Dear John,

Last week, our country was forced to confront the white supremacy that continues to infect Washington. Rarely has it emerged as obviously as when GOP Senators mounted their craven attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has been nominated by President Biden for a trailblazing seat on the Supreme Court that would make her both the Court’s first Black woman, as well as its first public defender.

Over a decade ago, I proposed a reform that would help diminish the rancor surrounding judicial nominations by introducing regularity into the nominations schedule, rather than allowing it to rest on the health of octogenarians. Can you send me to Washington to represent that proposal in Congress?

We’ve discussed elsewhere how Judge Brown’s experience as a public defender could be especially informative to a Court currently dominated by veterans of the executive branch. At the moment, we’d like to focus on how to fix the Court and restore judicial independence.

The key is ending judicial life tenure to force turnover on the bench. Many voices have fixated on expanding the Court, forgetting the predictable consequences. Others defer to the Court as the exclusive arbiter of what is constitutional, overlooking the roles of Congress in both presenting constitutional questions, and as an independent branch of government charged with the task of checking and balancing the other branches.

When I first proposed the idea of Congress forcing Justices to retire after serving staggered terms of 18 years, few people noticed. I’m grateful that supporters of that vision have expanded since then to include figures like Ro Khanna and Andrew Yang.

Can you send me to Congress to continue raising ideas before their time, and leading progressives to their eventual positions? I’m used to standing out in front, because I do what’s right—not whatever’s popular.

Judge Jackson’s hearings were also notable because they forced many Americans to recognize the white supremacy that infects Washington. Unfortunately, the hearings cast an artificial picture, since the problem revealed by Republicans in those hearings are ultimately widely shared across both parties.

America watched an eminently qualified Black jurist demeaned by ridiculous questions from entitled career politicians who lack her depth, poise, or integrity. Will We the People hold Senators accountable and ensure her confirmation?

I can relate to Judge Jackson, having spent 20 years building a track record disregarded entirely by writers who proved more interested in publishing lies—which have since been debunked—than covering the facts. Still widely suppressed is the recent investigative report documenting how some of those writers accepted previously undisclosed payments from self-promoting sources, including a former tech executive with an undisclosed business interest in promoting the false narrative of partisan climbers who were later rewarded by establishment politicians.

Can you join us again today to help us correct disinformation, challenge the corruption of the Democratic Party, and continue forcing change on a system that concedes nothing without a demand?

The GOP’s Senators in Washington are inescapably racist. So, unfortunately, are Democrats in San Francisco. For decades, voices from Dave Chappelle to James Baldwin have observed the same dynamic. Were I the only candidate of color to have recently encountered it, I might have thought it my problem.

But coming to recognize the pattern of orchestrated accusation repeatedly targeting leftists of color who run for office in our city—from Julian Davis to Gloria Berry, Eric Curry, and too many others—forced me to finish what we started in seeking to end the Pelosi dynasty.

Exposing the corruption and racism on which Pelosi relied to return to Congress in 2020 is one key to ending her dynasty before she entrenches her daughter in her seat for another generation.

As we work to block that nepotism from ripening into aristocracy, we need your help today to level the playing field.

With the end of the Federal Election Commission’s quarterly reporting period looming later this week, your support for our campaign has never been more crucial.

Can you join us again today? We confront an oligarch insulated by the press and a party patronage network. All I have is my voice, the experience I’ve built over 20 years fighting for the future—and the support of conscientious Americans like you.

Thank you for standing with me, and for your solidarity in the face of weaponized racism defending the establishment in Washington!

Shahid