My name is Jim Keady and I am running for the United States House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District.



One of the things I am most proud of with the #Keady4Congress campaign is that the majority of our campaign funds have come from people in our district and people giving less than $200. We also have been able to raise more contributions in the 4th district than my Democratic primary opponent and a 38-year Republican incumbent combined. In fact, in the 1st quarter of 2018, I out-raised my primary opponent with a margin a 484-30 in in-district contributions.

I guess the question I have for anyone reading this, is,

“Do rank and file Democrats care where a candidate’s campaign contributions come from?”

It does not seem from their actions that the “leaders” of our party care. Are they just a reflection of the body politic within the Democratic party?

Here is where I stand on campaign finance:

As I noted above, I have raised more money in-district than the GOP incumbent and my Democratic primary opponent COMBINED. That’s what a grassroots support looks like. I also will not take campaign contributions from corporate PACS, from lobbyists, from fossil fuel executives, and from people who stand to make millions in government contracts. I’m also not about to become a lobbyist myself.



Because of my commitment to stay away from the donor class in the DC swamp, I recently earned the endorsement of the Progressive Democrats of America, a caucus that includes:

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Congressman John Lewis, Congressman Ted Lieu, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Joe Kennedy III, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and 70 others.

The first question I was asked by PDA, after “Will you join this caucus?” was:

“Do you pledge, if elected to this office, to NOT become a paid lobbyist for at least 5 years after you leave Congress?”

My answer was absolutely, “Yes, I will take that pledge.”

Why? The outsized influence of corporations on our elected officials is a major barrier to change in the interests of everyday people in America. While some lobbying organizations do good work on behalf of justice-oriented organizations, I pledge to not simply use my time in office a stepping stone into a lucrative lobbying career.

I would like to believe that every Democrat in the country would say, “Of course you shouldn’t take money from lobbyists, defense contractors, fossil fuel executives, billionaire hedge fund managers, etc.”

Well…

Here is what my primary opponent is doing and I want to know what you think.



He is raising money at big-ticket fundraisers with headliners like David Gergen (the former aide to Nixon, Reagan, Bush...) and Senator Robert Torricelli, who as you might remember had to leave politics because of illegal campaign contributions and his ethics violations with respect to where he was raising money.

My opponent often talks about having taken the no Corporate PAC pledge. But as usual, he’s not telling you all the details.



First, let’s lay out the basics on Corporate PACs and lobbyists.

With a CORPORATE PAC- a company puts money into a PAC fund, and that fund makes campaign contributions.

With LOBBYING- a company puts money into the paycheck or into the consulting fees of a lobbyist and that lobbyist makes campaign contributions.

If a candidate’s pledge doesn’t also swear off lobbyists, or at least certain kinds of lobbyists, that’s just a bookkeeping trick that skirts the real issue: BIG MONEY CORRUPTING OUR POLITICS AND OUR POLITICIANS.



At this point, I want to get specific and I want to know if you, the rank and file Dems reading this, care about where my opponent’s money is coming from.

Only one donor on my opponent’s individual contributions list identified herself as a lobbyist, Emily Bacque. She works for CJ Lake. CJ Lake’s clients? Big agribusiness. People who are union-busters, enemies to farm-worker justice, and people who routinely try to pitch immigration laws that benefit employers but certainly not workers.

There are several other people on his donor list who are, in fact lobbyists, but didn’t identify themselves as such.

For example: Pablo Chavez- General Manager of US Policy (that is a fancier way of saying lobbyist) for Microsoft. He formerly was a lobbyist for Google and for Linked In, and he was noted in an article by The Hill, naming him one of the top corporate lobbyists of 2015.

Jeff Lande- listed himself as a ‘consultant’ with TLG, but “TLG” is “The Lande Group”- here’s a summary of Jeff Lande’s “revolving door” from Open Secrets:

Another donor to my primary opponent was Larry Grossman- the Grossman Group. On his contribution form, he called himself “Consultant” but he is on the House lobbyist registry, even though he’s changed his company name — possibly to mask his contributions? He also served as a staff member on the House Armed Services Committee which is a covered position that federal law requires disclosure.

WHY DOES FEDERAL LAW REQUIRE DISCLOSURE OF CAMPAIGN DONORS?

Because we don’t want people who are responsible for the decisions that affect the lives of everyday people to be corrupted by the influence of money. And one of the fastest ways to do that is to point to federal contracts, especially when it comes to the Armed Services Committee and the Department of Defense. When you take a look at my primary opponent’s campaign contributions coming from Department of Defense contractors, the amount of money involved is staggering.



Who is in this line up?

James Miller, either the president or the consultant at “Adaptive Strategies” depending on which form you look at. He’s also with the Defense department right now and he sits on the board of a company called Endgame. Endgame has received $17 million in Department of Defense contracts in the last 3 years alone.

Jeremy Andrews, Executive at Frontier Technologies or a “Consultant” at “FTI” depending on where you look, or which receipt he filled out, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts with the Department of Defense.

Palantir Technologies- if that name doesn’t ring a bell- it’s Trump Fan, Peter Thiel’s, data mining company. Palantir Technologies has received $14.5 million in contracts in this year alone. We’ve just learned from a whistle-blower that Palantir employees had access to the Facebook data that was improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the political data firm that worked on President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. And a member of the Business Development team at Palantir is one of my primary opponent’s donors.

Price Floyd has given to my opponent’s campaign multiple times, under different employer names and job titles, none of them his current one. Price Floyd was with the Department of State as the Director of Media Affairs, in which capacity he led the day-to-day relations with the media and developed and implemented media strategies to promote the foreign policy agenda of the Department. So in other words, he sold the American public on the wars we waged for oil and all the false pretenses — like weapons of mass destruction — that were used to justify the sending of the women and men of our armed forces halfway around the world to die, killing who knows how many innocent people, and spending trillions of dollars of our national treasure. Price Floyd is the person who had to sell America on this idea and he is a donor to my Democratic primary opponent’s campaign.

But here’s the really troubling one. My primary opponent has also received a campaign contribution from Tim Newberry from WCG. WCG actually stands for White Canvas Group, but it’s easy to see why Mr. Newberry might hide his company name. White Canvas Group is the company that Michael Flynn — yes THAT Michael Flynn — tapped to help with his work as a foreign agent — the work he did NOT disclose to the justice department. Tim Newberry, in addition to founding White Canvas, served as the chief executive of FIG Cyber, a unit of Flynn Intel Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.

This is who is funding my primary opponent’s campaign. And on Wednesday, May 16th, he’s headed back down to DC, back down to the swamp, back down to that revolving door crowd, to raise more money.

The question I ask again is — do rank and file Dems reading this care about where campaign funds come from — or is just anyone claiming to be a Democrat worthy of support?

If you would like to watch my breakdown of my primary opponent’s donor situation, you can check it out below. This is from a Dem Primary Debate on May 14th. It might not surprise you that my opponent refused to show up.



I look forward to reading your responses and perhaps earning your support for our people-powered, grassroots campaign that is being driven by small-dollar contributions from everyday people mostly from around our district and our state. If you would like to join us and make a contribution that fits within your budget, you can click this link and give to #Keady4Congress right now.



Peace,



Jim Keady

Candidate, United States House of Representatives, NJ04

#Keady4Congress

www.jimkeady.com