League Of Women Voters -
Original Questionnaire Responses to their
Vote 411 non-partisan voter guide.
https://onyourballot.vote411.org/candidate-detail.do?id=23163799
What experience do you bring to the job to set policy for our country and what is your motivation to serve the people of Georgia?
I have worked in the computer field and have 20 years experience in computer programming / analysis and consulting. I served as an appointee to the Florida Chapter (state board) of Sierra Club for 4 years, served on the board of the Sierra Club's Miami Group for 8 years, and volunteered for years to save Biscayne National Park from a threatened commercial airport development, a successful grassroots campaign. I also served as a board member of the DeKalb League of Women Voters, and, occasionally, assisted Sally Fitzgerald at State Election Board meetings and LWV members on legislative affairs at the Gold Dome*.
Since 2004, based on my computer background, I felt compelled to investigate the subject of Computerized Voting. With other citizens, I co-founded Defenders of Democracy, a grassroots citizen’s group. Defenders of Democracy's mission is to defend integrity and accountability in elections, and address the ethical issues with computerized voting, and promote auditable elections based on hand-marked paper ballots.
My work has on election reform has included working with legislators, election directors, Secretaries of State, computer science professors and computer security experts, and has included writing and advocacy of legislation, including testifying before numerous committees.
Many Americans believe that campaign finance reform is essential to a healthy democracy. As a member of the Senate, what is your position on the issue?
I agree with President Jimmy Carter's response to the Citizens United decision, when Carter stated America is “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery”. To remedy this disastrous decision, we need to amend the constitution, and I have been supporting the group Move to Amend's work towards this necessary goal.
I will introduce a Senate companion bill to U.S. HR 48, which could be summarized as “Money is Not Free Speech, and Corporations Do Not Have Human Rights”.
I also support ending the current campaign finance system entirely to remove the toxic influence of elites and billionaires on our democracy. Americans will be better served by taxpayer funded elections and a “free and equal airtime” legislative mandate to be enforced by the FCC.
With the elimination of the protections of the Voting Rights Act, specifically federal oversight of changes in voting laws, what should Congress do to ensure equality in voting rights for all Americans?
The VRA provisions struck down by the Supreme Court were still necessary, despite the election of an African-American president. I support legislation to restore similar provisions to those struck down, or amend our constitution, to ensure no one is deprived of their right to vote.
I also support:
Issuing tax discount coupons for each election you participate in.
Automatic, permanent voter registration and restoring felon and incarcerated persons' voting rights.
What, if anything, needs to be done to fix our immigration system? How should Congress address the estimated 10.5 - 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in our nation?
President Ronald Reagan offered a conditional amnesty to undocumented immigrants during his administration. This program was a decent solution to a troubling problem. I would author legislation for a similar program.
The human rights of immigrants needs to be recognized and respected. Most Americans are descendants of immigrants or slaves, and the anti-immigrant hysteria in some circles is dangerous, dehumanizing, and unfortunately, a re-run of historical immigrant demonization. Most Americans are moral people who recognize the humanity and human rights of people from different cultures, and are not falling for this tired "divide and conquer" tactic.
One particularly troubling aspect of the immigration debate is how the Trump administration has completely broken the already debilitated amnesty programs for those fleeing abusive regimes. I will hold hearings into the illegal tactics deployed by ICE officials to subvert amnesty programs for refugees fleeing state-sponsored violence. Such officials have violated existing laws and should be charged accordingly.
The U.S. Senate has the unique task of confirming presidential appointments to the judicial branch and various agencies. Do you believe the confirmation process is effective? Please explain why or why not. If not, what changes would you recommend to improve it. If yes, please share your ideal process for vetting appointments.
Majority Leader McConnell has subjectively applied Senate rules as he sees fit towards meeting his partisan goals in the confirmation process, particularly during the Trump administration, but McConnell's decision to not hold hearings for Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland should have resulted in McConnell's impeachment for an anti-constitutional abuse of power.
But the Senate's appointment vetting process was previously entirely, deliberately, broken when Barack Obama nominated telecom industry puppet Ajit Pai to chair the FCC in 2012, upon McConnell's recommendation. Worse yet, the Senate voted unanimously for Pai's confirmation, a vote which I would have opposed.
The Pai appointment is just one of many examples of deliberate regulatory capture of the agencies charged with protecting American's health, welfare and pocketbooks from the abuses of various industries. Regulatory capture, cronyism, and now nepotism are amongst the greatest pre-2020 problems this country has ever faced. And cronyism and nepotism has weakened our country's ability to respond to crisis such as Jared Kushner's non-response to COVID-19.
As Senator, I would evaluate appointees to regulatory agencies as to their record of being successful adversaries of the industries they would regulate, and advocates for the average working American.
What lessons in emergency response planning have you learned from the COVID-19 pandemic?
Instead of governing by slogans, cronyism, and subversion of regulatory controls by regulatory capture, Americans need science-based, logistics-enabled emergency responses, informed by human needs and human rights.
The politicization of the COVID-19 threat demonstrates how politicizing science-based facts can lead to catastrophic results.
The COVID death toll (10/04) of 209,000 Americans is 70 times that of 9/11's 2,974 victims.
Seventy-fold that of 9/11, an event that itself was politicized, with ill effect.
We must end the politicization of science, to save Georgia and the world.
I am the nominee of the Georgia Green Party, and we have crafted a science and humanitarian-based response to the COVID crisis, our Pandemic Platform, at http://www.FortuinForGeorgia.com/pandemic
Our Pandemic Platform addresses not only the COVID crisis but the current wave of disasters where climate change is a factor, such as California's drought and wildfires.
When you ignore science, science always wins. Our party is committed to Georgians, Americans, and humankind winning, by working with science facts and transforming America with the unity demonstrated by the greatest generation in World War II. We can live in harmony with each other and nature, in a country unified by both science facts and a love for humankind.
* The marked sentence was edited by the Georgia League of Women Voters to remove references to their organization in their official publication of my answers, to avoid ethical issues such as implying endorsement or favoritism to my candidacy.