Congress is Broken and We Need a Change

Sunday afternoon I attended a “Meet the Candidate” party at the Links at Summerly in Lake Elsinore.  At the gathering, Tim Sheridan, a labor attorney from Sun City, introduced himself to a room full of his neighbors in the 42nd Congressional District.  Mr. Sheridan is challenging Ken Calvert for the District’s Congressional seat.

Not only was I very impressed with the candidate’s positions on the issues but I came away with the feeling that, unlike Ken Calvert, Mr.  Sheridan will represent the people of our district not the special interests.  I believe he will vote for what is good for the people and fulfill his campaign promise of “People First”.

Mr. Sheridan listed the points of his platform.

·        He will fight for good paying jobs.

·        He will look to pass legislation to fix our crumbling infrastructure.  This alone will put many Americans back to work.

·        He will vote for green technology projects.  When President Kennedy promised we could achieve a moon landing, we took the challenge and succeeded.  We can do the same thing with green energy and make this country independent of foreign oil.

·        He will promote sensible immigration reform with a reasonable path to citizenship.

·        He will increase support for the military and their families as they return home from serving our country.

·        He will protect the rights of women to make their own health care decisions.

·        He will restore the Voting Rights Act because, in a Democratic America, the right to vote should be guaranteed to all.

Mr. Calvert has held office for 20 years, yet it appears that few of his constituents are even aware that he is their representative.  That may be because he has little legislation to recommend him and because he is invisible to us.  To those of you who have not noticed, however, Mr. Calvert, along with House Republicans and two Democrats, approved a spending plan early Sunday morning that would delay Obamacare for a year.  Republicans are insisting on linking continued funding of the government or raising the debt ceiling to repealing, delaying, or modifying Obamacare.  Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, has been approved by all three branches of government- Congress, the President and the Supreme Court.  Its purpose is to offer quality, affordable health care to the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.  Trying to blackmail the Democrats so that they can prevent the law from being enacted is irresponsible.  They have already voted over 40 times to repeal the law, knowing that such a bill would never be approved by the Senate or the President.  Each vote costs our country thousands of dollars; shutting down the government and then restarting it would also cost the taxpayers dearly (in 1995 the cost was estimated at $1.4 billion).  A shutdown would be detrimental to our struggling economic recovery and cause a scare to the markets.  Normal operations for many government agencies would be slowed, thus inconveniencing many of us.  Failure to pass a spending bill and the subsequent closing down of the government will be on the backs of House Republicans. 

President Obama, fed up by the threats from the Tea Party Republicans,  addressed the nation Monday afternoon from the White House. In his words, “you don't get to extract a ransom for doing your job... or just because there's a law there that you don't like.”

Our Congress is broken!  Majority Leader John Boehner is not a leader and has lost control of his fellow representatives.  We need to send a message to Congress that we are watching them and that they have failed us. 

Mr. Sheridan believes that Californians of all political persuasions will see the obstructionism for what it is and will, by their votes, let Congress feel their displeasure.  He challenges Rep. Calvert to debate him so that all voters in the district can see their different ideologies and make an educated choice.