Why No Corporate Donors?

Our campaign is voluntarily refusing contributions from any corporate or corporate-affiliated PAC, but why?

The answer is this. When vast unregulated sums of money are permitted to flow freely throughout our political system, we no longer have a government of the people. “No taxation without representation!” was a foundational belief when the United States was founded, and the genius of our national experiment has been the steady progress we’ve made over more than two centuries to ensure that all Americans have a government which truly represents them. But since the 1970s, a series of judicial rulings have brought us back to the foundational fight - we have laws passed without the people having true representation in what is supposed to be their government.

It is clear the major flaw in our political system is it allows those with the most money to buy the most influence with our elected representatives, preventing us from having a true democracy. This legalized bribery keeps our representatives from doing their job - representing the people. Is it any surprise that our country has such high rates of voter apathy given this situation? People aren't stupid - they know that those with the most money to donate to our representatives have the most say in our current system.

Our campaign is refusing donations from any corporate or corporate-affiliated PAC in our race for Assembly District 20 because corporate donations are inherently corrupt.

Long-term, my hope is to get the Democratic Party to break its addiction to Big Money so that it can actually enact an agenda that will fight the economic and social inequality in our society. I think an effective way to do this is for candidates across the country to run "practice what you preach" campaigns where they commit to refusing Big Money so they can truly represent their constituents.

In sum, the answer to "Why No Corporate Donors?" is because I want to be able to maintain my independent judgment if I am elected to represent the people of Assembly District 20, because I want to show other candidates it's possible to win without participating in a corrupt game, and to maintain my personal dignity by knowing I will not be bought and sold.  We can have an honest political system if we vote for candidates that will show through their actions they will represent the people and not Big Money donors.