Author: Shulman for Congress

Crossposted on Daily Kos and Blue Jersey

Last night, I joined a rally of Lobbyists for Republican Scott Garrett, who gathered to thank Garrett for supporting the financial industry that has run our economy into the ground. Scott Garrett, who represents New Jersey’s fifth Congressional district, doesn’t just accept campaign donations and personal loans from the financial giants that caused our current economic crisis – he hired a former Countrywide lobbyist as his chief of staff. Garrett is among the nation’s strongest supporters for deregulation of the financial industry that puts profit before people struggling thanks to today’s economic crisis.

More and pictures after the jump…

My name is Erica, and this week I started working on the Dennis Shulman for Congress campaign. With ‘Lobbyists for Scott Garrett,’ our campaign is highlighting Garrett’s ties to both the housing crisis and the special interest culture of corruption. As a member of the House Financial Services Committee and Housing Subcommittee, Garrett is unduly influenced by the industry he is supposed to regulate. This week, the Shulman campaign released a new ad calling on voters to fire Scott Garrett for letting the greed and speculation run rampant under his watch.

See the ad here – Fire Scott Garrett

Shulman for Congress is also underscoring Scott Garrett’s record as one of the staunchest conservatives in Congress. By the end of 2006, the American Conservative Union had only given a “perfect” score of 100 to two members of Congress for their lifetime voting record – and Scott Garrett was one of them. Yet the district he represents, a politically moderate swath of suburban New Jersey – is nowhere near to the far-right views Garrett pushes in Washington. Voters here are looking for leadership to get our economy going again, work towards alternative energy solutions, and bring an end to the war in Iraq.

Our campaign isn’t afraid to take the fight to Scott Garrett and expose his corruption. We recently launched several websites to highlight Garrett’s atrocious record-including his support for Big Oil, his refusal to acknowledge scientific evidence for global warming, and his opposition to a woman’s right to choose, even for victims of rape or incest.



Garrett Caused the Crash

Scott Garrett and the predatory lenders are a case study in Washington’s corrupt special interest culture. Garrett has accepted more than three quarters of a million dollars from the financial industries he is supposed to oversee in Washington, and put his taxpayer-funded office in the hands of a chief of staff who had lobbied for Countrywide and Washington Mutual.

Oilmen for Garrett

Scott Garrett has voted to subsidize Big Oil, for drilling off the New Jersey shore and in the federally protected areas of Alaska, and has taken $69,000 from the oil industry.

Global Warming – It’s a Real Threat

Scott Garrett refuses to accept the overwhelming body of scientific evidence showing that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming and that it is a real threat to our way of life. He voted to remove language from an appropriations bill acknowledging that greenhouse gases cause global warming and that global warming is a real threat.

Your Choice Not Scott’s

In a district where 70% of residents support reproductive choice, Scott Garrett opposes a woman’s right to choose in all instances, even for victims of rape or incest.

Garrett Shrubs

Career politician Scott Garrett gets a huge property tax break because he says his brother sells $700 worth of shrubs annually. Garrett takes up to $41,000 a year in tax breaks meant for real farmers, and failed to disclose this shrub farm as required by federal law.

In what promises to be a tough race, the amazing outpouring of netroots support for Dennis’ campaign cannot be underestimated. The Daily Kos community raised $20,000 dollars for our campaign in September –  and we here at Shulman for Congress can’t thank you enough. With a horrendous right wing opponent, an inspiring candidate, and your help, together we can elect a strong progressive leader to Congress this November.

Before I answer this question, I would like to first thank all the commentators for their interest in my disability and their questions about the obstacles I have faced.

I lost my vision gradually throughout my childhood so that, while I could still read large print when I was ten or eleven, I could not when I was thirteen. Using a cane became necessary in my junior year of high school.

By the time I went to college (Brandeis) and grad school (Harvard) I was totally blind.
I started at Brandeis in 1968. These were the pre-personal computer dark ages. For all people, the personal computer has radically changed their lives; for blind folks, this change is downright revolutionary.

In college and grad school, virtually all my reading was done by sighted readers. Little of the material was in Braille or recorded. When working on my review of the literature for my doctoral dissertation, I broke my own personal record-35 hours a week of sighted readers for the entire summer to read absolutely everything I could find on my dissertation topic. And then there was typing. I did my writing on an electric typewriter. (Does anyone out there remember the electric typewriter?) Well the problem with typewriters for a blind person is that, if you get a phone call or otherwise get distracted, how do you figure out where you left off? And then there was the worst day of my academic life when I typed an entire chapter for a grant I was leading involving alternatives to institutionalization for developmentally disabled adults when I did not realize the typewriter ribbon had slipped. When my colleague told me that the twenty-five pages I had just given him were totally blank, I finally really understood what a bad day was.

And then God created the personal computer.

Part of the reason I am running for congress in NJ-5 involves my blindness. As you can imagine or know, it is not easy to be blind or otherwise disabled in a sighted or able-bodied world. But there is a great benefit to being blind. I learned what it really means to struggle. I learned how to respect all people who are struggling-with the limits of their bodies or the limits of their income or the limits of their parents’ income or the limits that society places on them because of their gender or choice of love partner or immigration status or race.

In my own case-a poor kid, totally blind, in Worcester, Mass-there was no way in the world that I could have gone to Brandeis and Harvard without a great deal of family and community and government support. No way! And this also figures into my politics. The money the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind invested in my education has been paid back many times over by the taxes I have paid over the past 31 years of my being a clinical psychologist and rabbi. So don’t talk to me about how cutting programs that truly help people who are struggling cuts taxes. To truly cut taxes and help people who are struggling with their circumstances or the accident of their birth we are going to have to be sensible about the investments in people that we make. And here I am–a proud and grateful beneficiary of a far-sighted government program that actually invested in people.

I am acutely aware that my election to congress is, of course, not just about me. In January 2009, when I am sworn in as a congressman from my district, I will proudly join a very small but (hopefully) growing list of individuals with disabilities–from Max Cleland of Georgia to Thomas Gore of Oklahoma–who have served their country in the U.S. Congress. I promise to take this responsibility to represent, not only my district, but also all people with disabilities with great humility and seriousness.