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By the time this is published, I will be a declared candidate for North Dakota’s at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The plan was to announce in-studio on Joel Heitkamp’s show at KFGO in Fargo, North Dakota. We had to adjust our departure as we waited for a blizzard to end in the eastern part of the state. The departure time for the four-plus-hour drive slid to 03:00 a.m. Then my father was taken from the nursing home to the ER by ambulance. He has been admitted, and I will be calling into the studio this morning.
Tonight, I will speak at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event in Minot, North Dakota. Every year on this day, I read Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and I watch Robert F. Kennedy’s speech breaking the news of Dr. King’s assassination to a crowd in Indianapolis on the night of April 4th, 1968.
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Kennedy’s speech reminds me that words matter. While there were riots in other major cities that night, Indianapolis was quiet.
King’s letter reminds me that the cause is again urgent, and words are not enough. We must take action. King wrote his letter in response to a letter from eight local clergymen in Birmingham titled “A Call for Unity.” They were uncomfortable with King’s civil disobedience. They wanted justice through “legal” means. Just after reminding us that Socrates practiced civil disobedience and that the Boston Tea Party was illegal—while everything Hitler did was legal—King writes:
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
I would not be running for Congress if I believed that we were on the right track as a country; that we were advancing toward Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that his descendants would one day live in a United States of America where they would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
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I would not be running for Congress if I believed that my son and son-in-law in the U.S. Navy were led by a worthy and competent Secretary of Defense and that my son-in-law in the U.S. Coast Guard was lead by a worthy and competent Secretary of Homeland Security.
I would not be running for Congress if my senators and representative in Congress were bravely and loudly standing up to the federal occupation of “blue” cities and the unprofessional and needlessly cruel conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. I would not hit the trail again if they showed any sign of caring about the fraudulent steering of no-bid DHS contracts and taxpayer money to Kristi Noem’s friends or the pile of pardons and commutations to fraudsters and con men.
I would rest easily at home if those in power in Washington, DC tried to do what Robert F. Kennedy did in Indianapolis on the night of April 4, 1968. They do the opposite, and they do it on purpose. They stoke every fire and the worst impulses of their fan club.
We didn’t get affordable housing or health care. We got tariffs and scuttled ag markets and Venezuela. We got prices increasing at a higher rate even as the President yelled at us that prices were down “like no one had ever seen before.” We got a do-nothing Congress rubbing elbows with big money and ignoring regular Americans.
Inside Memorial Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, there is a cased flag. It’s blue with the words, “Don’t give up the ship” stitched on it in white. Those were the last words of Captain James Lawrence as he lay dying on the deck of his ship during the war of 1812. They became a battle cry for the U.S. Navy, a statement of perseverance and commitment.
A committed Congress would not give up the ship and cede its power to the executive branch or honor fake emergencies.
A committed Congress would remind the White House that it is Congress that levies tariff’s and it is Congress that holds the power to declare war.
A committed Congress requires committed senators and representatives determined to take back their rightful power.
Before a nation can claim to be great country, it must prove itself a good country. I am committed to fulfilling Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that one day this nation would rise up and live out the true meaning of those truths held as self-evident in our Declaration of Independence: that all men are created equal and have the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
I am committed to making Congress matter again.
I will not give up the ship.
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