My name is Tim Canova and I’m running for Congress. I was disappointed last summer when my local representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz voted to fast-track the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But it was not a huge surprise. From 2012-2014 alone, she took over $300,000 from corporate interests that support the TPP and only $23,000 from groups opposed to the TPP. My campaign is not taking money from “corporate persons.” We are relying instead on small donations from real people who are fed up with politics as usual.
The TPP is inherently anti-democratic. It would undermine our national sovereignty by allowing foreign corporations to challenge U.S. laws that seek to protect the public health and safety and the environment. And these corporations would not be suing in U.S. courts. Instead, these suits would be decided in binding arbitration by judges who also happen to be the same high-priced corporate lawyers representing these same big companies in many other cases. This is exactly what has already been happening under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Just last week TransCanada, a giant energy corporation, announced that it would seek $15 billion from the U.S. government for its decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
Why should corporations be able to shift their cost of complying with environmental and other regulations to U.S. taxpayers? We need representatives in Congress that look out for us, not just big corporations. That’s why my campaign is not taking corporate money.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is taking huge amounts of corporate money, including from Wall Street, private prisons, big alcohol and sugar PACs. Her policy positions and votes in Congress largely reflect such corporate influence. She supports the drug war and privatized prisons and opposes medical marijuana. She voted to prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from writing rules to prevent racial discrimination in car loans. She voted to eliminate the part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that had prevented banks from using deposits to speculate on risky financial derivatives.
Some one thousand ordinary Americans have now contributed small donations in just the first 72 hours of our campaign. We need your support to win! Please donate at TimCanovaforCongress.com or go to Act Blue:
Thank you and see you on the campaign trail!