.org]

Facing facts we Greens may have a long struggle ahead of us to get our
representatives elected.  We are hard at work in the GPSCCo building up
our infrastructure starting with bringing our GPSCCo Council up to its
full 7 member strength (if you know of good candidates please let us
know!!!) and creating our North, East, Mid and South Valley Locals.  That
effort is proceeding apace and I'm very encouraged about it.

In the meantime while we are building infrastructure how can we be most
effective on influencing our congressional representatives?  I think its
in coalitional efforts with other concerned citizens.

THE SHADOW CONGRESS: GUERRILLA TACTICS FOR DISLODGING Eshoo and other
entrenched incumbent congress people.

Other countries and other Green Parties use the 'Shadow Government'
concept to have public input and representation even when we can not (due
to the rigged system and lack of proportional representation) get our
representatives directly elected.  This idea could take various forms.  We
could elect our own 'Shadow Congress person' (probably the same person who
ran for the actual seat - in the case of CD14, Carol Brouillet) to head up
the CongressWatch of that particular district.

Additionally I've had in mind a while now the usefulness of calling
together a coalitional group of citizens to exercise quality control over
our congress people - to give them a report card on their work.  In
industry employees get job reviews, so I say we need to give our
'employee/representatives' job reviews.  We could take Wes Rolley & Co.s 
PomboWatch effort ( here's a snapshot from just before the election last
year
http://web.archive.org/web/20061004061101/http://refpub.com/PomboWatch/ )
that booted Pombo out of office as an example of what could be done. 
Here's an example of a scorecard concept from (Nader's) Public Citizen
CongressWatch
http://action.citizen.org/scorecard/scorecard.jsp?person_legislator_KEY=27

Peninsula Peace & Justice Center has a CongressWatch blog page that's a
start.  Maybe the place to start such an effort would be to pitch in to
help them out:
http://peaceandjustice.org/index.php?topic=CongressWatch

IMO Alliance for Democracy would be a good group to connect with for this:
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/campaigns.html

Another good resource is Nader-created Public Citizen's 'Congresswatch'
http://citizen.typepad.com/watchdog_blog/
http://www.citizen.org/congress/index.cfm

WHAT IS REALLY SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN constitutionally speaking is that with
the very short 2 year leash they are on, we are supposed to vote out a
congressperson we don't like.  However with Gerrymandered districts and
incumbent Eshoo spending $1 M (v to win last year we can see how things
are very far from working as they were originally designed to.

Speaking of dislodging an incumbent congressperson... Gerry asked at the
North Valley Local meeting Thursday night (Dana hosted and served a lovely
meal btw!) whether we could recall Eshoo.  I pointed out that the U.S.
Constitution doesn't have provision for it but of course we could start a
petition anyway.  The counter point (as plays out in this article below)
is that some states have recall provisions which could be used and then it
would come down to a long, bitter series of court cases.  Still engaging
in the struggle could be very worthwhile for the shift in the popularity
of the congress person it could bring. Its a guerrilla politics tactic.


Green is Persistence!

Drew

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Y0tfA7WfIxQJ:www.wilx.com/home/headlines/9015462.html+%22recalling+a+member+of+congress%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Walberg Recall Effort Gets Green Light
Posted: 4:14 PM Aug 7, 2007
Last Updated: 4:14 PM Aug 7, 2007
Reporter: Associated Press

A Jackson resident has gotten approval to begin a recall campaign against
U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, but Walberg's campaign attorney says the Republican
congressman may challenge the recall in court.

James Carr has 90 days to collect at least 50,000 signatures to hold a
special election against the freshman lawmaker, whose 7th District
stretches from Adrian in Lenawee County west and north to Battle Creek.

On Monday, the Lenawee County Elections Commission approved the wording of
a recall campaign against Walberg, of Tipton.

Walberg attorney Eric Doster said recalling a member of Congress violates
the U.S. Constitution, which has no provision for recalling presidents or
U.S. senators or representatives.

But state Elections Division director Chris Thomas said Tuesday that state
law allows for such recalls.

"Our law says you can, and no one has issued an opinion saying that you
can't," he told The Associated Press. Thomas said he could not remember
any previous recall efforts against a member of Congress being filed with
his office.

Carr, 77, said his recall takes aim at Walberg's support of the Iraq war.

"How can you fight a war and spend billions of dollars and not pay for
it?" Carr said of the mounting war debt being passed on to future
generations. "That's one thing my conservative father taught me: You pay
your bills."

Doster told the Jackson Citizen Patriot for a story Tuesday that Walberg
may file suit in the next week or so in state or federal court to
challenge Carr's efforts.

Carr's recall effort will require valid signatures from 25 percent of the
2006 gubernatorial voters in the 7th District, which includes all or part
of Lenawee, Branch, Eaton, Calhoun, Hillsdale and Washtenaw counties. He
said that petitions were to be printed and ready for distribution Tuesday.

If Carr can get the signatures and the state Elections Division approves
the petitions, a special recall election against Walberg would be held in
either February or May.


-- 

JamBoi
http://www.greencommons.org/blog/63
"Peaceable: the ability to interact peacefully.  A skill set similar to
social or emotional intelligence that is unfortunately rare in America,
but can be developed by all.  The Green Parties need to lead the way in
Peaceableness."