State of CaliforniaCandidate for Secretary of State

C. T. Weber of Sacramento was elected as Peace and Freedom Party of California State Chair three times (1972-1974, 1996-1998, 2010-2012), organized its State Conventions in 1970, 1974, 1992 and the National Convention in 1971; and currently serves as its Legislative Committee Chair.

C. T. Weber was a long time union organizer, steward, and elected leader (including four two-year terms on the powerful California State Employees Association (CSEA), Board of Directors. As Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, District Labor Council 784 president, he served on the SEIU Local 1000 State Council and was a delegate to the Sacramento Central Labor Council. Currently, he continues to serve as a delegate to the Sacramento Central Labor Council representing California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA). He is also the Director of Public Relations for the Retired Public Employees Association (RPEA).

C. T. Weber has a Bachelor’s degree in History and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from California State University, Long Beach. He served three years on the Joint Legislative Committee for Revision of the California Elections Code, Advisory Committee and three years on the California Coastal Commission, Long Beach Advisory Committee. In addition, he has been active in the peace, electoral reform, and social, economic and environmental justice movements for over 50 years.

C. T. Weber co-founded several alternative institutions including the Long Beach Free Clinic, a soup kitchen and free store for the unemployed and a crash pad for the homeless. He is retired from the State of California where he worked as a Special Agent and a Government Analyst.

Because I am running for California Secretary of State, tthe chief elections official in the state, I will limit my views to voting and democratic ideas.

Do you ever feel like your vote just doesn’t count? Like no one in government is paying attention to you and your issues? Well, you’re not alone. For years polls have shown that large majorities of people want a third party. Yet it hasn’t happened.  Do you wondered why?

Well, our election systems give illusions of democracy but election laws, private money and mainstream corporate media prevents representation for many of us.

Most of our election are held in districts where only one person can win and which are gerrymandered to be one party districts. Very few districts are competitive. By contrast, most democratic republics elect several legislators from each district using some form of Proportional Representation (PR) where parties and independent candidates are elected in proportion to the number of votes received. Using the most popular form of PR, we could simply vote for the party or independent candidate of our choice. If a party’s candidates get most of the votes that party’s candidates get most of the seats, not all of them; and if a party or independent candidate gets 10% of the vote then that party or independent candidate gets 10% of the seats rather than none of them. That way the majority is protected and minorities get voice and representation. If fact, we can save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars by eliminating the primary and use PR to elect those running for legislative and representative seats in the general election.

Currently, our choices have been reduced to only two candidates on the general election ballot. This makes the smaller alternative parties less visible. Let’s have more choices on the general election ballot by replacing top two with proportional representation.

We must remove the negative influence of private money by having a clean money type of equal public funding. Encourage more candidates by eliminating filing fees or at least providing a reasonable alternative to them by drastically reducing the number of signatures in lieu of filing fees. The Voters Information Guide must provide us with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions. Provide future candidates statements without cost, as was done in the past. Eliminate the current fees of up to $6,250.

The integrity of our elections is being questioned. The voting systems are privately owned and the content is restricted. In addition, the systems are subject to hacking. To protect our security and encourage transparenty, we need to have publicly owned, open source paper ballot voting systems.