Response to the Illinois Green Party's State Candidate Questionnaire for the 2024 Election

      The following is my response to the Illinois Green Party's questionnaire to aid in the vetting of candidates for the Illinois General Assembly, the lower house of Illinois's state legislature. I am running for State Assemblyman from Illinois's 60th District, for the election to be held on Tuesday, November 5th, 2024.

     Question #1: Name?

     Answer #1: Joseph William Kopsick



     Question #2: Complete Address?

     Answer #2: 548 Archer Avenue, Apt. #3 / Apt. C / 3rd Floor; Waukegan, IL 60085-9407



     Question #3: Phone(s) and Email?

     Answer #3: Cell phone number is 618-751-3229; primary e-mail address is jwkopsick@gmail.com.



     Question #4: Office you wish to seek?

     Answer #4: Illinois State Representative from the 60th District (i.e., lower house / State Assembly).



     Question #5: Website?

     Answer #5: Personal website is www.joekopsick.com; blog is www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com.

     Question #6: Are you a member of the ILGP? [Yes or No]

     Answer #6: Yes (unless my membership has expired); I became a member in 2020 and received the Member Number 2020jjbk.

    Question #7: Do you support each of the Ten Key Values; Ecological Wisdom, Social Justice, Grassroots Democracy, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Community-Based Economics, Feminism, Respect for Diversity, Personal and Global Responsibility, and Future Focus? [Yes or No; If you answered "No", please elaborate]:

     Answer #7: Yes.

     Question #8: Do you meet all of the legal qualifications for this office? [Yes or No]

     Answer #8: Yes; I've been a citizen since birth, have lived in Illinois for most of my life including the last nine years, and am 37 years old (12 years older than the 25 years required).

     Question #9: What primary ballot (if any) did you pull in the last general primary?

     Answer #9: None; I did not vote in either major party's 2020 primary. Instead, I served as a delegate in the Green Party's nomination of Howie Hawkins, during its online convention that summer.

     [Author's Note / Correction (April 15th, 2024): I remembered this incorrectly when I filled the survey out. In 2020, I was a delegate for Hawkins, but prior to that, I did vote in that year's presidential primary. I voted for Andrew Yang in the Democratic primary in Illinois that year.]

     Question #10: Why do you wish to hold this office?

     Answer #10: I want to align ecology with economy, improving the financial outlook of the people of Illinois by building the state's economic future on sound environmental practices (including in terms of business, land management, and taxation). I want to help Illinoisans live healthier and easier lives, and foster a free political discourse that will promote public intellectualism and open debates, leading to a simplification of taxes and a simplification of government. I want to do this so that it will be easier for ordinary Americans to learn, understand, and teach the law to the next generation - as well as easier for people defend themselves in court, run for office, and propose new laws - and without depending on professional politicians who get re-elected by crafting complicated laws that only a small handful of people understand, and use to their own benefit.

     Question #11: Why do you feel you are qualified to run?

     Answer #11: Although I am not an attorney myself, I come from a family of lawyers, and have been keenly politically aware since the age of 13 (in 2000). In 2009, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Since college, I have posted and published more than 700 articles regarding my views on politics and related topics. I have studied health policy, the national debt, minimum wage laws, the powers of Congress, U.S.-Israeli relations, environmental taxation, and radical political theory more than most other topics. I have run for the U.S. House of Representatives four times; publishing original platforms each time, and receiving a total of 26 votes in my most successful campaign. I wrote portions of the policies regarding labor and homelessness, in the platform of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the Libertarian Party. I have consistently been in touch with libertarian and progressive activist groups since 2005. I have intimate knowledge regarding the corruption in my county; especially in terms of judicial and environmental corruption. I am extremely interested in politics, in identifying legal and political problems in precise and practical ways, and nothing excites me more than coming up with unique and original solutions to societal or economic problems. I hope to bring both imaginative solutions and intellect to the Green Party and to the political arena.

     Question #12: What are the most important issues you feel need to be addressed?

     Answer #12: 1. Child Protection. 2. Budgetary and Taxation Reform. 3. Land Management and Environmental Reform.

     Question #13: How many hours per week can you contribute to campaigning?

     Answer #13: Twenty to twenty-five hours per week.

    

     Question #14: Does your partner / family support your run for office? [Yes or No]

     Answer #14: I do not currently have a partner, and I am not in contact with my family.

     Question #15: Will you agree not to accept contributions from corporations or corporate PACs? [Yes or No]

     Answer #15: Yes, but I would like to urge the Green Party to consider allowing candidates to accept contributions from cooperative corporations.

     Question #16: Will you agree to share your donor and volunteer information with the ILGP? [Yes or No]

     Answer #16: Yes.

     Question #17: Do you have, or will you open a campaign bank account and set up an online donation method? [Yes or No]

     Answer #17: No; I do not have a campaign bank account yet, but I will open one if and when it becomes necessary.

     Question #18: Do you have, or will you have, a campaign manager? [Yes or No; If you have one now, please provide name and contact information.]

     Answer #19: No; I do not have a campaign manager yet; I will likely manage my campaign by myself (unless I begin to receive significant contributions, in which case I would designate a campaign manager and treasurer as soon as possible).

     Question #20: Do you have, or will you have, a campaign treasurer? [Yes or No; If you have one now, please provide name and contact information.]

     Answer #20: No; but I will hire a treasurer if I receive significant contributions and it becomes necessary.

     Question #21: How would you describe your current base of support?

     Answer #21: I would describe it as a small set of progressive and libertarian -leaning voters, whom have voted for me in my previous runs for office (especially my run for Illinois House of Representatives, from the 20th District, in 2020). I also have a potential base of support among the Greens in my county, whom I will meet as soon as I can obtain voter rolls and start holding chapter meetings.

     Question #22: Please describe any volunteer experience you have with the Green Party.

     Answer #22: I have not been formally involved with the Green Party much, but I have supported the party on and off since 2000 (when I was 13 years old, and supported Ralph Nader for president). I served as a delegate for Illinois in the 2020 nomination of Howie Hawkins for president. Briefly in the early 2010s I worked for the Liberty Tree Foundation for Democratic Revolution, founded by Ben Manski, former campaign manager for Jill Stein. I have written various articles, and created info-graphics, regarding what ideals and policies Greens have in common with Libertarians. Also, I attended formal and informal meetings of the Lake County Green Party chapter on-and-off between 2019 and 2023. But I have not yet volunteered for the Green Party directly, because I was only briefly involved with the party in 2020, and am still beginning to get involved. But I look forward to doing so.

     Question #23: Please briefly describe any other relevant experience you have had, including employment, working on other political campaigns, or other volunteer efforts.

     Answer #23: My work for Ben Manski's Liberty Tree Foundation only lasted one month, but I have always been resolved to learn as much about a job as possible, including the relationship of that job to the economy at large, and its context in politics and society. I learned that Liberty Tree's long-term goals included encouraging businesses to divest from the state Chamber of Commerce (which the organization views as essentially a business association disguising itself as a legitimate arm of government; i.e., a department of commerce), and instead invest in independent business associations. I figured out that those business associations should serve a social purpose, and be built and sustained in environmentally-sound manners, and that these activities are essential to increasing the power and wealth of working and poor people as well as ethical businesses. I have also worked as a private security guard (for the last seven years), using much of that time to learn about de-escalation tactics, the relationship of private security guards to the police, due process rights, and corruption in the courts. Additionally, I briefly worked as a legal secretary, and as a sanitation worker, and as a food service employee.

     Question #24: Have you ever worked for a political campaign? If so, please describe.

     Answer #24: Yes; I briefly helped distribute flyers for D.S.A. candidate Diana Burdette (the last person to challenge my opponent Rita Mayfield), but only for one day, and only in a volunteer capacity. Aside from that - and the time I served as a delegate for Hawkins in 2020 - I have never volunteered, nor worked in a paid position, for a political campaign, in any direct manner. I have never lived in a district in which I was eligible to vote for one of the few politicians I admire, at the same time that I was financially secure enough to travel as much as would have been necessary to serve such a campaign.

     Question #25: Have you previously run for and/or held a public elected office? If so, please describe.

     Answer #25: I have run for the U.S. House of Representatives four times before (in Wisconsin in 2012, then Oregon in 2014, then twice in Illinois), but I have not gotten elected. The highest number of votes I received was 26; when I ran in the 10th District of Illinois in 2016.

     Question #26: Please provide any other general information you feel may be appropriate.

     Answer #26:

     1. The anti-immigration fad that swept America this year must be stopped. The United States could easily fit another 100 million people before it passes the world average of people per square mile of land. The U.S. must recognize its history of at least 56 interventions into Latin American countries, and provide undocumented immigrants with safe opportunities to enter the country and declare asylum, and offer them reparations, not welfare. I hope to advocate for a decreased federal government involvement in the crafting of immigration policy, in terms of immigrant resettlement; making Illinois a Sanctuary State, with minimal or no federal government involvement, and minimal or no cooperation with the unconstitutional I.C.E. (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).
     2. Illinois was the first state to make it illegal for entities that contract with the State of Illinois to engage in Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions of the State of Israel. Since then, the world has seen the genocide which that state is committing in Gaza for what it really is. That is why I would like to see Illinois become the first state to repeal anti-B.D.S. laws.
     3. I would support legislation that would require the designers of any and all newly constructed residential housing to place sources of heat (i.e., furnaces, etc.) farther from the main entrance or fire escape than the bedrooms and common areas are. I believe that this policy will help decrease the number of people who die while failing to escape fires that break out in their homes. I would call it "Ethan's Law", in memory of Lake County Green Party chairman Ethan Winnett.

     Question #27: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Campaign Finance Reform and/or Election Reform.

     Answer #27: I would support all efforts to promulgate Ranked Choice Voting and jungle primaries. I would support efforts to provide for public funding of elections, provided that candidates with totalitarian leanings are specifically prohibited from receiving funds, and provided that people who do not vote have the opportunity to opt-out of paying taxes which fund those elections. I would also support efforts to fight gerrymandering through implementing a non-partisan method of redistricting, wherein districts would be drawn by computer algorithms rather than public officials, so that districts are as compact as possible. Also, I would support prohibiting any person from serving as Illinois Speaker of the House for longer than eight years.
     My views on Citizens United are provided below; in my response to Question #57 (the final question in this survey).

     Question #28: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: The Budget / Taxation, and Education Funding Reform.

     Answer #28:
     Regarding the Budget and Taxation:

     I will run on a modified version of my proposal "P.O.U.N.D." (Pay Off the U.S. National Debt), which will include using the bully pulpit to urge politicians at other levels of government to coordinate with each other to simplify taxes; by devoting each level of government to a specific type of taxation. This would help eliminate double taxation, and simplify the tax code, during a transition to split-rate taxation (wherein buildings are taxed at a lower rate than land), and eventually, the "Single Tax" system proposed by Henry George (called Georgism or Geoism).
     I would author legislative efforts instructing municipal governments create or expand vacant lots registry funds, transform them into community-owned not-for-profit Community Land Trusts, which would essentially levy tax liens against the owners of non-improved properties (for example, lands containing nothing but abandoned, unfinished construction projects), in order to acquire either parcels of land going unused, or else revenues paid as land rent.
     This process would overhaul the system of property taxation, by taxing non-improvements instead of productive activities. The imposition of land rent on those who would pay the most in this system - i.e., land hoarders, land polluters, and owners of vacant lots and other blighted parcels of land - should eventually help fund the acquisition of all common resources (i.e., land, air, water, and the electromagnetic spectrum) by the community, restoring the Commons without abolishing the market.
     Georgism would also reform the market by ridding it of the most unnatural monopoly of all - that of land - building a bridge between libertarian-socialist and libertarian-capitalist philosophy, and solving the environmental and property rights problems left unanswered by libertarian-capitalist philosophy. This policy will also help people afford to survive and thrive, by making it easier to afford land, and easier to improve their property without incurring higher taxes as a result of doing so.
     Moreover, the value of all the untaxed non-improved land in the country is approximately equal to the cost of all levels of government in the country combined, so the Single Tax could pay for all costs of government while income taxes and sales taxes are completely phased out. I would advocate for the coordination of policymaking across various levels of government, in order to arrange the paying-off of $34 trillion of national debt, over 34 years, by calling for a constitutional amendment which would require a $1 trillion per year budget surplus, while making changes to the tax code at home which will make it possible for municipal governments to fund themselves through the most local revenue sources possible, first, in order to reduce the chance that the municipality will need to reach out to a more distant level of government for financial assistance in order to achieve its aims.

     Regarding Education Funding Reform:

     I will propose legislative methods of protecting children from predaceous teachers and older students, through reforms to education, including separating high schools into physically separate Freshman/Sophomore and Junior/Senior campuses, and by cutting-off the flow of taxpayer money from parents to schools to teachers to teachers' unions to the attorneys of teachers accused of sex crimes against minors. I would propose a law that would allow people to opt-out of paying taxes towards schools if they are not parents, and instead propose taxing the propagandistic media outlets and arms of government which lie about our laws the most (so as to impose punitive taxation upon the people who make us stupid, and giving the funds to schools that will educate children). I will advocate for as little involvement in local education policy, by the U.S. Department of Education, as possible, including in terms of funding and choosing educational materials.

     Question #29: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Education Policy.

     Answer #29: I would propose legislation which would instruct school districts to physically separate Freshman/Sophomore campuses from Junior/Senior campuses; first in order to reduce predation of bigger and older students upon smaller and younger students, and second in order to provide a place where older students can learn potentially dangerous wood shop and auto shop skills, without risk to younger students. Parents whose kids want to take shop, and who sign waivers of the right to sue, would allow their children to use the equipment, and parent-teacher associations would be encouraged to provide maximal transparency into the safety standards of their shop facilities. I would urge schools to enact policies instructing school security guards to check restrooms regularly, given that restrooms are among the most common sites of violent and sexual attacks. I would support legislative efforts prohibiting teachers from discussing their personal romantic relationships prior to the fourth grade, provided that such a policy is administered fairly upon heterosexual and homosexual teachers. I would support legislation requiring social workers sit-in on parent-teacher conferences in order to try to detect if a student is being abused. I would also urge schools to teach students more philosophy, more about the history of the U.S. between 1776 and 1789, and more about political theory and the political spectrum, as well as different types of political and economic systems. Additionally, I will advocate for the improved protection of children from sexual abuse and trafficking; by continuing to expose several Lake County schools' complicity in cover-ups of teachers' sex crimes against minor students, by pushing for a full repeal of statutes of limitations on reporting sex crimes, by making laws regarding various ages of consent (i.e., driving, smoking, drinking, sex, marriage, contract, etc.) more uniform.



     Question #30: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Energy Policy.

     Answer #30: The Green Party cannot stay loyal to its decentralist principles unless it advocates for the State of Illinois to have more control over energy policy than the unconstitutional U.S. Department of Energy. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency / Department of Energy should "stand up, while the" U.S. Department of Energy "stands down"; the federal department should be abolished, saving Illinois money (since our state is more heavily relied-upon to fund the national government), which it could spend on increasing the budget of the state E.P.A. / Dept. of Energy.
     I believe that energy, environmental policy, land, and health policies are interrelated, and are among the most intrinsically local of issues, and therefore should be crafted and administered as locally as possible. If Illinois voters want taxes to be spent supporting the installation and use of "renewable energy sources" (i.e., solar panels, wind, hydroelectric power, etc.) then I would support that effort; however, I would caution that large energy providers (coal, oil) would cite the fact that renewable sources receive subsidies at all, to justify and excuse the prospect that they themselves subsidies. That may sound inconceivable, but it's not very different from what we have now. That's why I think it's best to repeal all subsidies from all forms of energy, in order to let consumers decide which energy sources are the best. Also, I would support a statewide ban on nuclear plants.

     Question #31: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Environmental Policy.

     Answer #31: I support the abolition of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Some Greens might not like the proposal of getting the national government out of energy and environment, but the collapse of Roe v. Wade shows us that courts, governors, presidents, and police (in this case, courts) each have their own ways of declining to continue to grant credence to the idea that a law should continue to be enforced. What's going to happen when those same officials stop believing that an entire department of the national government should keep existing? We have got to be ready. If we really believe that a topic should be the national government's exclusive jurisdiction - and not the states or the people - then we should support an amendment to the part of the Constitution which enumerates the powers of Congress, which says so. If the E.P.A. is dismantled, it will be for the same reason that the precedent in Roe stopped being enforced; because the people failed to codify it in the law.
     The essence of my environmental policy is that I will unite two proposals which will re-focus large sectors of political society, and the economy, onto the land and the environment. Those two proposals are Georgism (which I described at length above), and Bioregionalism. Bioregionalism will involve the re-settlement of borders, so as to conform to the watersheds (bounded by mountain ranges) which nature already gave us for free. Re-settling borders along bioregional lines could stand to improve many policy areas, including promoting diplomacy, solving border conflicts and water rights disputes, and reducing the cost of border creation.
     Additionally, I will expose my opponent Rita Mayfield's lack of skepticism regarding U.S. Representative Brad Schneider's acceptance of "campaign donations" (i.e., bribes) from Abbott, AbbVie, Baxter, and Medline; four medical-industrial firms that have wreaked environmental and financial havoc upon my home county of Lake. This will include legislative efforts which would require facilities emitting E.T.O. to use shorter smokestacks, consider safer chemicals, and relocate to lower-population areas (but only with the widespread consensus of the communities in question). I will also fight to expose the owners of at least 25 heavily polluted sites in my county, and expose AbbVie's promotion of cross-sex hormones through promotion of a study with dubious origins.



     Question #32: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Economic Policy.

     Answer #32: I believe that a truly free market is one which is free of artificial monopolies, and one in which supply and demand are allowed to meet - and achieve equilibrium - without interference from the state. That is why I would advocate for the repeal of all subsidies to all companies in the private market. I would support legislative reforms which would ensure that business owners and property developers fund the construction of any and all new roads leading to their properties, rather than the taxpayers. I would not support treating companies as "private" unless they receive zero in subsidies, no easy-credit loans (like P.P.P. loans, more than 90% of which were forgiven), and absolutely no taxpayer money whatsoever.
     I would support Georgist and Mutualist economic principles, taking an economically centrist position between libertarian socialism and libertarian capitalism, in order to foster monopoly-free markets that clear, such that excessive production does not result in waste, and in order to help low-income people find the resources they need before owning them becomes illegal or becomes theft from the producer. I would also support efforts to simplify taxes, in the manner which I described above.
     I believe that bringing shop classes back to high schools will help give the United States the economic and productive edge that it needs in order to compete industrially with Germany and China (which have higher numbers of young people in trade schools than America does). I will urge local libraries to purchase 3-D printers for public use, in order to promote public interest in Computer-Aided Design education.
     Finally, I will advocate for a constitutional amendment requiring the paying-off of $34 trillion in national debt, by paying it off one trillion dollars per year, for 34 years (through mandating a one-trillion-dollar surplus budget whenever the federal government is in more than one trillion dollars of debt).



     Question #33: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Crime and Criminal Justice (including drug policy and gun violence).

     Answer #33: I would urge federal officials to remove cannabis / marijuana from Schedule I. As for the state level, I would repeal the law that limits people to growing six plants, replace it with a law that allows people to grow as many plants as they like, and advocate state nullification of federal drug scheduling laws. The state should craft and enforce its own drug policy. I would support efforts to make recreational use of cannabis legal for all adults, and support the release of political prisoners as well as people convicted of weapons and drug charges which did not involve the use of violence or fraud against others. I would not favor the continued government sponsorship of cannabis product dispensaries; as I believe the state's onerous taxes makes it impossible for the state to sustainably compete against unlicensed providers. I would propose funding a new investigation into torture of inmates by Chicago police officers. I would support efforts to repeal statutes of limitation on the reporting of crimes. I would sponsor legislation which would punish police officers for intentionally transporting arrestees long distances, and for unjustly depriving arrestees of medications. I will support the repeal of qualified immunity laws, while exposing Illinois law enforcement's exploitation of the Model Penal Code to get away with killing arrestees without cause. I will author legislation proposing an explicit ban on police officers having sex while on duty.

     Question #34: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Health Care.

     Answer #34: I support bodily autonomy. I would support legislation which would prohibit companies from mandating vaccination, or certain vaccines, as a condition of employment, unless and until such time as the companies in question agree to give up all subsidies and other taxpayer funds which they may be receiving. Companies should respect their employees' privacy, by respecting the doctor-patient confidentiality guaranteed under H.I.P.A.A..
     I would not support any efforts to ban the use of any particular vaccine, but I would advocate for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration, on the grounds that one-third of the medications it has approved, bear black-box warning labels, because they have caused deaths. I'd support legislation to the effect that no firm, except a hospital or doctor's office, should be allowed to mandate the wearing of masks as a condition of entry, unless they give up all public funding. And exemptions should be made, even in hospitals, for people for whom wearing masks would be adverse to their health (for example, people with asthma). 
     Additionally, I will expose the corruption of the medical device industry in Lake County, including Abbott's creating tests with false-positives, by failing to enforce physical distancing and prohibitions on face-touching at their former Covid test manufacturing facilities.
     Finally, I would author legislation intended to ban the use of "rebirthing" and "breath-work" techniques as therapy within the State of Illinois, due to the high risk that these techniques could lead to suffocation or death.

     Question #35: Please briefly describe your position on the following issue: Transportation.

     Answer #35: I would support efforts to make our state's toll booths operational again. Few people like toll roads, but on the other hand, not everybody can easily afford an iPass. The downside of not getting an iPass is paying fees for going through open-road tolling without one. But I believe that people will pay the tolls, as long as you give them several easy ways to do it. We need more options regarding how to pay road tolls, not less.

     I would support legislation that would require roads leading to new businesses, to be paid for by owners and developers, rather than by taxpayers who may never work for those businesses nor buy from them.

     I would propose a law that would require the state Department of Transportation to compensate drivers for vehicle damage costs they incur from damage by potholes. I would reject all legislation which would give in-state, Illinois-based road contractors any unfair edge against out-of-state bidders; already being set-up close-by is already enough of a natural advantage.

     Finally, I would suggest ten or fifteen new additions to the highways around Chicago, in order to alleviate the pressure of traffic, and to provide drivers with several new, more direct ways to get where they're going.

     Question #36: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Equal Rights and Opportunities for All, Regardless of Racial or National Identity, Color, Sex, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #36:
     Other. Equal rights, for everyone, regardless of the qualities mentioned above, is worth protecting; and especially so is the need to afford each individual the equal protection of the law (and due process). And equal opportunities are important, in order to provide for socio-economic mobility. But equal opportunity does not mean the opportunity to access private places where one's presence is not welcome. The advantage which pluralistic values have over the values associated with multi-culturalism (i.e., the values mentioned in the question), is that pluralism aims to preserve uniqueness - of the individual, and of the group - while multi-culturalism places more emphasis on integration, and getting everybody to come together, even if they might not necessarily like each other.

     The Equal Rights Amendment may sound like a good idea, but its language is too vague. Do we really want absolutely no discrimination on the basis of sex? What does "sex" even mean in this context? The law is so short that it is unclear whether this refers to biological sex, gender, sexual orientation, or possibly even the physical act of sex. There is no telling how damaging the E.R.A. could become, if interpreted improperly.

     Biological females - i.e., people who were born female; with ovaries, and XX chromosomes (including people with sex chromosome abnormalities bearing some male characteristics but not so that the male characteristics outnumber the female characteristics at birth - have the right to deny permission to enter, to people who identify as female but do not share those biological factors. I do not support the mandatory checking of identification cards (let alone genitalia) at bathroom entrances, but wherever there is a question as to whether someone is welcome in a restroom, one or more additional options should be available to them (and pointed out). Comfort in a public restroom should be unanimous, or else a public disturbance is likely occurring.

     I believe that athletes, including high school students, should have the right to choose, on an individual basis, whether the games they play in, and locker rooms they change in, are segregated by sex or gender or both, or not. Increased prevalence of single-person restroom stalls, single-person shower rooms, and clearly-labeled unisex facilities, will help reduce the strain and discomfort on cisgender males, cisgender females, and non-binary-identifying people alike.

     Changing the topic to race: Whites-only clubs should not receive any form of public assistance whatsoever - not even public utilities - and businesses suspected of racial discrimination should not receive support from chambers of commerce. Segregation is wrong, and it should not be publicly-supported. But at the same time, minorities and other groups needing special protections should be able to expect safety and comfort. That is why I believe that all public entities offering accommodations to citizens should offer separate restrooms for males, females, and people identifying as neither or both; and with plenty of single-person stalls available. Whether restrooms should be sexually segregated, should be decided upon at the most local level possible, with who may enter clearly labeled at the entrance, and the owner of the property being in agreement with patrons regarding what the policy should be. And all heavily integrated places should be monitored by security guards and/or police, in order to prevent episodes of violence which could result from the coming together of people from opposing ideological and racial backgrounds.

     I would not support any efforts to remove "father" and "mother" from legislation, nor from birth certificates. In cases in which a step-parent or adoptive parent or sperm or egg donor or surrogate exists - or a parent is trans - more names should be added to the birth certificate, not less. Nobody who played any significant role in the creation or adoption of the child should be left off the document. I would reject any legislation which would infringe on the rights of same-sex-oriented couples - and couples in which one or both partner(s) is(/are) transgender - to marry, have children, and adopt children.

     Question #37: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Legal Right to Choose Abortion. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

    Answer #37: Support, but people with a religious or other conscientious objection to abortion - or to paying for abortion - should be free to file exemptions. And abortion patients should be made aware of, and put in contact with, networks that supply abortions through voluntary donations. Abortion should be legal, but not taxpayer-funded. I believe that adopting such a policy will reduce political polarization, through de-radicalizing pro-life voters.



          Question #38: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: The proposed "LaSalle Street Tax", imposing a small fee on speculative trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Board Options Exchange, and Board of Trade. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #38: Support. The LaSalle Street Tax is marketed as a "sales tax", and while I support phasing-out sales taxes (and replacing them with Land Value Taxes), I will admit that speculators should be taxed, because of the wealth of government support that financial firms receive (easy-credit loans and heavy security protection, for example). I would support this tax until such time as enough municipalities implement Land Value Taxation that the LaSalle Street Tax will no longer be needed, and it should be imposed on firms with the condition that they may only cease paying the tax when they can prove that they receive absolutely zero from the taxpayers.



          Question #39: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: The "People and Planet First Budget" proposed by Fair Economy Illinois, or similar budgetary priorities. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #39: Support. I would be interested in reading more specifics about the legislative proposals that Fair Economy Illinois supports, but in general, I do support efforts to make jobs and businesses more environmentally sustainable, and efforts to align ecology with economy.



     Question #40: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: A constitutional amendment or other means of creating a graduated income tax or its equivalent in Illinois. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #40: Oppose. I do not support a graduated income tax - i.e., the taxation of earned individual income from wages - for the reasons I have provided below; in the section on whether to fund schools through a progressive tax. But I do support taxation proposals which will achieve a lot of the same effects and goals of progressive taxation, but without actually engaging in progressive taxation or redistribution of income.




          Question #41: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Ending Illinois's extreme reliance on local property taxes for school funding; increasing state funding for education from progressive taxation. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #41: Support (regarding ending reliance on property taxes); Other (regarding progressive taxation).
     Since individuals and workers receive much less aid from the government than companies do, I would support taxing businesses for as long as they receive taxpayer assistance. And I would replace property taxes (which are assessed in proportion to property value) with Land Value Taxes (which tax land use only if its productive potential is being wasted), as a way to fully fund our local governments, so that municipalities can fund schools without resorting to taxing income or sales.
     I don't support progressive taxation of income because I don't believe it's necessary or proper to tax income in the first place, but the tax regime I support would be effectively progressive, because those who hoard land the most, and those who get the most of their money from the taxpayers, would be among the types of people who would pay the most in taxes. And low-income people would experience the effect of being free to develop their property as they see fit, provided that they do not disrupt the ground underneath.
     Meanwhile, mineral resource extraction companies would be required to compensate the community for potential negative aftereffects on the environment before disasters happen (if they happen), not if and only after they occur. They would not be free to "skip town with the money". The more jurisdictions that practice L.V.T., the less tax havens there will be. Each municipality should be free to decide whether to devote revenues collected from mining companies toward the creation of a universal basic income guarantee or citizens' permanent fund. It would be especially risk-free to experiment with creating a U.B.I. if and when the government in question is free of debt.
     That is how Land Value Taxation would create the feeling of redistribution without actually committing any illegal or unwarranted takings of private property for public use without just compensation; nobody will have their fortunes taxed away unless they made their money off the taxpayer, or polluted in order to get rich, or enjoy massive land wealth through the assistance of public protections.



     Question #42: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Ending school vouchers and other privatization schemes in education. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #42: Support. I oppose school vouchers because taxpayer funds going towards parochial schools borders on government establishment of religion. But at the same time, government-run "secular" schools should do less to propagandize and brainwash students into trusting their government too much. People who don't have children should be allowed to opt-out of taxes which go towards schools, and I would support repealing the law requiring children age six and older to attend public school, but aside from those policies, I wouldn't support any attempts to privatize schools.




          Question #43: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: "Opting out" of federal programs that require frequent testing as a yardstick for educational progress and "teaching to the test". [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #43: Other. The State of Illinois should craft its own educational standards, in a way that is superior to federal standards; and the federal Department of Education should be abolished. "Opting-out" of federal standards is, in fact, the only way that Illinois can have better educational standards than the federal government's; because federal standards are a double-edged sword. The same law that pulls half of the states up, drags the other half of the states down. During the George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger administrations, the federal government prevented California from having better vehicle emissions standards than the federal government. If that can happen to emissions standards, why couldn't it happen to educational standards?
     Also: Less emphasis should be placed on "teaching to the test", and multiple-choice format questions; and more emphasis should be placed on comprehending the answer, and why it is the correct answer, in a profound (or at least complete) way.



     Question #44: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Support for clean energy, sustainable transportation, and other strategies to combat global climate change. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #44: Support.



          Question #45: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: A ban on fracking and new oil or gas pipelines in Illinois. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #45: Support.



     Question #46: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Phasing out of coal-fired plants and nuclear power in Illinois. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #46: Support.



          Question #47: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Decriminalization of most drug offenses; treating drug abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal problem. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #47: Support.



     Question #48: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Reforming the criminal justice system to focus on rehabilitation, restorative justice, education and teaching living and job skills, not punishment and "incapacitation". [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #48: Support, in regards to people convicted of minor crimes. But people convicted of sex crimes, murder, and other violent crimes should be subjected to home confinement, and close monitoring at the very least. Some criminals commit crimes out of desperation, but not all; and I don't believe that all criminals can be rehabilitated.

          Question #49: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Protecting public workers' pensions and rights to union representation. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #49: Support. But I would also urge union members to educate themselves about the benefits of M.O.N.M.U.s (Members-Only Non-Majority Unions), because I believe M.O.N.M.U.s help unions come into existence more easily, and increase union activity by allowing multiple unions to exist at a workplace at the same time.



     Question #50: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Tuition-free higher education at public colleges and universities. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #50: Support.



          Question #51: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Enacting equal petition signature requirements for all political parties or independent candidates and reduced referenda petition signature requirements to appear on the ballot. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #51: Support.



     Question #52: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Ranked Choice or Instant Runoff Voting. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #52: Yes, as well as jungle primaries.



          Question #53: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Protecting the integrity of the vote by requiring paper ballots that can be recounted by hand. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #53: Support. At least two different forms of accounting for the vote should be kept, and available for public review.



     Question #54: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Protecting the public sector in Illinois from expansion of privatization and "public/private partnership" schemes. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #54: I do not believe that "public-private partnerships" or government-sponsored enterprises should receive public funding, much less exist in the first place. Government should stay out of economic affairs, and refrain from picking winners and losers in the marketplace; except where absolutely necessary to punish fraud against financial integrity, and to punish crimes against the health and safety of workers and land and nature.
     The only form of "privatization" that I support, is not handing public resources over for management by private actors; but rather, "radical privatization", in which the government "gets out" of a particular market, industry, sector of the economy, or business racket, and stops intervening in it. I believe that the licensing of drivers is a great example of something that could be made private, or at least, an industry in which more competition against government could be had. After all, Illinois already has licensing through both the Secretary of State's office and privately-run "Departments of Motor Vehicles". And there's no reason why three or four driver-licensing agencies could not operate at the same time, and compete against each other for legitimacy and reputation. As long as traffic police are informed as to the names of such agencies, and agencies that give too many licenses to too many bad drivers are allowed to go bankrupt and go out of business, then the licensing of drivers could easily become a market function. Thus, this policy could stand to save the state money, in case it decides to get out of the driver licensing industry some day. Perhaps car insurance companies, or firms that establish industrial safety standards, could get into the driver licensing business; we will never know until the state backs away from the management of driver safety, and driver safety becomes as de-politicized an issue as possible.
     Of course, this would only work once we establish a truly free market; and again, a market is made unfree by the presence of artificial monopolies, and of firms that receive taxpayer funds. They distort people's and firms' ability to calculate prices, and create disequilibrium in the relationship between supply and demand (resulting in a variety of problems, including but not limited to shortages and supply chain interruptions). Most if not all artificial monopolies exist because the government funded and created them; so they could justifiably be taxed, and heavily.
     I support free, open markets, and the right of all people to engage in boycotts and strikes - and in forming and joining and leaving unions freely - on an individual basis, when and as they see fit, without having to beg the government for permission, or hire a lobbyist in order to do so legally. I would support reforms to the economy that would treat employers and employees, lenders and borrowers, and profit-oriented and non-profit-oriented companies, as equally and fairly as possible. I believe that cooperatives, social purpose enterprises, and some non-profits, are better modes of organizing firms than less sustainable for-profit firms which are focused on immediate profits and on obtaining unfair legal insulation against fair competition.
     I will support reforms which leave people free to voluntarily cooperate and voluntarily compete.
     
     
     

          Question #55: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: Stronger regulation or restriction on the use or misuse of T.I.F. districts and "free enterprise zones". [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #55: Support. I do not support free enterprise zones; first, because they administer sales taxes unfairly; second, because I don't support sales taxes in the first place; and third, because they allow companies to be exempt from paying state utility taxes. Sales taxes, income taxes, and property taxes should all be replaced with taxes on non-improvement of land as soon as possible, but until that time, sales taxes should be levied against all companies fairly - without regard as to how many people they employ - unless the company in question receives absolutely zero public funds.
     I am just finding out about T.I.F. (Tax Increment Funding) districts; I gather that the misuse of them can involve improving areas that aren't really as blighted as some people want to pretend like they are. I am new to this topic, and I need to know more about the issue, but I would support the use of T.I.F. districts to improve areas that are truly blighted. Based on what I'm reading on the subject, it sounds like T.I.F. districts could perform a lot of the same essential functions as could expanded vacant lots registry funds, if only they were used as intended. I will reach out to the Green Party, and/or other knowledgeable actors who can educate me, for further information on T.I.F.s. I would cautiously support their use, if I could ensure that they could be used for good, and operated in a way that would make it easier to implement Georgist solutions to the problem of unused and vacant and blighted lands.



     Question #56: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: "Improved Medicare for All" Single-Payer or Publicly Funded Universal Health Care System. [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #56: Support; but people should be free to avoid taxes that pay for medically unnecessary and elective procedures to which they have a religious or other conscientious objection. Most or all of the taxes which are spent on paying for the people's medical care, should be paid for by the biggest polluters.



          Question #57: Please provide short answers, and any elaboration you think is needed on these issues.: A constitutional amendment providing that corporations do not enjoy the same rights as people and that money is not protected "speech". [Support, Oppose, or Other]

     Answer #57: Support.
     However, I am not as pessimistic about the Citizens United decision as are most people I know; and since I know it's not a common viewpoint, I will provide a total of eight reasons.
     1) The decision did not "define money as speech"; it merely found that the donation of money is a method of political speech (and I believe that it is, and that free giving is part of our wider right to self-expression).
     2) the decision did not establish that corporations are people; it merely affirmed that corporations are composed of people, and have many of the same rights as people.
     3) Big money in politics did not begin with Citizens United v. F.E.C..
     4) The ruling affords the same freedom to corporations to donate funds, as it does to labor unions.
     5) The decision did not legalize unlimited political donations, because foreign corporations and foreign persons cannot legally donate (although I admit that this needs to be enforced more thoroughly).
     6) So-called "dark money" is not as disruptive to the political process as we might think, because anonymity of donors could stand to help keep them safe from being subjected to retributive violence as the result of their political views.
     7) The law that Citizens United partially invalidated - the McCain-Feingold Act - limited P.A.C.s from broadcasting information critical of candidates during the month prior to the election, in an intentional legislative limitation upon our freedom of speech, by Congress; and at the time during which the public most needs to know crucial information about the potential new leader(s) of the country (i.e., the season of "October Surprises").
     8) The unlimited size and scope of the federal government is much more responsible for the rise of money in politics than Citizens has been; we must return control over education, health, and environmental and land policy back to the State of Illinois, and to the most local authority which is competent to handle it, in order to make it less profitable to engage in corrupt schemes to grow the national government, and to stay true to the Green Party's principles of decentralization.
     While many view Citizens United as problematic, I do not see it as one of the country's biggest problems.
     However, I would support an amendment that would specify that corporations and people have distinct and different sets of rights and responsibilities, going forward. Additionally, I would support efforts to verify, at the bare minimum, that donors are not from foreign countries. I would support the right of individual donors to remain anonymous, if they so choose; but not the right of businesses to do the same, nor people who enriched themselves at taxpayer expense.

     

Written on March 18th, 2024.

Edited, expanded, and completed on March 19th, 2024.

Originally published to this blog
under the title
"Response to the Illinois Green Party's State Candidate Questionnaire"
on March 18th, 2024.

Submitted to the Illinois Green Party
for consideration on the day of its primary;
Tuesday, March 19th, 2024.

Photos Added on April 15th, 2024.