We need to clean house in Annapolis.

Often we find a confect of interest with a law maker and the type of job they do when not in session. In fact law makers have been charged for taking a bribe for a vote for the industry that they work for in favor for a vote. I say if you are a state house elected official you must quit your day job. You work for the citizen not the industry or lobbyist that is trying to game the system because you’re an elected official.

There was a time in our history when people ran for office did not run under any political party. They ran on their views. If Maryland opens up the process the winners would be the people not the lobbyist or political party.

We citizens really have no clue as to the dealings of the current cast of characters in Annapolis along with the lobbyist who play both sides of the fence and we the people are left holding the bag because of insider gaming of our state government. I am not saying we need to end the two parties, because lets be candid the lobbyist and the parties would go nuts and I do believe in people being able to join a political party no matter how ridicules they may be at times.

But we the citizens have almost 500.000 people here in Maryland who do not belong to a party but can vote during the general election. That is a lot of folks who do not have a say during the primary and are stuck with a choice during the General election, thus flipping a coin and hoping for the best.

We unaffiliated voters should demand to open the process. The law should be if you want to run for office, you run. You win or lose based on your views. The reason the current law states that you must get signatures in order to run unaffiliated is for a few reasons.

1)      The Republican and Democrat party does not want competition on any view or policy for our state.

2)      The lobbyists want to have some sort of sway and do not want to have the Maryland citizens to have more influence than them.

We as a people been forced to be puppets of the political process and we need to fix this current mess we have in Annapolis.

 

William T Capps

District 21, Laurel MD.

I am a Voter who is unaffiliated with independent views and not owned by a party or lobbyist.