A note about Granny D

I wanted to say a few words about Doris "Granny D" Haddock, who passed away on March 9th at the age of 100 years old.   I consider her an American hero. 

I first heard about "Granny D" when she began her walk across the United States, at the age of 88, to raise awareness about campaign finance reform.  She started here in Pasadena on January 1, 1999 and walked some 3200 miles to Washington, D.C,  arriving on February 29, 2000.  She was 90 years old when she finished.  

Now I enjoy walking.  I really do.  And I feel pretty good about myself when I walk a mile to the grocery store rather than driving.  Granny D walked across the entire country. She covered about ten miles a day for 14 months.  She celebrated two birthdays along the way.   She did it because she wanted to draw attention to the issue of money in politics.  She was wildly successful in garnering media attention to the issue, and yet, money still overwhelms the voices of average citizens.  And the recent Citizen United Supreme Court ruling, which struck down the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, has opened the floodgates by allowing corporations to directly fund political candidates. 

Nation Magazine contributor John Nichols quoted Granny D responding to the Citizen United ruling in his article "Mourn Granny D.; Then Organize for Clean Politics":

When I was a young woman, my husband and I were having dinner at the Dundee home of a friend, Max Foster, when a young couple rushed through the door breathless to say that they had accidentally burned down Max's guest cabin, down by the river.

Max stood up from his meal. He set his napkin down. He smiled at the young couple and he said,

"Thank goodness. You have done me a great favor, and you don't even know it. We have been wanting to completely redo that old place, and now it will be a clean start. It will be better than ever the next time you come to stay."

Well, I guess the Supreme Court has burned down our little house, but, truth be told, it was pretty drafty anyway. We had not really solved the problem of too much money in politics. Not hardly. And now we have an opportunity to start clean and build a system of reforms that really will do the trick.

I think one of the wings of our new house will be the public financing of election campaigns. I think another wing will be a dramatic expansion of our conflict of interest and bribery laws. I think all of us, left, right and middle, will enjoy living there without the special interests stealing us blind any more. I intend to be around long enough to see this new place built.

Her response, which was given at a party honoring her 100th birthday, recognizes the long meandering path that progress often takes, even as we hope for change quickly.   But her remarks also serve, at least to me, as a reminder that in this democracy, each of us is called to participate.   That doesn't mean we must all run for United States Senate, as Granny D did in New Hampshire, when she was 94.  But I believe it does mean we are called to use our voice and stand up for what we believe, as Granny D did, not only about Finance reform, but also on a wide range of issues facing our citizens.