I‘m honored to serve as your independent voice.
This very responsibility is what our Founders envisioned: Citizen legislators, chosen from their peers to work on their behalf; to serve honorably, with a focus on solutions; and return home to live under the laws they’ve passed, making way for a new generation of leadership with new ideas and a fresh perspective.
Unfortunately, we as a nation have strayed from that vision. Today, too many Americans feel left out. They see a system that does more to preserve the status quo than it does solving our most pressing challenges. They see a class of career politicians and elite insiders.
I wish I could tell you, my constituents, this problem is exaggerated; that this mess in Washington doesn’t affect you, or your families, or your businesses. But, as a former anti-corruption FBI special agent, I’ve seen the brokenness in our system and I know the real-life impact that it has: soft and hard corruption that tilts the legislative agenda towards special interests; electoral complacency that causes lawmakers to focus on accumulating power rather than serving constituents; and entrenched partisanship that grinds the gears of government to a halt.
This does not have to be our fate. The 115th Congress can be remembered as the one that buried party labels for good, and focused on fixing the system.
That’s why on my first day in office introduced a government reform package comprised of:
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A Constitutional Amendment (H.J.Res. 7) enacting term limits for all members of Congress;
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A Constitutional Amendment (H.J.res. 9) preventing members of Congress from being paid unless a budget is passed. This is not just withholding pay for a little while, this is complete forfeiture;
- A Balanced Budget amendment (H.J.Res. 8) so we are forced to stop kicking the can down the road, and will create a fiscal path that will allow the next generation to thrive;
- And a bill I call the Citizen Legislature Anti-Corruption Reform [CLEAN] Act (H.R. 145) that includes language to:
- End Congressional “pensions for life” and directs members toward standard 401K retirement savings accounts
- Requires this body to debate and act on single-issue legislation
- Codifies that all laws passed by Congress apply to its members
- Reforms the broken “Gerrymandering” process by moving all redistricting to independent, non-partisan citizen commissions, and
- Expands access to political party primaries to include both Independents and non-affiliated voters
Washington needs fewer politicians and more independent voices focused on serving the American people. The time is now to answer their call to fix this system, so we can then get to addressing the challenges we face as a nation.