Why you should vote for Michael R Guzik for Congress instead of Tony Cardenas.
Why should anyone vote for Michael R Guzik for Congress instead of Tony Cardenas? That was a question I asked myself last year as I sat down and began to craft my platform. The more I wrote down the more I came to realize that my campaign isn’t about running against any one person. My campaign is about running for something. I have been discussing the current state of our country and government with those that live in the community for over a year and a half. I kept speaking to people about my children and that I needed to do something to make the world a better place for them. If I accomplished that then everyone would benefit, and I would make the world a better place for all people. All human beings. My campaign is about humanity and bringing people together.
I heard so many different stories from so many different people from all over LA and it always came back to one thing. Hope. People generally have hope that their elected officials will eventually do the right thing. Boy where we wrong. Our elected officials are blatantly and unapologetically corrupt right in front of our faces. The issues that we are facing are very real and it was from hours and hours of listening to people talk about their stories and what mattered most to them that I realized that I needed to do something. People are concerned about climate change, but the very real reality is that people are more concerned about making rent or covering the mortgage. Can they afford their prescription drugs? Do they even have healthcare to begin with? Too many people have dropped out of college because something happened in their lives that forced them to get a job instead. Or a second or third job.
Too many young people are working multiple jobs and living with multiple people just so they can afford to pay rent. Even though they are working toward something more stable, in the meantime they can only get minimum wage part time jobs. There are too many people that can relate to that today. I met people who were homeless but were able to get out of the cycle and back into a stable situation but not that stable.
Then there were my children. The ones that depend on me. When I was growing up in the Midwest, we did tornado drills. Out here in Los Angeles the kids did earthquake drills. When I found out that my kids who are in elementary school, middle school and high school all had active shooter drills that was it. You can’t predict a tornado or an earthquake. You can prevent a mass school shooting. So, I sat my kids down and asked their permission to run for office. I told them why I wanted to run for office, which is for them, and what I wanted to fight for: Housing as a right, Healthcare as a right, Tuition free college, Gun safety and Climate change. All I needed was their approval and it was a done deal. Once I had that I then focused in on the race that I wanted to run in. The United States House of Representative of the 29th Congressional District of the great state of California.
Congressman Cardenas has been in politics longer then I have been alive. Not really but I thought I would throw in at least one joke since this is where I get serious. He has been in elected office since 1996. He has a long history of serving in office so I thought I could easily find information about him and what he has accomplished. Not really. To be fair he has accomplished things throughout his career, so I am not going to sit here and say he has done nothing. Some of the things he has done I fully support. However, the more and more that I dig into who has been supporting him the more I realized who he is serving and it’s NOT We The People. It’s We the donors. We the corporations.
Tony Cardenas oversees the 3rd largest political action committee in the country the CHC Bold PAC. The CHC Bold PAC endorsed Joe Biden for President. He is also linked to the VIBE PAC – Victory by Investing Building and Empowering. He does this while sitting on one of the most powerful committees in the House, the Energy and Commerce committee. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if it weren’t for the numerous red flags that pop up when you look at his donor list. To say that there are conflicts of interest is a bit of an understatement. So, let’s look at his platform and see where this all shakes out.
The first thing I will mention that is completely missing from his platform is housing. Housing is my number one issue because it is the number one issue that everyone raises in CA-29 and Los Angeles. Whether you have a place to live or you do not or whether you rent or own this is always top of mind for everyone. The numbers have not been published yet from the most recent homeless count, but all indications are that we will see an increase in those numbers and a greater need for bridge housing and services. ”Homelessness is caused by many issues but exacerbated by housing affordability. The key to a long-term solution to homelessness will not only be affordable housing and permanent supportive housing, but housing that is affordable—that is, saturating the housing stock to the point of bringing rents and home prices to reasonable levels,” according to the LAEDC’s Economic Forecast & Industry Outlook for 2019-2020. While we wait for the market to correct itself, we need to have national rent control for apartments, homes, and townhomes. Affordable housing to rent or own is also key to ending those living rent poor and finally realizing the American Dream of owning a home at some point. Although who can afford a single-family home where the median price in the San Fernando Valley was $670,000 in 2018. Where does the Congressman stand in all of this? He stands with the National Multifamily Housing Council who boasts on their Sponsorship Opportunities portion of their website that “what sets NMHC sponsorship apart from other industry sponsorships is that your targets—the C-suite executives of the industry’s largest apartment owners, developers and managers—make up the core of NMHC’s membership. In other words, our members are the people in their firms who are making and influencing important purchasing decisions.” Sounds just like Super PAC to me.
On his campaign website he says that he wants to attract new businesses, train for the next generation of jobs and bring more manufacturing jobs to the Valley. You would think with the number of unions that support the Congressman like IBEW, SEIU and the Carpenters & Joiners Union that the middle class would be booming yet that’s not the case. The LAEDC’s Economic Forecast & Industry Outlook for 2019-2020 also states “nearly every local non-farm industry business sector continues to experience employment gains, especially in utilities, information/technology, and financial activities. Only the non-durable manufacturing and wholesale trade sectors are experiencing job declines. “ I don’t understand why the unions give their support, since the San Fernando Valley is projected to lose jobs. I do understand why PG&E, Sempra, SCE, Microsoft, Google, Goldman Sachs, Capital Group, American Bankers Assn, Ernst & Young donate to his campaign.
You might ask, what is wrong with this if they are creating jobs in our communities? It’s the types of jobs that are being created is the issue. According to the California Credit Union League’s report on the economy “the share of the population with incomes between $15,000 and $100,000 has declined since 2010.” These jobs that are being created are of lower pay or by contrast allowing upper management to take home higher salaries. Trickle-down economics does not work. The middle class is dissolving right before our eyes. Yet he takes money from Amazon who paid zero taxes in 2018 or Walmart who continue to pay their employees starvation wages while not allowing them to unionize.
The Congressman states that he is fighting for jobs in emerging sectors, such as health care and renewable energy. He states he wants to ensure access to healthcare so that Americans finally can purchase affordable healthcare. Healthcare is not affordable in this country. Healthcare is a right. So of course, his donors want you to pay for healthcare at the rates they set and buy the drugs that price gouge. He can’t back Healthcare or Medicare for all. DaVita, Molina, Anthem, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of California, Cigna, Pfizer, & Humana to name a few, won’t allow it.
He states he is for fighting climate change and creating renewable energy jobs but he takes money from PG&E who caused over 1,500 wildfires in California over the last 6 years including fires that devasted parts of the 29th and Sempra who was at fault for the Aliso Canyon gas leak to the immediate West of us. Neither of these companies or Edison wants anything to do with eliminating fossil fuel consumption on our planet. You can’t fight climate change and do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry at the same time.
He says he is fighting to support the Entertainment Industry which has been the backbone of our local economy. Yet it seems the Entertainment Industry is the one supporting him - Comcast, Charter Communications & Cox Enterprises are the three biggest cable providers in the country and continue to grow their monopolies on the industry. Currently we are in a cycle where data and selling one’s information is the most lucrative of commodities and he has all the major cell phone carries donating to him as well - T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint & US Cellular. Not to mention Amazon & Google seem to own pretty much everything else. It’s hard to see how this creates a healthy business environment that helps build small businesses as his platform states.
If he wants a balanced approach to our debt and deficit, he wouldn’t take money from companies that do not pay their fair share while the middle class is disintegrating. If he truly cared about his community, he wouldn’t take money from companies that have monopolies on their industry. If he truly cared about climate change, he wouldn’t take money from fossil fuel companies. If he really cared about our teachers and our veterans, he would support American Federation of Teachers and fight for higher teacher pay and smaller class size. I say I have an answer for that. Tony Cardenas says I have a donor for that.
What is missing from his platform because he doesn’t have a donor for that are Disability Rights, Demanding Net Neutrality, DC Statehood, safe guarding Social Security, Human Sex Trafficking, Safe Vaccines, Decriminalize THC, Tribal Nation’s rights’ & breaking up monopolies on Wall Street.
I am ready to serve. I care about the children. I want to ensure that every child and person has a roof over their head, access to preventive health care, free school through college, has procedures for safely owning a gun at home & reverse the effects of climate change. If you want someone who will listening to you and your stories and turn those into action, then you have your answer to my original question. Why you should vote for Michael R Guzik for Congress instead of Tony Cardenas. It seems to be clear. I do not take money from corporations. I come from a middle-class background and I am ready to serve We The People. All you must do is mark that circle next to my name because it’s time for change.
