Marta Jorgensen: A champion for the 24th Congressional District
By Susan Zannos 10/09/2008
An unlikely David has taken the field to challenge the hugely financed, long-entrenched Republican Goliath, Elton Gallegly of California’s 24th Congressional District. Marta Jorgensen, the diminutive Democratic candidate in the upcoming November election, was as surprised as anyone else when, without enough funding for much more than a slingshot, she won the Democratic primary in June.
Elton Gallegly has defeated all comers to retain his seat in the House of Representatives for the past 21 years. During his long tenure in office, Gallegly has distinguished himself primarily by not distinguishing himself. During the current Congress, Gallegly failed 92 times to show up to vote.
When he did show up, Gallegly rubber-stamped the Bush policies that have brought the country close to moral and economic ruin. Gallegly voted yes to increasing spy agencies’ electronic eavesdropping, and yes to all funding of the occupation of Iraq, but no to any timelines for withdrawal of troops. He voted no for disaster relief after Katrina, no to strengthening Medicare, no on the children’s health care bill, no on increasing the minimum wage, no on negotiating lower drug prices, no to banning torture, and no to repealing tax cuts for oil companies.
Meanwhile, Jorgensen had been working for the failed campaign to draft Al Gore. When Gore adamantly refused to run again, environmentalist Jorgensen asked him what to do next. “Run for office,” was Gore’s response. So she did.
So who is this Marta Jorgensen? She was a registered nurse providing direct care for patients until her frustration with the medical bureaucracy and the insurance industry convinced her that only changes in public policy could solve the problems her patients were experiencing. In the late 1980s, she became deeply involved in environmental issues.
Jorgensen moved to Santa Barbara County in 1997 and opened a private computer school in Solvang. Her experiences are ordinary experiences, but also experiences that provided personal insights into many of the crucial issues our society faces.
Ordinary people, conventional wisdom claims, cannot win a congressional seat because winning such an election costs lots and lots of money. But Marta Jorgensen is extraordinary in her determination to do whatever she can for the causes she believes in, and extraordinary in her understanding of how the many complex problems that face us are connected and interdependent.
Her core issue is the devastating effects the rape of the planet by enormous corporations has caused: Dependence on fossil fuels, most particularly on foreign oil, has not only produced the carbon emissions causing climate change, but also motivated the United States’ attack on oil-rich Iraq. The cost of the occupation of Iraq has bankrupted the nation, causing in turn the crises in health care, in education, in the crumbling infrastructures of our cities and states, and finally in the collapse of our financial institutions.
The solutions, Jorgensen believes, must begin with confronting the basic problem by conserving energy and by developing alternative sources of energy. Both of these efforts would create the jobs and the sound economy that would make our nation independent of crippling debt to other countries and able to solve our internal social problems.
An unlikely David? Davids are always unlikely, showing up at the battlefield to deliver their brothers’ lunch, hearing of the terrifying Goliath, and saying, “I will go and fight with this Philistine.” And receiving the ridicule of all witnesses.
Of course, in our time it takes more than five smooth stones to defeat a Goliath. For more information about Marta Jorgensen’s campaign, send a letter to Congress, 330 Fifth Street, Suite F, Solvang, CA 93463 or go to her Web site at www.jorgensenforcongress.com. Susan Zannos is a resident of Camarillo.
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Republican Elton Gallegly is out of touch with
voters and out of touch with the nation.
Help Marta Jorgensen show Gallegly & Co. the door!!
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Marta Jorgensen for Congress