Our House Independent Caucus

Date: 2/2/2015

By: Bob M

Yesterday I received an e-mail that my "donation" was processed and the first official payment to NationBuilder was completed.  In our first month, registering the site domain was a learning experience as well.  So now we have a foundation on which to build what I hope to be is a movement of democracy in every part of this great country.  

As in any custom design house, plans change.  So I hope by the time this is ready to share with others, that there will be value and if I can inspire 1 voter to decide to vote it will be worth it.

When this started, I was angry and frustrated.  That was 2009.  And for the next years, I watched what other organizations were doing beyond the major political parties.  

Initially, I supported MoveOn.Org until they decided to support the ACA in it's final passage.  They won me back when they offered "Rebuild the American Dream" project and the 10 agenda items.  But what happened?  Nothing, I thought I was becoming part of something larger, something that was going to put the people back in charge of the House by passing the agenda we wanted.  Within 2 months, MoveOn.org and Rebuild the Dream had parted ways or one of them lost interest.  MoveOn then went on to focus on a different topic and when I had signed up as volunteer council staff I ran into a wall.  I had another volunteer organizer that was supposed to give me marching orders and ended up with me stepping away.  We in the local ground team wanted to establish ourselves.  We had T-shirts printed, we were hosting monthly meetings and tried to hold complimentary actions on weekends since most actions were during the week and business day.  We weren't allowed to use their website and they expected me to do things I wasn't comfortable doing, such as calling people I don't know after 8 p.m. (my husband gets up at 4 a.m. and is usually in bed by 8:30) and further, the mission I was now on was not the American Dream that I was promised.   I still get e-mails from both organizations.  Please don't get me wrong, it just wasn't what I needed or wanted at the time.  What I got out of it was priceless.  I met wonderful people that have worked hard at keeping me connected.  I hope to revive the American Dream and get those 10 points back out and plant those seeds again to see what can happen if we make our voices heard.

In 2010, I was disgusted, frustrated and angry.  I would have been a non-voter had it not been for my friends Tom & Jeremy, that we happened to be hosting at my house for an unrelated work event, who really hounded me to vote.  Jeremy who was traveling, voted early.  Tom drove over from Chicago and voted before he came over, "I Voted" sticker still on his coat.  As far as I was concerned, a Blue-Dog Democrat that was just going to vote with the GOP wasn't worth rushing to the polls for and the one thing that haunted me after 2008 election was how many things I voted for that I had no idea who I just elected.  I was uninformed filling in boxes based on the party affiliations and when there wasn't any, I went for names, usually in the middle if it's alphabetical because we are screwed whether people start at the A or Z and work backwards, or I pick what I presume to be female or minority names.  I don't mean to be racial but there are studies that Jose is treated much differently when he goes by Joe, I vote for Jose if I can as an example but Judy, Bette & Barbra definitely.   I hate that feeling.  I wonder how many positions we should re-examine to see if they should be publicly elected instead of appointed or honestly phased out or merged.    Especially when you add the costs of campaigning, it would actually be better for the people to pay $1000 for a lottery ticket and the winner gets the seat.  The City can keep the money, or it may even be enough to pay part of the salary.  It makes as much sense as sending a bunch of people into the polls that have no idea who they intend to cast their vote for or what the position is elected to do.

So we leap into 2012, I was furious, disgusted, frustrated and angry and I have to admit, I didn't vote.  Romney was a car salesman and honestly, I had trouble recognizing his moral compass, regardless of his religious proclamations.  Obama, in my opinion, has done more damage to the Democratic Party and progressive movement as whole than any conservative or Republican operative could have hoped.   I did however, support and volunteer for our local US House District, Wanda Rohl.  She was able to get close to 40% of the vote but the district was gerrymandered to favor the GOP incumbent.  I also have to admit, I was praying it wasn't going to be close so I wouldn't have to explain why I could work for a candidate and not show up to vote.  It was my other options that I didn't like, that one wasn't enough.

In 2014, I worked as a volunteer campaign coordinator of sorts for the Democratic Candidate in my district, Randall Olsen.  Many of the structures that are laid out in this website were formed as a strategy to assist in running a grassroots campaign with virtually no money and in exchange for volunteer support, the candidate would seek their council.  With lower voter turnout than in 2012, Randall was able to secure close to 30% of the vote and I did vote and because of my involvement, my sister and husband also went to the polls.  My negativity against the parties had won them over and I was on the wrong side and this showed me that it was my choice, win or lose, this is my democracy, our democracy.  Is it wanted anymore?  Is it worth saving?

We still have Represent.US and Larry Lessig and his legal dream-team crafts the American Anti-Corruption Act and set out a path to educate (and warn) the American Public of the corruption that money in politics has caused and a set of laws that will help to subside the influence of money and bring transparency to political campaigns.  MoveToAmend and Wolf-Pac enter to champion a constitutional Amendment at the state level.  So why not just continue through the existing organizations?

I fully support and will continue to support Represent.US, Wolf-Pac.com and MoveToAmend.org, however, I want more.  For us, Illinois was the 3rd state to call for a constitutional Article V Convention.  So, locally, until the convention as been called by enough states, we can help other states from a far by donations and volunteer calls but there really isn't much I can really help with that right now.  As far as Represent.US, their primary initiatives are focused at passing non-binding resolutions at the state levels to bring attention to the citizens, political parties and elected representatives to the AACA.  I help where I can by printing extra flyers for promoting events or record or edit some video to send to be combined with a national message or just post locally on their YouTube channel.  

The Occupy Movement was different.  I was never formally related to the occupy movement locally or nationally.  Democracy Now, The Young Turks, Chris Hayes & Rachel Maddow helped to show a spotlight. They taught us democracy is hard work.  They taught us how to work beyond the structure and system.  No megaphones allowed, we now have the people's megaphone, the gift from Occupy.  When we speak in harmony, our voices can be heard by everyone.   No leader, we have a vote for that and gave birth to Example, our leader.  I have no right to claim this website as "occupythehouse" where we will try to nominate independent citizens that are there simply to be a voice, a people's megaphone, for their district.

So now I think we are caught up.  I was a member of the Democratic Party until 2010, however still support them as a lesser-of-two-evils scenario.  I actually look for Libertarian, Green and Independents over Democrats in 2014, however, those options were few and far between.  In 3 of my ballots, the incumbent was unchallenged completely.  I talked to my friend Lynne in Kansas, jealous that she had 2 different State seats with independents and she wasn't voting.  Top answer was lack of trust, didn't trust them to honor their promises and the next was insecurity in lack of knowledge of the other candidates.

So, I had this grass-roots plan for a volunteer self-driven canvassing campaign.  A year ago, some friends and I had tried to start a local site where we were trying to locate information on a state and local level because of the lack of information generally available.  And finally, my husband and sister won me over on a "no" or "none of the above" compromise.

The Our House Independent Caucus was created on January 18, 2015 to serve as a platform to connect citizens with their government by finding public information about the census, voters and elections.  Furthering the information by creating a resource library of website links and other resources to help connect them to independent sources of information without opinion.  The icing on the cake will be the potential voter services that will be launched in the final phase, the voter scorecard which will give the voter a comparison of the bill surveys taken by the voter and how the rep voted showing them the % of Representation by taking the total times they and the rep agreed divided by the total bills scored by the voter.  Copies of precinct ballot with websites & Wikipedia links to the candidates and finally a "cheat sheet" that they can take with them to the polls so they know for whom they wanted to cast a vote.  So whether we can run candidates or not, our real mission is to reclaim our democracy for the people by helping reconnect us with our responsibilities as citizens in an easy to access platform to be better informed as we head to the polls.

Next come the obstacles - you can't's.  You can't run an independent because _______.  You can't win because ______.  So, I decided to play a different game.  It's the people's choice.  This game is the counting game - If you want an independent candidate on the ballot let us know and we'll ask you for your signature when we find one, because that's what it's going to take and count how many signatures you can get as a base.  Do you want to pick that candidate?  Here's how.  Count how many voters that have checked out because they won't vote for the parties and have no connection to the candidates.  Our next game - how many ways can you win?  Sure the district is gerrymandered partisan, however that is registered voters, we are talking to those that are not.  We are also giving those party loyal the chance to take down an incumbent for an easier challenge next election.  If you look at non-voters, votes not cast and votes cast against incumbent, the "win" starts looking a lot more real.  The last game is 3-D Campaigning - the U.S. House Districts overlap with State Senate and House districts.  We are launching a coordinated campaign at the federal and state level in our own districts.  We may not get enough "counts" at the federal level but we may be able to challenge state level candidates.  Since the parties gerrymandered themselves, the opposing party conceded the ground game in all of those overlap areas.  The incumbents are also weak because they rarely have to exercise their political muscles at home because they are guaranteed a spot as long as more than 50% of the party in your district doesn't toss you out, like we recently witnessed to Eric Cantor.  

The problem as I've come to see it is that when we limit ourselves to fighting within the gerrymander structure, we simply reinforce it's strength.  If the local party can unseat the incumbent, it simply means that more than 50% of the 70%, which is about 30% - 35% of the voters deciding who the next representative will be at the primary.  That isn't even the final election which means, that 30% is more like 15% or 20% because primary elections are generally only party loyal.  So if our representatives goal is to keep 25% of the district.  In most cases, the incumbent will cater to the base enough to fend off the challenger, then proceed to do the will of their party or their corporate benefactors.  So I encourage the party loyal to challenge their party for it's soul.  Meanwhile, the other 70% don't care too much for your agenda.  That gives me hope.

I hope that you vote - our democracy is worth saving.

Sincerely,

Bob Myers-Baltes

Caucus Creator/Founder

Initial Draft Started: Bob M on 2/2/2015

Updated: Bob M on 2/3/2015