Candidate for
Member, Democratic Party County Central Committee; County of Sacramento; State Assembly District 9

Candidate Statement by Andrew H. Dral

Overall, I have a great animosity toward Republican and Democratic politicians that tell us what is in our best interest, but continue to work against our interests by passing bills and endorsing policies that hurt the middle class: NAFTA, CAFTA, bringing in H1-Bs, Financial Modernization Act, Commodities and Futures Exchange Modernization Act of 2000, American Jobs Creation Act, Clean Skies, Healthy Forests, Telecommunications Act of 1996, Bankruptcy Bill, Patriot Act, Medicare Drug Bill, lack of corporate capital markets over-sight, and failing to uphold immigration laws. The vast disparity between rich and poor and rise in Chief Executive Officer (CEO) pay is particularly troubling.

We have to organize, to fight the Republican mantra of cheap labor, eradication of defined benefit plans for the working class, and shift in wealth to the rich through tax cuts. In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production worker was 431-to-1, compared to 20-to-1 in the 1950's. We must fight to get back to the 20-to-1 ratio. We are in a class struggle.

Our political system is broken -- corporate, industrial trade group, and robber baron -- bribes have twisted, distorted, and paralyzed the will of the people. The Democratic Leadership Council must go. This group has worked against the interests of the common good, working instead for an elite rich group of globalization aficionados, executive Davos men and women. Publicly financed political campaign races are the only solution. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has been a failure. We need United Nations mandated paper receipts (trails) accompanying each vote and only open software in electronic voting machines.

We need a party with a backbone, ready to do whatever it takes to stop the pillaging of the middle class. Instead of funding the industrial defense complex, we need to fund our infrastructure, a rail system, sustainable energy alternatives, and a sound educational system. Our party must fight for progressive taxes that make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, instead of wallowing in immense wealth, while the middle and lower classes pick-up the brunt of the tax burden, without representation.

We need to expose graft and corruption on both sides of the aisle. Without transparency and a healthy, objective, and courageous press our efforts will falter. Everyone must spread the TRUTH about what is going on in the U.S. -- breach of international treaties: Geneva Conventions and Treaty on Torture, rolling back of civil rights and habeas corpus, and election fraud -- to fight and bring back the egalitarian principles that made us the leading Democratic experiment. Everyone must have the same opportunities -- regardless of race or economic ability -- based on ability and merit.

Andrew H. Dral "The Rabble -- Janosik"