Crashing the culture of corruption

COEUR d’ALENE — Bob Perry believes the representative form of government has been corrupted and he is looking for help to correct it.

Perry has been working with the Idaho Secretary of State’s office to craft a citizens initiative that would only allow political candidates to accept campaign contributions from the people who can vote for the candidate.

“This is going to get me in trouble because it is going to step on every political toe,” said Perry, who has run unsuccessfully for statewide office and for congress in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Perry, who moved to Coeur d’Alene four years ago, has spent considerable time trying to come up with an acceptable ballot title that he believes will begin to alter that culture of corruption.

He said when the framers of the U.S. Constitution decided on the form of government, they chose representative government and “specified that representatives come from designated states and that those who could vote for a representative must reside within the geographical district of the representation.”

Perry takes that one step further, saying the representative principle is the keystone of the Democratic Republic of the United States.

“Of prime concern of the framers was the quality of the representative relationship between the representative and respective constituents, indicating the relationship must be reasonable,” he wrote in a constitutional argument to explain the initiative. “To be reasonable it must be argued that the relationship is unique and singular and must remain unabridged.”

Perry went on to explain that when someone outside that relationship makes a contribution to the candidate, it creates an unreasonable relationship between the candidate and the donor.

“It creates a situation of undue influence,” he said. “The relationship is supposed to be between the representative and the constituent, and they have messed that up.”

He knows courts have ruled these outside contributions to be constitutional under the guise of free speech, but he sees it differently.

“The free speech argument to be made is not about the ability to give a contribution to any candidate, but about the ability of an individual constituent to give without limit contributions to a representative candidate,” he wrote in his legal argument, adding that suspect litigation has corrupted the reasonable relationship between representatives and their constituents.

By eliminating outside contributions to candidates, Perry said, it would level the playing field and help to restore voter confidence in the country.

Perry knows it will be a challenge to get the initiative on the ballot, but he has done his homework.

He already has his approved ballot language and summary from the Secretary of State’s office, and he knows his target for signatures. He must collect signatures from 6 percent of the registered voters in each of Idaho’s 18 legislative districts.

“That comes to 46,613 signatures if my calculations are right,” he said. “At this stage I am looking for support to help with the signatures.”

Perry said he knows how hard it is to collect signatures, but he says it is something that needs to be done.

“I really didn’t want to do this, but something has to be done,” he said. “This country is going down and the primary reason is the culture of corruption that has developed in politics.”

For more information or to contact Perry, email him at foundersvision@hotmail.com.