Wilmington, NC
April 11, 2017
Two months ago, when I launched this campaign I never anticipated that I would be so fortunate as to become the People's Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was something I considered seeking, but I figured it would almost certainly never come to pass. But the unthinkable happened and I become Speaker and not only that but we got a complete dream team running Congress.
Through the hard work of the three of us, Vice President Goldwater, President Pro-Tempore PiT, and myself as People's Speaker, we have turned Congress around. In the two months that I was President, which spanned the entire length of time that that the Fourth Congress was in office, I received TWO bills from that chamber over the course of two months. We are now at six weeks or so into the Fifth Congress and we will soon reach ten bills that have been placed on the President's desk.
In the House alone, we have passed 17 bills and failed just five. We have also processed over the course of that same period of time 27 amendments to bills. These numbers are tremendous increases over the activity levels of the Fourth and Third Congresses. I never expected that I would get the chance to be able to directly improve the administration of the House, I expected it would have to be a fight from below.
The most glaring illustration of the increased performance is that from November to mid January on the AFG board accounts for one whole page of threads. Mid January to early March constitutes another whole page, Page 3. March 5th until now, accounts for two whole pages on the board.
That is not to say that there is not room for improvement. As I have repeatedly told members of both parties, the Representatives serve the people and they are the voice of all the people in the land in Congress. To that end, I have repeatedly reiterated to all members that I am not satisfied with the level of debate and insist that all members strive to participate in every debate thread and strive to make every vote as a minimum, and going further that they offer amendments and compose legislation of their own as well.
I have demanded that all sponsors speak within the first 24 hours of bills, or otherwise will face motions to table. Of course the latter is difficult to enforce on bills sponsored for other people like the current resolution on Montenegro, I think this has improved greatly the amount of participation on many other bills where the leverage is far more prominent. I have also emphasized that number and amount of amendments is still low relative to the number of bills and that we can probably handle far more. Debate and amendments are not activities onto themselves, that contribute to the improvement of bills and ensure that problems that are missed by one set of eyes, are caught by nine sets of eyes.
I am running for reelection to the House so that we can build on what we have achieved so far and improve even further. So that we can set and enforce real expectations, and that we can have the kind of leadership that knows how to maintain sustained activity over long periods of time. It is easy for others to talk about activity, I know how to fight for it on a daily basis. Always before, it seemed we were always fighting, typically it seemed the leadership was always fighting its own inactivity, and it was losing. Now, the leadership is constantly fighting to get members more active. As I said before, we would win the first battle and keep pushing forward!
If you want to keep moving forward towards more activity, join me. I am proud to have been fighting for and leading for the people the past six weeks and I hope that I can earn your vote for another term, the weekend of April 21st-23rd.
Thanks and Dave Bless!
