1000 New Leaders Pledge to Change Their Communities

A look at recent headlines will quickly reveal that some of the least-liked people in our country are those in the United States Congress. According to last week’s Gallup poll, only 13 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Congress.

But these leaders are people that we have chosen to represent us — and we keep re-electing them. In fact, the average member of the House of Representatives has been in office for nearly nine terms.

So why do we as a nation continue to re-elect people we feel are not serving the best interests of our country?

A glance at the current Congress shows that roughly 65 percent began their careers in elected office at the local level. This includes some of our nation’s biggest spenders.

We need new local leaders. But with recurring headlines like this: “Wanted: Candidates to serve on the Hanover Borough Council and the Hanover Board of Education,” newspapers and blogs nationwide this spring are revealing a serious lack of candidates at the local level. Not to mention qualified, principled candidates.

At American Majority, we put our heads together to solve this growing crisis. This week we reached a milestone with our New Leaders Project – a program designed to encourage groups and individuals across the country to step forward as new leaders serving their communities by running for elected office.

1,000 men and women across the nation have committed to either run for state or local office or encourage and support others to run. Twenty-six of those who have signed our New Leaders Pledge have already won and sixteen more are currently involved in an active campaign.

As new leaders emerge, we’re looking forward to seeing towns begin to operate on balanced budgets. We hope to see principled, responsible county leaders learn how to run successful campaigns, and use that knowledge to challenge the senator of their state who keeps voting for tax increases. We look forward to seeing new, qualified leadership available to challenge the big-spenders on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

But this will only happen if people step up and work toward that goal. Will you join us, and over a thousand others across our country as we work to find new leadership for our communities and our nation?