Answering the Daily Tar Heel (BJ Lawson)

BJ Lawson on the issues:

I have the opportunity to answer some additional questions from the Daily Tar Heel editorial board. In the interest of transparency, here goes:

1) How does he plan to push his 4 bills- rather uncommon ones- as a new face in Washington without the political clout of a veteran congressman?

Even with the political clout of a veteran congressman, pushing bills through Congress is no easy task. For example, according to GovTrack.us, Rep. David Price has sponsored 47 bills since Jan 7, 1997, of which 44 haven’t made it out of committee and only one (H.R. 2638: Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009) was successfully enacted.

So after a decade in Congress, it appears that Rep. Price’s first enacted legislation — an appropriations bill — was signed into law just one month ago.

Apologies to Rep. Price if GovTrack missed something here, and he’s certainly signed on to co-sponsor numerous bills led by others, but his track record for advancing legislative progress over the past eleven years is modest at best.

My initial goal as our representative is to educate folks about the desperate need for the four mentioned “good government” reforms. It is only with education that change can occur, and that change must be pushed not by a single legislator, but by a coalition of principled leaders responding to people who insist on good government.

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