Dear Friends,
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Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington State)
(01:34) A congresswoman Democrats should heed; LISTEN
(22:01) Eminent domain huge issue for Iowa voters; LISTEN
(37:06) Trump laying groundwork to steal 2026 election; LISTEN
(53:26) February garden Q & A, with Kathy Byrnes; LISTEN
What do blinding headlights have to do with saving the Democratic Party? A lot, if you heard Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) speak about it during a committee meeting last year. Maybe you’ve noticed that headlights have become significantly brighter, creating a hazard for oncoming drivers.
Gluesenkamp Perez refers to the problem as a “plague in this country of headlight brightness.”
I love the drama in that statement. Sure, when you consider the pressing, even existential, threats we face, headlights seem trivial.
But Gluesenkamp Perez’s point is that there’s a pervasive sense among Americans that our overall quality of life is declining and government doesn’t give a flying darn.
It’s not just big issues — like health care, education, the economy, AI, climate change — but “little” things, too, like dangerously bright headlights.
I’d add to the “little” list (1) the garish “historic” street lamp in front of our home, (2) decibel-busting leaf blowers, (3) dogs that howl at midnight, and (4) the revving engines of late-night “loop scoopers,” to call-out a few of the many contemporary assaults on peace, quiet, and a good night’s sleep.
But I digress. Slightly.
Along the same lines, one of Gluesenkamp Perez’s goals is to enact right-to-repair laws to require manufacturers to provide resources for people to fix their own equipment. It’s another problem that affects millions of ordinary people in profoundly frustrating, and often stupid, ways.
Small issue, sure. But it’s an example of Gluesenkamp Perez’s governing philosophy, which is described in a recent New York Times story:
“Her worldview is widely held in rural America but almost completely unrepresented in national politics — neither reactionary nor exactly liberal; skeptical of big business and big government alike. She believes our society ought to be oriented toward working with your hands, living in nature and fostering deep and considered connection to a community. Her two biggest influences, her former senior adviser guessed, are the Bible and the ruralist Kentucky farmer-author Wendell Berry.”
Maybe one reason I like Gluesenkamp Perez is because her world view matches mine.
I appreciate, too, that she’s willing to criticize corruption in her own party, such as when she called out on the floor of the US House Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) for hand-picking his successor.
I appreciate that she challenged three suited “specialists” during a Small Business Committee hearing, saying, “It’s hard for me to hear people in ties tell me that this is helping the trades.” She also criticized “rulemaking done by people in suits, not by people in Carhartts.”
I appreciate that she’s one of the lone Democrats who attend US House Bible studies.
And I like that “she’s a big secondhand shopper, often sourcing clothes for staffers and fellow lawmakers on eBay,” according to a July 1, 2024 story in Politico.
I don’t agree with her on everything, especially her support for funding Israel’s war against the Palestinian people. But it’s important, especially now, to remember what Voltaire said about the perfect being the enemy of the good.
“Perfect” being someone who votes like I want them to every single time.
“Good” being a country that’s not under the heel of fascism.
It’s important that Gluesenkamp Perez was one of only three Democrats to flip a Republican House seat in 2022.
And it’s important, critical in fact, that we elect a Democratic House this fall to prevent Trump’s rapid march to full-blown authoritarianism.
In Iowa, Democrats could flip three seats. I’m especially excited about the Third Congressional District, where State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott is running to be the Democratic nominee. Trone Garriott previously won three times in a county carried by Trump, an astounding accomplishment largely ignored or pooh-poohed by the Democratic establishment.
Back to Gluesenkamp Perez. I’ll conclude with another quote from that New York Times story:
“Her central argument is that academics, economists and political consultants tend to fixate on a set of narrow, divisive issues that obscure what’s really driving alienation and anger in our society today. That angst, for many, is about a basic worry that neither party is seriously listening to today: a fear that we are losing what the philosopher Henri Bergson once described as an ‘open society’ and replacing it with a society of the ‘anthill’ — with most people living a drone-like existence, reduced to data points in a system run by technocrats and corporations. It’s a way of life that’s anathema to both America’s economic promise and its cultural traditions.”
Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action.
Ed Fallon
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