Backfire

Dear Editor,

With all of us sheltered in place less than three weeks to the start of voting in an important primary election, every Montanan is entitled to answers from me for these three questions:

Why are you running for the United States Senate?

I place our United States Constitution above my own well-being, personal loyalties or any political party. I have the proven capability to work with the interpersonal chemistry of a legislative caucus as I find it and the mental determination to check and balance our President as required by our constitution.

What do you hope to accomplish as a United States Senator?

Montanans have always responded to the call of duty to protect and defend our United States Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Most recently they ask nothing in return other than a good faith effort to recover the 1,587 fellow Americans still carried as POW-MIA. According to the National League of POW-MIA Families, as of Jan. 21, 2020, the obstacles to POW-MIA recovery are too few intelligence analysts and repeated U.S. cancellations of planned recovery operations due to decreased funding. This regrettable situation has sent negative signals of disinterest to counterpart officials in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I will work to increase funding for POW-MIA recovery.

In addition I am acquiring practical experience with accepting no donations in the primary election campaign, while holding my expenditures to less than the $5,000 threshold required to begin filing campaign finance reports. Through March 31, 2020, I have spent $2,474.83, including [the] filing fee. In the general election campaign I will accept from any legal donor, no more than the $1,740 filing fee I paid out of my own pocket to become an officially recognized candidate for the United States Senate. This allows any person's continuing right to exercise free speech in the form of a campaign contribution, but equally limits contributions to the amount I as a candidate will accept. This will yield practical experience for new campaign finance legislation aiming to disqualify any candidate who accepts more than an amount equal to the filing fee from any one donor. The disqualifying offense would be the crime of graft, advancing one's personal fortunes by leveraging one's official position as a formal candidate. I expect this fundamental idea to gain more practical aspects once I'm afforded an opportunity by Montana's voters to visit respectfully with all 99 colleagues in the United States Senate. I hope to help relieve them of the burden of constantly having to raise money, at times from special interests with issues under their consideration.

Why should voters make the effort to select the Republican ballot in this year's primary to vote for you?

Montanans will vote for me for duty, honor and country. Republicans committed by their conscience to support Donald Trump, feel a duty to their conscience to Ensure he will be checked and balanced after he no longer needs their support, if he flip-flops on matters of abortion, gun rights and personal liberties. Democrats committed by their consciences to oppose Donald Trump, will honor our constitution's structure for working across party lines if he is re-elected, by voting to change the interpersonal chemistry of the United States Senate's Republican caucus with a new Montana senator. Montanans who remain aloof from party politics, or politics in general, still care deeply for the fate of our country. As do I, they sense the truth of Republican Abraham Lincoln's insight, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Sincerely,

John Brian Driscoll

Republican U.S. Senate Candidate