What can we do together in the next four years?
That's a tough question because DC's District Council has thirteen members, of which I'll be just one. Most of what the Council does is setting budget priorities, passing DC's budgets, confirming or rejecting mayoral appointments, and holding hearings which are supposed to uncover facts and empower DC residents to publicly make their case for what local government ought to be doing, or not doing to make our communities and families viable and whole. Quite a bit of what you can do depends on what you can convince other members of DC's District Council to support you on.
Here is what will be critical: my City Councilmember's office in the Wilson Building will be an outpost in "Corporate-Occupied Territory", an organizing center for groups and individuals committed to transforming DC into a far more just community than the one we now live in. I am doing this because I believe they share my vision, my belief, which I know is the belief of tens and of hundreds of thousands of DC residents that another DC really is possible, and that together, we have it in our power to begin to create it right now.
We can move toward ending child poverty, and we can stop giveaways to wealthy corporations. I know we have the power to eliminate child poverty in the District by moving to a more progressive tax structure, ending giveaways and welfare payments to greedy and well-connected developers and corporations, and aggressively tapping into available streams of federal funding. We can found a publicly owned DC bank that will manage and use DC's public revenue for the public good.
I know we have the power to create what would be the nation's second state-owned bank, (the first is in North Dakota) with the power to leverage DC's tax and other revenues into the creation of quality, truly affordable housing. We've just seen our business elite finance a billion dollar baseball stadium for themselves, with windfall profits al around, with only a handful of jobs created for part of the year, and with all the expensive tickets being corporate-welfare tax deductions off the taxes and fines that poor people pay. A DC state or municipal bank could responsibly manage DC's public revenue stream for the public good rather than the private profit of a few elite insiders.
We can to heal our families and communities by beginning to roll back and addressing the effects of our public policy of mass imprisonment. I know that for a generation our DC communities have been devastated by a plague of over-incarceration. We've managed to lock up far too many for much too little and far too long. I know that the reality of vicious and pervasive discrimination on the part of public and private sectors in jobs, in housing and educational opportunities has been a major factor in locking much of the present and the next generation into perpetual poverty and family instability.
We can create and sustain an ongoing movement of DC residents for a fair, just and sustainable DC, and for statehood.
I know these are not small changes, they are big changes. But only big changes are appropriate to these times. Times of crisis, times of record unemployment and rising poverty are not the times to auction off the public sector to well-connected insiders. They are not the times to strangle investment in DC's youth and its human potential. They are not the times for business as usual, the usual business that got us here in the first place.
I know that big changes like these in the way we govern ourselves do not come from the minds and mouths of clever politicians. Big changes arise from pressure outside the government, relentless pressure exerted by thousands of active citizens in local and neighborhood organizations, in unions and churches and all kinds of voluntary organizations who share the vision of a more fair and just and sustainable DC. I therefore pledge to put the authority and the resources of my Wilson Building office behind the formation and maintenance of an activist coalition to press for the thoroughgoing reforms, the big changes that our times, our communities and our families demand. That's exactly how some of the big dreams of previous generations, like social security and voting rights for all became political realities, and it's the road we must travel together to create the DC we know is possible.
Ultimately, statehood for the District of Columbia is the only guarantee that our people can begin to exercise our political will, to adequately educate our children, care for our elderly and make our economy and politics serve us rather than victimize us. As an elected official and member of the DC Statehood Green Party I will be an effective and persuasive advocate of statehood on the local and national stage, and will do all that I can to advance toward the goal of statehood. I am convinced that only pushing the limits of what is possible under Home Rule by achieving a more just DC will empower the powerful movement necessary to achieve our full rights as citizens, DC Statehood. No More neo-colonial Home Rule, full sovereignty which is our historic goal.
I don't know exactly how far along this road we'll travel in the next four years, but every journey takes place a step at a time. Four years from now I expect to say that I have faithfully carried this vision, our vision of a fairer, a more just and equitable and sustainable DC to the halls of power. I expect to tell you that I have worked tirelessly with the mayor and other council members, when and wherever possible to push forward this vision, to make it real, and that I have stood fast against further giveaways to corporate insiders and privatization of public resources. Beginning now and over the next four years we can build the DC Statehood Green Party into a mass organization determined to press the political will of DC residents into political reality. While many other so-called independents are really career Democrats or Republicans whose careers and campaigns are bought and paid for by wealthy developers and other insiders whom they take good care of while in office, the DC Statehood Green Party doesn't take corporate contributions and is not in anybody's pocket.
