Mike Barkley, Candidate for Congress

Mike Barkley for Congress Committee - FEC Candidate Committee #C00495507 / Candidate #H2CA00096

(Final redistricting maps under November 2010 Prop. 20 are at the Commission website. )

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Hello,

For those of you who voted for me in the election on June 5, 2012, a big Thank You! Unfortunately, I came in a distant fourth. Even so, I plan to run again in 2014 and know what I must do to finish in the running, I intend to resume knocking on doors approximately June 3, 2013.

This has not been about me. This is about the proposals in my platform listed below. Recent years have been grim for this country; implementing proposals like these will help.

Best wishes to all of you.

--Mike _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Lawyer/CPA (Inactive)/Computer Programmer/Rancher-Farmer
• Progressive Democrat/Moderate Environmentalist/Local Activist/U.S. Navy Veteran
• Present or previous public office: none
• BIOGRAPHY
• PHOTO
  
  
• 2012 Primary Election Voter Pamphlet CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS for all 5 candidates, 1 progressive (me) and 4 conservatives (them)

CAMPAIGN DONATIONS:

Please donate to my campaign HERE at the secure ActBlue web site. or, if you prefer by mail, please make checks payable to Mike Barkley for Congress Committee , 167 N. Sheridan Ave., Manteca, CA 95336, and include your occupation and name of employer for FEC regulations.

Thank you and best wishes. --Mike

PLATFORM:

Philosophy: identify problems, listen to people, devise legislative solutions.



• Legislative:

  • RESTORE MANUFACTURING IN THE U.S. [see also Tax below]:
    • Add insourcing requirements wherever possible to federal, state & local contracts, including for clerical and customer support functions; Grant otherwise qualified bidders using a higher overall percentage of domestic labor, parts and materials the right to "bump" low bidders with a lower percentage in all Federal, State, and Local contracts, including "no-bid" contracts. / Support Rep. Nick Rahall's ‘Invest in American Jobs Act of 2011, H.R. 3533
    • Reexamine NAFTA and the other free trade agreements that have shipped millions of jobs out of this country; reexamine other international job thieves such as Globalization, Outsourcing, Deregulation, Foreign currency manipulation, Foreign below cost selling, Foreign labor compensation and public protection differences, Adverse tariff imbalances, GATT & WTO concessions, Most-favored nation concessions, and so on and bring every one of these jobs back home; support Michael Michaud's HR 3012 (TRADE Act of 2009) from the 111th Congress
    • Support The Schumer-Stabenow-Graham Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Act of 2010 (S. 1609 - [check on this number]); reconcile this with the warnings in Rana Foroohar's 10/24/2011 column in Time
    • Subsidize USA manufacturing sufficiently to bring parity with China or India manufacturing
    • Identify strategic industries essential to the function of and defense of our society (metals, machine tools, power grid components, etc.) and for those that we have lost to outsourcing, fund their return.
    • Consider a Wilbur Ross value added tax with export rebates
    • Subsidize small-business lending (more than just the SBA)
    • Consider eliminating corporate income taxes for manufacturing plants in certain economically depressed zip codes.
    • Stop deporting foreign-born engineers after they graduate
    • Fund or share in the environmental cleanup costs of domestic rare-earth mining; heed the warnings of Stephen Leeb
    • Support environmentally-friendly domestic aquaculture
    • Extend hardwood flooring tariffs to laminate flooring and lumber in general, raise those tariffs to competitive levels
    • Set minimum standards nationwide for workers' compensation; ban inports of manufactured goods from countries that do not meet those standards
    • Consider variants of the Herman Cain and Buddy Roemer proposals to disallow corporate tax deductions for purchases from foreign countries.
    • Ascertain whether or not the IRS or any other Federal agency has outsourced any call center activity and if it has, put a stop to it
    • Impose a per-call "equalization" tax on every phone call shunted to an out-of-the-country phone support center.
    • Reject the "reliance on charity of strangers" plan for U.S. Space travel and re-fund the Space Shuttle Program until such time as a U.S. replacement is in place
  • Adopt LABOR UNION BILL OF RIGHTS for all unions, including government employee unions, nationwide:
    • Adopt right to collective bargaining
    • Adopt right to strike, picket & boycott, for any reason or location / Allow and protect secondary boycotts, secondary strikes, general srikes, and sit-down strikes
    • Adopt or strengthen "card check"/"majority sign-up" / adopt the Employee Free Choice Act (2009 H.R. 1409/S.560 )
    • Allow and protect minority unions
    • Provide that union certification votes shall succeed by a majority of those workers voting, not by a majority of workers eligible to vote
    • Set aside any requirement that there be periodic recertification votes
    • Abolish "right to work" / repeal Taft-Hartley §14(b) [ 29 USC §164(b) ] and the other union busting portions of Taft-Hartley
    • Require Project Labor Agreements where possible for all federal, state, and local contracts.
    • Allow SNAP/food stamps for striking workers and their families
    • Provide that any political campaign rights or privileges allowed corporations shall also be allowed unions ; prohibit the "paycheck protection" scheme
    • Extend full union protection to unions of independent truck drivers
  • More Labor:
    • Support the Employee Free Choice Act HR 1409/S 560 (2009)
    • Consider adopting the German system of labor bargaining rights
    • Resurrect the "Look for the Union Label" campaign as a Federal campaign; pair with an effective "Look for the Made in USA Label" campaign
    • Investigate increasing assertions of progressively inhumane working conditions at the U.S. Postal Service and impose a cure; oppose efforts to privatize the Postal Service or impair postal workers' benefits; repeal The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (HR 6407) or support HR 1351 (United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011); oppose HR 2309 (Issa-Ross Postal Reform Act)
    • Examine instances where unions have cancelled retiree health insurance and restore such benefits where appropriate.
    • Cover medical interns under the Fair Labor Standards Act and end the barbaric exploitive sleep deprivation rite of passage
    • Consider requiring that interns be compensated; require minimum wages for interns, food servers, home health workers, and prisoners the same as for all others; Support the Fair Minimum Wage Act
    • Provide for compensation without eligibility penalty of college athletes who produce college revenue
    • Consider re-regulating air, trucking, rail, energy. . .; Repeal the union busting portions of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, etc.
    • Develop air quality standards for small independent truckers that will allow them to remain in business, and preempt such standards for them nationwide, including at the nation's ports ; require foreign truckers to meet the same standards that domestic truckers have to meet; require clean indoor restrooms with running water for all port drivers and at all truck brake check areas and all regulatory scale facilities; explore other methods to assist small independent truckers
    • Sift through and adopt where appropriate the various initiatives of Senator Tom Coburn, such as consolidating the numerous redundant Federal Job Training Programs weeding out what doesn't work and strengthening what does
    • Eliminate the Social Security Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision
    • Increase the amount retirees can earn without adversely impacting their Social Security
  • Fund serious infrastructure maintenance and upgrades: highways & bridges, rail, waterways & ports, air, communications, power, electrical transmission, fuel, nuclear power plant seismic retrofits, move utilities underground, etc.
  • Support the Durbin Privatization limitation bill
  • Extend unemployment benefits for the 99-ers; impose means-testing for unemployment benefits / extablish a substantial tax credit for hiring ex convicts and those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits
  • Provide that where any agency of Federal, State, or Local government has laid off any employee, that employee shall be granted right of first refusal for any open position with the agency for which that employee may be trained at any time within the next 10 years which right shall continue until that employee is actually rehired, with the longest laid off having the highest priority.
  • Extend the New York Domestic Workers protections nationwide
  • Arrange for regular job fairs at King-Kennedy Center, West Modesto
    
    
  • Voter rights:
    • Provide that the sole criteria for voter registration and regulation of persons registering voters in the U.S. shall be by regulations set by the Federal Elections Commission
    • Outlaw the imposition of any requirement for registering to vote other than the unsupported declaration under penalty of perjury that the person registering is eligible to vote / ban the increasing state-level insistance on government-issued photo-IDs for voting, limits on student voting, and limits on same-day registration / adopt registration-friendly rules for voter registration drives
    • Define as a "poll tax" any photo-ID requirement for voting, any candidate filing fee, any candidate party endorsement application fee
    • Provide for "early voting" in all jurisdictions
    • Provide that any multi-jurisdictional campaign to interfere with the electoral franchise shall be prosecutable under RICO and related statutes, including those efforts using a sham excuse of preventing voter fraud
    • Support HR 5799 - Voter Empowerment Act of 2012, by Rep. John Lewis of Georgia to reverse ALEC Jim Crow laws
    • Support Attorney General Holder's proposal for automatic voter registration of all citizens; make voting a right to be taken away, not a privilege to be requested.
    • Consider Norm Ornstein's voter lottery as an incentive to vote
    • Support Senator Ben Cardin's Democracy Restoration Act (S. 2017), restore the right to vote for felons who have completed their debt to society
    • Restore the right of General Strike
  • Freedom of Association rights in elections (Freedom of Association is an "implied" right in the U.S. Constitution):
    • require that all levels of elections allow candidates to identify their political party
    • ban open primaries (or at least the "top two" provision of California's Prop. 14)
    • ban term limits other than those set by the U.S. Constitution
    • require that slate mailers fully disclose party affiliations
  • Enhance and extend to the states the Federal Open Meeting Laws, including for "Associations" that are constituted predominantly of legislators from other agencies or their staffs
    
    
  • Immigration :
    • Pass the Dream Act; initiate a "Private Bill Project" to accomplish the goals of the Dream Act until such time as the Dream Act is adopted.
    • Establish within ICE & USCIS a joint Office of Reuniting Families and give it the power to carry out its mission and cut through time and bureaucracy, to act within 30 days upon the petition of any U.S. citizen to protect a relative: issue at least a permanent green card to protected spouses, and ancestors, siblings, descendants, nephews & nieces, and their spouses and eliminate all citizenship application waiting periods and any requirement to return to the home country for them, including any already deported but excluding those awaiting prosecution for or convicted of a felony or accepting deportation in lieu of prosecution for a felony unless the felony is an immigration law violation.
    • Require that persons facing deportation be furnished counsel: Adopt "Deportation is a criminal penalty," to ensure full rights in prosecution.
    • Consider shortening statutes of limitation for wrongful immigration to 5 years including for re-immigration after deportation except for persons deported who have been convicted of a felony or who accepted deportation in lieu of prosecution for a felony; provide that such limitation shall apply regardless of whether or not it is asserted
    • Support the AFL-CIO Immigration Reform package: "(1) an independent commission to assess and manage future flows if [sic] immigrant workers, based on labor market shortages that are determined on the basis of actual need; (2) a secure and effective worker authorization mechanism; (3) rational operational control of the U.S. border; (4) adjustment of status for the current undocumented population; and (5) improvement, not expansion, of temporary worker visa programs, limited to temporary and seasonal, not permanent jobs." [some of this is vague and needs clearer definition]
    • Challenge the racist portions of the Safe Communities Act/Keep Our Communities Safe Act
  • Education
    • Adopt the Budget (below) and restore school funding in every state
    • Fund pre-K education for at-risk kids; fund after-school and gang avoidance programs for at-risk kids; if not already, require that compensation packages for Head Start and other pre-K programs match K-12 levels
    • Consider funding and expanding the Khan Academy concept
    • Require and fund restoration of wood and metal shop classes and life skills class components such as personal budgeting at all high schools; do the same for physical education, music, and art
    • Rebalance the systems of educational scoring or bumping to get 99-week or longer unemployed persons into the classes they need
    • Is there anything in the UMBC model that can be pushed down into lower grades?
  • Health (See also Budget, below) :
    • Add Public Option health insurance in all jurisdictions, possibly with California's State Compensation Insurance Fund as a model, or possibly one like this one, or best of all, listen to Dr. William Hsiao and adopt the Taiwan Single-Payer Health Care Model; / adopt Medicare for everyone (see BUDGET below for a fully-funded program to pay for this in a budget that balances this year with no debt-ceiling increase)
    • Consider the Camden Coalition project;
    • Restore Medicare cuts; include dental, vision, hearing and bathroom DME in Medicare coverage / restore Tricare cuts
    • Ascertain what funding cuts have been made to procedures that aid in dialysis and reverse them.
    • Adopt the 2001 McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patients' Bill of Rights, S.1052 .
    • Establish a Federal Insurance Authority to monitor and punish predatory insurance practices, including below cost marketing, merger & acquisition activity funded by aggressive claim denials especially in workers' compensation third party claims administration, and so on.
    • Adopt the Multiple Sclerosis Anti-Discrimination Social Security Act; improve Federal response and nurturing, including disability assistance programs, for wasting diseases such as Huntington's, ALS, MS, and so on
    • Extend Americans with Disabilities Act coverage to the entire Federal Government, excluding only combat, law enforcement, and Secret Service; expand OSHA to cover all government employees, excluding only combat, law enforcement, and Secret Service
    • Investigate and halt any practice of denying SNAP/food stamps to recipients of SSI, SSDI, or state or any other sort of disability compensation
    • Find out why people who work part time are not allowed SNAP/food stamps, if that is the case, and fix it.
    • Reassess food stamp/SNAP coverage for the elderly who are caring for other family members to make sure the assistance is fair and adequate.
    • Add substantial compensation for women who allow their babies to be put up for adoption rather than terminated by abortion
    • Remove barriers to stem cell research
    • Increase funding for AIDS research
    • Consider stripping pharmaceuticals and medical devices out of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act.
    • Devise and implement guidelines for nurse-practitioners to operate free clinics without physician supervision, especially in the aftermath of disasters
  • Transportation & Transportation Safety :
    • Require seatbelts on intercity buses and trains [2013, looks like Congress is doing this! Great.]
    • Subsidize Greyhound (or Amtrak) bus service to small towns
    • Require that adjacent public transit agencies (such as Stanislaus and San Joaquin) provide inter-agency transfer points with syncronized schedules
    • Require collision avoidance and speed control systems on all motor vehicles by 2020
    • Urge GM to return to Manteca
    • Require a beltway plan for all cities over 50,000 population
    • Link I-205/I-580 to I-505
  • Energy (See also Budget, below) :
    • Require energy independence by 2016 / fund clean coal research (and environmentally friendly extraction methods) and devise tariff barriers and improvements to efficient use sufficiently to achieve such independence
    • Ban exporting raw fossil fuels and certain specified end products of their refinement, with no exemption for free trade zones.
    • Prove that ethanol produces a net gain in usable energy or phase out ethanol subsidies
    • Phase in cap & trade
    • Reexamine the wisdom in using nuclear reactor fuel rods with zirconium that generates hydrogen during cooling problems (think Hindenberg with radioactivity? in EVERY plant?)
  • Consumer Financial Protection :
    • Examine restoring the portion of the Glass-Steagall Act repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 and reversing the other relaxations of it (Support HR 1489?).
    • Repeal the portion of the 2012 JOBS Act (HR 3606) that reduces financial protections for the public
    • Restore the Wall Street speculation fee; include credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures; examine FASB rules for credit default swaps, consult William K. Black
    • Put ALL derivatives on an exchange with transaction taxes and transparency
    • For financial firms in bankruptcy or receiving bailouts or being merged or sold or liquidated under government supervision, provide a 10-year claw-back of management salaries, bonuses, severance, settlements, or other fees, and consultant, legal, accounting, and rating-agency fees
    • Fully fund SEC, CFTC, CFPB, etc.
    • Strengthen Dodd-Frank; modify Dodd-Frank to treat mortgage brokers and banks equally rather than running those brokers who behaved properly out of business to punish those who did not behave properly
    • Slowly increase banking reserve requirements
    • Strengthen the Stock Act
    • Investigate and regulate Fair Isaacs (FICO)
    • Bring foreclosures to a dead stop:
      • Add full power to impose modification of mortgages on a primary residence to the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction ; support the 2009 Dick Durbin Amendment to allow use of Bankruptcy to protect consumers in foreclosure
      • Phase in allowing REO rentals; expand the FHFA "deed for lease" program and implement a lease-to-own program
      • Allow, encourage, require all foreclosing lenders to negotiate a post-foreclosure continuing tenancy agreement for homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure.
      • Allow, encourage, require foreclosing lenders to extend to persons losing their home in foreclosure first right of refusal on any subsequent sale of that home
      • Develop and fund an FHA-like program for home purchases by persons who have suffered foreclosures or short sales because of failures to bargain in good faith by lenders such as Bank of America
      • Exclude home mortgage foreclosures from FICO scores, credit reports, and mortgage aps
      • Figure out how to require that persons refinancing a home be offered the same sort of advantageous interest rates as persons purchasing a home, and then implement it; require such refinancing be allowed even if "under water" or insufficient equity
      • Ease home mortgage criteria at the bottom of cycles, tighten them at the top (instead of backwards like we are doing now which has seriously damaged the housing market).
      • For cities with both an established developer community and abandoned buildings, encourage (subsidize?) the creation of a private cooperative by that community to receive referrals of problem buildings by the city and then acquire, rehabilitate, and sell those buildings, hopefully at a profit for the cooperative.
    • Get serious about curing homelessness.
    • Investigate whether or not USDA Rural Housing Centralized Servicing Center is properly handling requests for financial assistance on mortgages owed by persons in financial distress and fix the problem if there is one; investigate whether or not disabled persons are being denied rural housing Repair/Rehab funds routinely granted the elderly and fix the problem if there is one;
    • Prohibit gift card fees and expiration
    • Require that any agency using debit cards to pay benefits pay all debit card fees that would otherwise be imposed on the beneficiary
    • Prohibit expiration of pre-paid cell phone minutes
    • Student Loans, Consider :
      • Forgive student debt for STEM graduates at the time they receive their diplomas;
      • Support Steve Israel's Student Loan Employment Benefits Act of 2012 (bill#?) or Support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, H.R. 4170;
      • Keep student loan interest rates low;
      • Provide that no student loan shall bear an interest rate higher than the lowest rate charged banks by the Treasury or the Federal Reserve
      • ban the inclusion of student loans on credit reports until such time as they are subject to bankruptcy
      • Either the entity that holds the debt finds you a decent job, or else treat student debt like any other debt in bankruptcy
  • Tax :
    • Ban income tax on mortgage forgiveness retroactive to 01/01/2008
    • Explore ways to encourage the repatriation of corporate funds stored offshore, including by an excise tax; consider an excise tax on funds parked offshore; eliminate the tax deferral on offshore corporate profits; support the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2011, S. 1346./ support a "pure worldwide tax system", support the Wyden-Gregg tax reform bill.( The Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 (S. 3018) ) - oppose a "territorial tax system"
    • Consider strengthening the tax on excess retained earnings as reflected in uninvested, undistributed cash or near-cash balances; exclude stock buy-backs from the list of qualified investments; consider excluding mergers & acquisitions from the list of qualified investments; inhibit the ability of corporations to purchase their own stock
    • Impose an excise tax on corporate management compensation levels that exceeds a certain multiple of the lowest wage paid by that corporation, foreign or domestic
    • Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, at a lower level than the $400,000 proposed by President Obama
    • Support HR 1124, the Fairness in Taxation Act
    • Consider the Fareed Zakaria 9-18-27-18-9-50 tax plan
    • Revoke the carried-interest loophole; support Congressman Levin's 2009 H.R. 1935 (re: ...treatment of partnership interests held by partners providing services.)
    • Consider a limit on income allowed capital gains rates, such as up to $1,000,000 per year
    • Phase out percentage depletion allowances
    • Require minimum 50% royalty on all Federal gas & oil leases, retroactively
    • Phase in means-testing for Social Security
    • Eliminate the wage ceiling on FICA withholding
    • Consider a graduated excise tax on campaign contributions
    • Impose an annual tax on firearms, small for a single gun, escalating for quantity
    • Insist that the IRS interpret 501(c)(4) correctly.
    
    
  • Adopt the ONLY BALANCED U.S. BUDGET which BALANCES this year and funds MEDICARE FOR EVERYONE
    [ Are you with a California County, City, or District that has had to lay off people? Download this straight-text DRAFT RESOLUTION, persuade your Board to adopt it, send it to Governor Brown, and insist that he get together with the other 49 Governors and ram this budget down the throats of this obstructionist Congress and tell them to get busy putting people back to work. ]
    
    
  • War (See also Budget, above) :
    • Restore the name of Department of Defense (the ultimate "spin") to "Department of War" / rename Department of Homeland Security to Department of Defense / require that for each dollar of funding for the Department of War a dollar be spent on research to cure disease and cure injuries
    • Discourage use of war as a political policy; reexamine the Kellogg-Briand Pact
    • Fund clearing the VA disability claim and mental health backlogs; Fund VA efforts sufficiently to allow it to clear the backlog and to provide immediate positive response in possible suicide situations; upgrade positive suicide response time from 17 days to immediate
    • Adopt: Veterans and their dependants shall receive health care treatment upon showing up at a VA facility and completing an affidavit of qualification. Only then shall the VA commence its process to determine eligibility but while that review continues, no veteran or their dependant shall be denied health care and if the review is ultimately adverse to the veteran, the veteran shall not be charged for the care during the review.
    • Require judicial review of drone strikes that target U.S. Citizens; halt the use of drone strikes within countries with which we are not at war or for which we don't have that country's permission
    • Support Senator Feinstein's NDAA modification bill.
  • Water :
    • Recover for the people of California the value of the $1,000,000,000 of water taken illegally from Stony Creek by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and its clients / set aside the Angle Decree / restore the environmentally damaged and economically depressed upper Stony Creek Watershed / prove the safety of Black Butte Dam abutments; adopt The Angle Act
    • Restore the water rights of the community of La Grange, California
    • Augment the summertime flow in upper Stony Creek tributaries with diversions from upper Eel River tributaries for the purpose of reestablishing Stony Creek salmon runs and improving Eel salmon runs./ construct refrigerated salmon bypass channels in the valleys parallel to Black Butte and Stony Gorge
    • Restore salmon runs on all streams where they once were, nationwide
    • CVP 3 : Strengthen California flood protections sufficiently to withstand a repeat of the floods of 1861-1862 and solve the Delta and supply problems : suspend Section 8 of the Reclamation Act of 1902 and its progeny and preempt conveyance capacity for this project / fund and develop the Westside Conveyance System and reservoirs, Westside Canals and Rio Vista Siphons to Bethany Reservoir, enlarge Shasta, line the Glenn-Colusa Canal / enlarge and extend the Folsom South Canal beyond Stockton to Bethany Reservoir picking up flood flows of Dry Creek, Cosumnes, Mokelumne, and Calaveras Rivers along the way / develop the Orestimba and Los Banos Grandes Reservoirs and enlarge Friant or build Temperance Flat / devise and implement ways to cut reservoir evaporation / plan the logistics to sell California water to Southern Nevada and Arizona to help fund all this - see project outline
    • Place rescue air-boats with first responders in jurisdictions susceptible to inundation by flood.
    • Require USA to pay its fair share of levee district costs
    • Attend to the long term water and flood control needs of San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties ahead of any export users
    • Restore Hetch Hetchy
    • Restore the Owens River Valley
    • Strengthen subsidies for clean water systems and clean wastewater systems for small rural communities throughout the country
  • Law & Justice :
    • Establish a Federal "chicken" court; whenever anyone feels the application by an agency is "chicken" they file a complaint with the chicken court - the judge and stenographer show up at the complainant's location, record what the complainant has to say, gives the agency 5 days to defend, considers for another 5 days, and then issues a non-appealable ruling allowing or disallowing the application, the loser to pay the court $100 / Design some sort of Federal Small Claims Court where the targeted public, especially farmers, can protest arbitrarily applied and pointless regulations, and get the application of them suspended or redressed.
    • Set aside the entirety of Section 8 Housing written agreements and replace them with a single phrase notice: "We reserve the right to halt payment for any reason."
    • Explore ways to bring justice to the matter of Tim DeChristopher, Bidder70; Seek pardon, apology & reparations.
    • Explore ways to bring justice to cases such as Matthew Otto's, in Montana
    • Establish a lobby desk and department in every United States Court to assist pro per litigants and make and coordinate requests for pro bono assistance with the local bar
    • Restore funding to the Legal Services Corporation / enhance funding of CRLA
    • Require the National Archives to return upon request case files to the courts from which they came
    • Curtail the death penalty
    • Require changing the practice of labeling cases "People vs." to "[Governmental Entity] vs." / rename all statutory crime or civil labels of "Obstructing Justice" to "Interference with Investigation" or whatever other label is appropriate / establish a rule that lying by any government person to a civil or criminal defendant, whether before or after commencement of prosecution or litigation, is a compensable denial of due process
    • Guarantee adequate medical treatment, general education, and vocational programs to persons in government custody, at all levels and stages of Federal, State, or Local incarceration
    • Adopt: at all levels of government strip searches are prohibited absent probable cause,
    • Provide that the holding that a defendant received a fair trial is irrelevant if reasonable doubt can be shown that the defendant did not commit the crime.
    • Ensure and protect, retroactively, the Freedom of Speech/Freedom of Press/Freedom of Petition rights of citizens to film with audio actions of law enforcement on duty or in public
    • Regulate the street drug "Bath Salts" (methylenedioxypyrovalerone / MDPV / mephedrone )
    • Examine whether or not we need to legalize marijuana, etc., in order to shut down the drug wars in Mexico; consider legalizing industrial hemp.
    • Fully fund the BATFE
    • Rewrite the Patriot Act to respect the Bill of Rights
    • Label by statute the practices of "waterboarding", sleep deprivation and hypothermia as torture
    • Prohibit rendition
    • Where pepper spray has been acquired in interstate commerce or in any way with Federal funds, make it a Federal felony to use pepper spray against an asthmatic or a pregnant woman.
    • Where plastic ties have been acquired in interstate commerce or in any way with Federal funds, make it a Federal felony to use them in lieu of handcuffs in such away as causes any damage whatsoever to those upon whom they are used.
    • Acknowledge that the use of Guantanamo Bay for a prison violates the lease and warrants its termination and turn over possession of the entire facility to the Government of Cuba by 2016
  • Government and Diplomacy :
    • Require human rights improvements by Israel in exchange for continuing the $3,000,000,000 in annual foreign aid
    • Make all appropriate efforts to restore relations with Cuba
    • Invite Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands to become a state
    • Invite the U.S. Pacific Territories to become, collectively, a state
    • Offer substantial grants to encourage mergers and consolidations of municipalities and local districts
    • Encourage presidential candidates and Supreme Court Nominees to reveal their IQ, LSAT, SAT, etc. scores
    • Require that every Congressional freshman who has not done so take an Economics 101 course, and keep taking it until achieving a passing grade
    • Construct an adequate Congressional dormitory as part of the Capitol Complex
    • Fix whatever rule, regulation, statute, or chilling effect interferes with Congressional staffers answering questions about political plans of their Legislator
    • Consider establishing a Congressional Constituent Services Office/Congressional Ombudsman to offload the bulk of constituent services requests from individual members of Congress and improve service delivery
    • Properly reimburse the revenue lost to and the expenses incurred by DC for hosting the Nation's Capital/Capitol
  • Adopt nationwide minimum standards for high-rise buildings: integrated firefighting apparatus, tougher standards on using trusses in floors and ceilings, hardened fire stair wells, fire stair wells sized proportionate to anticipated structure population, all fire stair wells descending all the way to the street level, at least two fire stair wells placed at the outside edge of the structure at opposite corners of the structure, independent emergency fire stair lighting, all these to reduce design deficiencies that multiplied the casualties from the attacks on the twin towers on 09/11/2001
  • More Environment & disaster preparedness :
    • Provide for a refundable recycling fee of 1 cent per cigarette butt or cigar butt; cover with a can and bottle recycling program all states not covered by a can and bottle recycling program
    • Establish federal standards for metal recycling, including full identification of scavengers and locations from which metals have been gathered, filed under penalties of perjury, backed up by audits
    • Impose the ozone regulations rejected by the President
    • Phase out the grandfather clause in the Clean Air Act
    • Provide for environmental regulation of natural gas well fracturing; support passage of the FRAC Act
    • Strengthen protections against oil spills
    • Halt off-shore drilling until blow-out preventers that actualy work can be designed, tested, and required / encourage Mr. Bromwich of MMS (or his successor) to be a bit more sensitive to the risk of not requiring blowout preventers that actually work
    • Restore Gulf-state wetlands
    • Strengthen Louisiana hurricane protections
    • Upgrade the various relevant federal programs to strip out the red tape and increase to 100% the provision of financial assistance to construct EF5-resistant tornado shelters/safe rooms in counties or parishes that have historically suffered tornados F2 or higher
    • Phase-in protections for mid-America against another New Madrid earthquake
    • Begin sweeping the Pacific of floating plastic
    • Sweep the oceans of Somali pirates
    • Fund preservation and restoration of rain forests and coral reefs
  • Strengthen NPR, PBS & arts funding
  
  

• Constitutional:

  • Shut down the gun madness, make guns a privilege, not a right: Repeal the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, impose a graduated tax on ownership and possession with penalties for misuse , see draft Amendment Resolution and Legislation
  • Recognize the right of women to terminate pregnancies at will and to receive funding for it as for any other medical procedure: "A woman's right to terminate her pregnancy shall not be infringed."
  • Recognize in all jurisdictions the validity of same sex marriage: "Any marriage between two people in any jurisdiction is valid for all purposes in every jurisdiction."
  • Advocate approval of the Equal Rights Amendment, only this time with a 100-year time limit for adoption / Support 112th Congress H.J. Res 47
  • Adopt:
    "1. Congress may regulate political campaign funding as it chooses.
    "2. Corporations are not persons; Money is not speech."
  • Adopt "full incorporation" of rights: "Within the Fourteenth Amendment Section 1., after the words 'privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States' add the phrase 'including any and all of their rights enumerated or implied in this Constitution'"
  • Provide "Except as provided elsewhere in this Constitution, all issues in either body of Congress shall be resolved by simple majority vote of eligible voters in that body"
  • Add the right of initiative, referendum, recall at all levels of government / consider the NI4D - NCID Democracy Amendment
  • Provide lifetime voting membership in the House of Representatives for all past Presidents
  • Provide that a Bill to modify any Treaty may be initiated in the same manner as a Revenue Bill.
  • Grant full electoral franchise to DC through statehood or restoration to Maryland

MAJOR ENDORSEMENTS:

[5028 voters June 5, 2012]

In re: California Democratic Party Endorsements of Candidates.

In this June 2012 Congressional race there was one progressive (me) and four conservatives. For those of you considering endorsing the conservative Democrat, please remember during the first two years of his term the damage that conservative (also known as "Blue Dog") Democrats did to President Obama's efforts to get this country going again. You have the right to shoot yourself in the foot, but why would you want to?

Available completed endorsement [or not] questionnaires (not endorsements):
• AFL-CIO (an excellent questionnaire)
• National Education Association
• American Federation of Teachers
• National Air Traffic Controllers Association
• League of Conservation Voters
• Sierra Club
• New Democrat Coalition
• Citizens for Global Solutions
• Central Valley Stonewall Democratic Club
• Harry S. Truman Club of San Joaquin
• Project Vote Smart Political Courage Test
• League of Women Voters Smart Voter page
• CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Roll Call
• PeaceActionWest
• National Youth Association of America
• Generational Alliance
• Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc.
• Independent Voter Network re Prop 14
• Modesto Bee
• NumbersUSA
• BIA of the Delta

[I have let many of these memberships lapse last year because of the money crunch from my 2012 campaign. I intend to renew all of them in coming months.]


• Progressive Caucus California Democratic Party (& Environmental, Labor, and Veteran's Caucus)
• Single Payer San Joaquin
• Central Valley Wellstone Democratic Club
• Central Valley Democratic Club
• National Stonewall Democrats
• Democrats.org
• MoveOn.org
• Progressive Democrats of America
• Democracy for America/Dean for America
• Progressive Change Campaign Committee
• ProgressiveCongress.org
• NAACP Chapter #1048
• Rainbow Push Coalition
• The Center for Labor Renewal
  
  [None of the major gun control groups offer memberships except LCAV for $250]
  
  
• Environmental Caucus California Democratic Party
• Sierra Club
• National Audubon Society
• The Nature Conservancy
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Greenpeace
• 350.org
  
  
• California Farm Bureau Federation (through the family ranches)
  
  
• AARP
  
  
• The American Legion (Vietnam era non-combat vet, U.S. Navy, made E-5 in 26 months)
  
  
• The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
• California Society of Certified Public Accountants
• American Bar Association
• California State Bar (LSAT 710)

Article I , Section 2 - The House

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

[HERE:] No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. . . .

from the U.S. Constitution Online

Various states have added their own requirements, presumably as an extension of their jurisdiction over the "manner" of elections in Article I Section 4 and subject to change by Congress, see for instance the California Secretary of State's candidate information sheet for one special election. See also the California Elections Code (which may or may not apply) and the various federal statutory campaign requirements (see for instance Federal Election Commission), all of which may conflict with the simple and straightforward (and zero cost) wording and intent of the U.S. Constitutional recitation of candidate qualifications and thus may be subject to constitutional challenge - - but that's beyond the scope of this note....

Hanging out with the guys at the California Democratic Convention, 04/30/2011:



(Actually, "the guys" are cardboard cutouts; "I'M IN" referred to support for the Obama-Biden 2012 Campaign.)

Please donate to my campaign HERE at the secure ActBlue web site.
Thank you and best wishes. --Mike

--Mike Barkley, 167 N. Sheridan Ave., Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
No more excuses! - Cure Multiple Sclerosis now!
(c) 2012, Mike Barkley

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|  Paid for by Mike Barkley for Congress Committee #C00495507  |
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|            (except that it didn't cost anything)             |
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