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Gary Murrell  US House of Representatives
I am running as a Green for US House of Representatives.
District: District 6
State: Washington
Election Day: Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election Results: No Results Yet
About Gary Murrell
| Job History: |
| Gary's political and community activism grew out of his experiences during the civil rights era, the prolonged criminal insanity of the disastrous, illegal war against the people of Vietnam and the discrimination he experienced as a gay person. He worked with the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) in New York in the 1970s to promote gay rights. He has been protesting war his entire life - - participating in dozens or hundreds of street theater and anti-war demonstrations against the multiple Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush wars and the militarization of our republic during the 1980s, 1990s and up to the present. In 1989 he joined a delegation sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and spent six weeks in Occupied Palestine monitoring Israeli human rights abuses during the first Palestinian Intifada.
Gary is a committed civil libertarian. He has served on the state boards of both the Oregon and Washington American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and as a member and longtime chair of the Jackson County, Oregon ACLU and ACLU-Grays Harbor. He has received Civil Liberties Awards from both the Oregon and Washington chapters of the ACLU. Gary and his partner received their award from the Washington ACLU for the role they played as plaintiffs in the Washington Supreme Court case challenging the Washington Defense of Marriage Act. He is the president of The Grays Harbor Institute [www.ghinstitute.org], a small non-profit organized to bring speakers to rural Grays Harbor County, prominent people who support the Institute's goals to end poverty and racism and promote human, civil, social, economic and environmental rights. Since April 2007, Gary has hosted a daily program of news, talk and commentary on Northwest Indy Radio, a non-commercial radio station [www.nwindy.org].
Gary served on the Hoquiam, Washington City Council, the Grays Harbor County Regional Planning Council, and held leadership positions in the Grays Harbor Human Right Coalition, the Grays Harbor Coalition Council/Hands Off Washington and several anti-war organizations in Grays Harbor.
Currently serving his third term as president of the Grays Harbor College Federation of Teachers, Local 4984, Gary has also served as a delegate to and member of the Executive Board of the Grays Harbor Central Labor Council. He has been a life-long union member. Beginning with the Boilermaker's Union right after high school he has also been a member of Actor's Equity Association, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Washington Education Association and the Washington Federation of Teachers.
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| Important Issues: |
| Earmarks
The news about the state of our republic is very bad. The founders of this country never envisioned a legislative branch dominated by career politicians. They never envisioned a congress for sale to the highest bidder. The 20th century wit Will Rogers' quip about "the best congress money can buy," only touched the surface of the depth of corruption which has only grown worse over time. While the Republican and Democratic parties are said to be in control of Congress, the real control rests with the power of money to corrupt our elected representatives from both major parties. Members of Congress have milked the military-industrial complex, banks, insurance companies, the oil, gas and coal industries, hedge-fund managers, Wall Street, and pharmaceutical companies, among others, for campaign contributions then passed legislation that benefited those companies. Instead of extending freedom and deepening equality, the Congress has privatized massive profits for a few and socialized a massive debt for the many. This institutionalized system of bribery threatens the very foundation of our republic and makes a sham of democracy.
Voters in Washington's 6th Congressional District have a particularly appalling example of a congressman for sale in the person of Norm Dicks, who is one of the top ten feeders at the trough of this intolerable campaign contribution to earmark system.
Gary Murrell believes that the earmark system as it now operates is a betrayal of the public trust. It must be brought into the sunlight. He would support legislation to make the system completely transparent. Members of Congress must be forced to disclose all earmarks. Dr. Murrell would never accept campaign contributions from companies for which he helped obtain federal dollars and he would support legislation making this legalized system of bribery illegal. Dr. Murrell also supports legislation establishing publicly financed campaigns for Congressional elections.
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| Why Vote For Me: |
| I have been asked, “Why would you consider running for Congress as a Green Party candidate against Norm Dicks?” This question has usually come from a Democrat. “Well, why wouldn’t you?” I’m often tempted to reply. Do the Democrats really represent your interests? 70% of Americans want U. S. troops out of Iraq. In November 2006, we voted for Democrats to end the disastrous Republican rule of congress, expecting Democrats to end the war in Iraq. Instead, the Democrats voted to escalate the war. Does Dicks really represent your views? Are you happy with a Congressman who voted to give George Bush a blank check to take the country to war in Iraq? Are you happy with a Congressman who has voted to escalate the war and who supported every funding measure for the war? That was a catastrophic mistake, which, if the war were to stop today, will still add TWO TRILLION DOLLARS to the national debt!
I have been very active in the Grays Harbor Democratic Party for years. I served on the executive committee several times, edited the party newsletter for three years, and worked to get Democrats elected until I resigned in Spring of 2006. I have voted for Democrats my whole life hoping against hope that they would do the right thing. They have not. Instead of ending the war in Iraq they escalated it. Our civil liberties are under assault by the Patriot Act, which the Democrats supported. The Democratic sponsored Military Commissions Act stripped Habeas Corpus from the Constitution. The war criminal in charge of the country issues signing statements and the Congress dithers; he sends CIA guerillas into Iran and threatens nuclear war on that country and the Congress says nothing. Congressman Kucinich introduces a bill to impeach the mad man and the Democrats try to kill the bill.
I have decided that if there is going to be change, if we are going to save our republic, we have to get involved in a more active way. We can no longer support the Democrats. We must, WE MUST show the Democrats that we are capable of not voting for them. “If you don’t show them you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you,” wrote Lawrence O’Donnell, a former Democratic congressional staffer. “I didn’t listen, or have to listen, to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.”
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Contact Gary Murrell
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