Scott Neuman signing the “Change the Rules” Pledge
We’re back from Independence Mall in Philadelphia. If you have an interest in the Constitution, this is the place to visit. Parking is expensive but easy to find and park. You’ll see the Liberty Bell, you’ll hear the bell tower on the hour at Independence Hall, you’ll find the grounds and the park rangers going out of their way to be helpful. You’ll see people from around the world coming to the birth place of personal freedom and representation. Something many of them back home don’t have. Being part of the resurrected Democratic-Republican Party, all the candidates were there to meet people searching for our history and for an understand of basic freedom.
On site were Eugene La Vergne who is running for NJ Senate and Frederick La Vergne who is running for the House in the 3rd District, Len Marshall who is running for the House in the 4th District, myself, Scott Neuman and Tracy Ciprioni running for Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders were all on the Mall (by permit) showing off our reasons on why Article the First of the Bill of Rights is ratified. The park rangers, as you’d assume were knowledge about Article the First and all agreed it had ratified based on the information we’d provided to the courts. The day before, the case La Vergne Vs Bryson Docket 12-1171 was heard. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals was right across the street from where we were. The court didn’t have the attorneys or Eugene come down, rather they used the court briefs to decide the case with an answer coming in 60 days or less, (after this years election). Two things will happen. They’ll complete agree with us and send us back to Trenton. They’ll disagree with us and we’ll appeal to the Supreme Court. Either way, this amendment was self ratifying when Eugene and his team found the Connecticut ratification paperwork that stated they said yes to Article the First. 80% of the states as of 1792 ratified this article into constitutional law. What’s amazing about Constitutional law is that notifying Congress isn’t required for an amendment to be ratified. Notice is not required. If it was, we might never have had our 11th amendment which was also passed but took three years for Congress to know it was passed. No one asked. It’s the same here. If someone had asked Connecticut if they’d passed Article the First, someone would have said yes, but no one ever asked, other than Eugene La Vergne is.
While the candidates were there at Independence Mall, we also signed a Pledge. The pledge is called the “Change the Rules” pledge. It’s quite simple in what it does. Recently, we’ve all heard about Citizens United, where the Supreme Court gave Corporations the right to donate as much money as they deemed to PAC committees to be used to try to swing the election one way or another. Corporations were given personhood. Why anyone would think corporations were people leaves a lot of scratching our heads. The issue of course is that big money can buy big swing votes from Senators, Presidents and Congressmen. Our pledge takes that away without a Constitutional Amendment that no one thinks will pass. The pledge required by anyone running for Congress or the Senate says basically, if you take money from a PAC, you agree not to join a committee that is directly affected by the business you took money from or you agree to abstain from participating in that committee or not even join that committee. You can vote on the floor for or against a bill that comes to the floor as long as you have no input in its creation. Simple! If you don’t sign the pledge, you basically shoot yourself in the foot. We all signed this pledge on this date in Independence Mall in full view of Independence Hall and marching Revolutionary Soldiers that are part of the Sons of the American Revolution. We also handed out hundreds of examples of the pledge form asking people to sign them and either return them to us or send them on to their Representatives and Senators.
