John Bonifaz to announce candidacy Massachusetts Sec. of the Commonwealth

[paineinthearse]

This post in GDP - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2218010&mesg_id=2218010 - received all of one reply (and that being "I am committed to Cam Kerry"), and one fewer in the Massachusetts forum, so let's try this forum.

Received by email.

John Bonifaz, co-founder of co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org will soon announce his candidacy for Massachusetts SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH.

His primary opponent is expected to be Cam Kerry, as well as the incumbent, Bill Galvin, if he chooses not to move on to run for governor.

My Friends,

If ever there was a time that our country needed elected leaders with vision, guts and integrity...it is NOW.

John Bonifaz of the National Voting Rights Institute (& After Downing Street.org) will soon announce his campaign for Secretary of State of Massachusetts. He WILL clean up the elections in Mass., he WILL institute the Voters Bill of Rights, he WILL set an example for the rest of the country.

This is not just about Massachusetts, this is about turning the tide and getting OUR HEROES into office, where ever they may be. (I personally think he should be President, but first things first.)

If you are not familiar with the work of John Bonifaz, I URGE you to check out his site: www.johnbonifaz.com . Listen to his testimony in the Conyers Forums on C-Span: www.johnbonifaz.com/about

Go to his site and sign on your support. Bonifaz needs to know that the anti-war, anti-corporatist, election reform grassroots ALL OVER THE COUNTRY will be backing him on this venture. Tell him GO FOR IT.
www.johnbonifaz.com .

Thank you for giving a damn. PLEASE FORWARD to all your progressive friends. POST THIS APPEAL EVERYWHERE.

Onward,
Sheri Myers

p.s. No, I'm not working for Bonifaz. I'm a Voting Rights activist who has seen John on the front lines in Ohio and DC.

SOME INFO:
In 1994, John founded the National Voting Rights Institute, a prominent legal and public education center committed to preserving the right of all citizens to vote and to participate in the electoral process on an equal and meaningful basis. Since founding NVRI, John has been at the forefront of many of the key voting rights struggles facing the nation today. Some highlights of his work at NVRI include:
• Leading the fight in the courts for presidential candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb in their demand for a full recount in Ohio of all of the votes cast for President in the 2004 general election.
• Defending the Massachusetts Clean Elections Law, which was passed overwhelmingly by the voters of the Commonwealth in 1998. John led the effort to challenge the Massachusetts legislature's refusal to fund the law and NVRI won a landmark ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, forcing the state to provide the necessary funds to all qualified candidates running in the 2002 state elections.
• Working to overhaul the nation's campaign finance system by defending mandatory campaign spending limits, public financing of elections, and other important campaign reforms. John and NVRI are pressing for a US Supreme Court review of a 1976 ruling which equated money with speech and sanctioned today's system of unlimited campaign spending, and John has led a challenge to today's exclusionary system on voting rights grounds, linking the movement for change in the way we finance our elections to earlier civil rights struggles.
In 1999, in recognition of his pathbreaking work with the National Voting Rights Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded John with a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, otherwise known as the "genius" award.

John was recently featured in an article on truthout.org entitled Running on the Right to Vote, by William Rivers Pitt.

John has also been at the forefront of opposing the Bush administration's war in Iraq. In February and March 2003, John served as the plaintiffs' lead counsel in John Doe I v. President Bush, a constitutional challenge to President George W. Bush's authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. John represented a coalition of US soldiers, parents of US soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) arguing that the president's planned first-strike invasion of Iraq violated the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution.

John is the author of: Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., January 2004), on the illegality of the Iraq war. The book presents an accounting of the John Doe I v. President Bush case and its meaning for the United States Constitution. He has also written numerous articles on the war and on the fight for democracy here at home which have appeared in publications such as The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, TomPaine.com, The Columbia Law Review, and The Yale Law & Policy Review.

John is also a co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, a national coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and public interest organizations seeking a formal congressional investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The coalition, launched in May 2005, focuses on the new and compelling evidence revealed by the release of the Downing Street Minutes, showing that the President may have engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for sending the nation to war.

More Information and How to Get Involved:
http://www.AfterDowningStreet.org/whig

http://www.johnbonifaz.com /

Welcome to the website of our campaign. I am preparing to run for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2006. I will formally announce this candidacy if the current incumbent, Secretary William F. Galvin, decides to vacate the seat to run for governor. I hope you will join me in this campaign to make Massachusetts a model for free and fair elections for the nation.

As Secretary, I will press for a new bill of rights — a Voters' Bill of Rights. A new set of guarantees that will make our democracy in Massachusetts stronger and provide an example to the country. I will be a secretary of state who fights to uphold this nation's promise of political equality for all.

I will press for greater corporate accountability. If a corporation is principally based in Massachusetts, it ought to be accountable to the workers and people of our Commonwealth. The Secretary of the Commonwealth has important oversight responsibilities with respect to Massachusetts corporations, and, as Secretary, I will fight for your interests.

Further, this campaign will address another critical issue facing our Commonwealth: The war in Iraq. The question of how we go to war is a fundamental question of democracy. As a candidate for Secretary of the Commonwealth, I will support the Massachusetts ballot initiative campaign aimed at bringing our Massachusetts National Guard troops home from Iraq. We must fight to end this illegal and unconstitutional war and bring our troops home now.

This will be a grassroots, outsider campaign. It will not be dominated by big money interests and wealthy contributors. It will be a campaign for all of us — for our hopes, our dreams, our vision for democracy.

I hope you will show your support today for this campaign during this crucial exploratory phase. Join me in this movement to make democracy real for all of us.

Voters' Bill of Rights

1. Count every vote
The right to vote includes the right to have our votes properly counted.
We must ensure that every citizen's vote will be counted. This includes a guarantee of open and transparent elections with verified voting, paper trails, and access to the source codes for, and random audits of, electronic voting machines. It also includes a guarantee that we the people, through our government, will control our voting machines — not private companies.

2. Make voting easier
We should enact election day registration here in Massachusetts, removing the barrier of registration prior to Election Day. Six states have election day registration. They have a higher voter turnout in their elections and have no evidence of voter fraud. We should be encouraging greater participation in the political process, starting with election day registration.
We should also ensure absentee voting for all, allow for early voting, and remove other barriers that make it difficult for people to vote.

3. End the big money dominance of our electoral process
In a democracy, public elections should be publicly financed. In Maine and Arizona, publicly financed elections has enabled people to run for office who would never have dreamed of running under a system dominated by big money interests. We, as voters, need to own our elections, rather than allow the process to be controlled by the wealthy few.
We also need to enact mandatory limits on campaign spending. In 1976, the Supreme Court wrongly struck down mandatory campaign spending limits for congressional elections. A federal appeals court in New York has recently revisited that decision and ruled that campaign spending limits in Vermont can be constitutional. That case is now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Massachusetts should help lead the way with campaign spending limits for our elections.

4. Expand voter choice
Instant run-off voting: Voters should be able to rank their choices of candidates, ensuring majority support for those elected and allowing greater voter choice and wider voter participation.
Cross Endorsement Voting (Fusion voting): Voters should be able to cast their ballots for major party candidates on a minor party's ballot line, placing power in the hands of the people and broadening public debate on the issues of the day.
Proportional Representation: Voters should be allowed their fair share of representation, ensuring that majority rule does not prevent minority voices from being heard.

5. Ensure access for new citizens and language minorities
The right to vote does not speak one specific language. It is universal. No one should be denied the right to vote because of a language barrier.

6. Level the playing field for challengers
Redistricting reform — Incumbent legislators should not have the power to draw their own district lines. We must transfer this power to independent non-partisan commissions and create fair standards for redistricting, thereby promoting competition in our electoral process and improving representation for the people.

7. Ensure non-partisan election administration
The Secretary of the Commonwealth must be a Secretary for all of us, regardless of party affiliation. The Secretary should not be allowed to serve as a co-chair of campaigns of candidates. To ensuring the people's trust in the integrity of our elections, the Secretary must conduct the administration of elections in a non-partisan manner.

8. Make government more accessible to all of us
Democracy is not just about our participation on Election Day. We need to participate every day and our government needs to be accessible to us every day. This means a government that is open and transparent, that encourages people to make their voices heard, and that enlists citizen participation in addressing the major issues of our time.

9. Re-authorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965
We must continue the fight to protect the right to vote and to end voting disenfranchisement schemes. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for congressional re-authorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

10. Amend the US Constitution to ensure an affirmative right to vote
One hundred and eight democratic nations in the world have explicit language guaranteeing the right to vote in their constitutions, and the United States — along with only ten other such nations — does not. As a result, the way we administer elections in this country changes from state to state, from county to county, from locality to locality. The Secretary of the Commonwealth must fight for a constitutional amendment that affirmatively guarantees the right to vote in the US Constitution.

http://www.johnbonifaz.com/votersbillofrights

[WarNoMore]

1. I'm on board.

I have tons of admiration for him.