Amid final vote counting, David Levitt has moved into 2nd place in San Francisco, in California's US Senate primary race.

Statewide it is clear the runner up will be party-endorsed Republican Elizabeth Emken, the best funded candidate after incumbent Senator Feinstein.

However in San Francisco, computer technologist Dr. David Levitt has received more votes than any Republican, third party candidate, or Democrat other than Senator Feinstein - more votes than any of her 22 other opponents, including much better funded and more experienced candidates.  Levitt has received more than 71,000 votes statewide.

"Throughout this primary race, Senator Feinstein has consistently refused to participate in debates or to answer questions posed by citizens and opponents in public forums and online, even on her own Facebook page and Twitter feed," explains Dr. Levitt.  "Instead she has been focussed on petitioning the Federal Election Commission in hope of obtaining an even greater financial advantage over her opponents.  This just one aspect of what is widely known as 'the corrupting influence of money in politics,' and it has been a shame to see Senator Feinstein continue to embrace it."

"The policy questions Senator Feinstein has refused to address are more urgent than ever - particularly when just last week, the New York Times, CIA experts and others confirmed that the drone and secrecy policies she has embraced as Intelligence Committee Chair are helping and even driving Al Qaeda recruiting efforts.  The Senator's secretive national security decisions are making America less safe.  Independent of any election process, millions of Americans need answers to those questions and changes to those policies," says Dr. Levitt.

Levitt has proposed alternative policies that can make Al Qaeda recruiting harder rather than easier.  These include:

• apologies and compensation, similar to Canada's apology, to Maher Arar, the innocent engineer whom the US rendered to Syria
• accountability for NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who has overseen warrantless surveillance of thousands of Muslims in the New York area
• justice and transparency for abused Guantanamo prisoners who have never been found guilty of any terrorist activity

These alternatives to violence will exist long after the elections are over.

We just discovered voters from across California recommending Levitt for US Senate at ProgressiveBallot.org!  If you're a California voter, please visit the site and weigh in.  First check out these passionate, eloquent voters.

“David Levitt is anti-prohibition and thus is for ending the U.S.'s failed and destructive "War on Drugs." At the same time, he supports Women's right to choose, ending the war in Afghanistan, and, in general, supports human rights and freedom issues as described in our Bill of Rights. It's very rare for a candidate to be consistent on freedom issues. David Levitt is. ” —Clairice V., Encino

“Smart Activist Progressive”—Matt F., San Diego

“He is incredibly articulate, well educated (PhD from MIT), and is committed to clarity and reason. He's behind ending the wars and other key progressive ideas, as compared to Feinstein who is a corporate tool.”—Anant S., Berkeley

“He is a progressive Democrat. With the new open primary we can have two Democrats on the ballot in November. Feinstein is a lock to make the November ballot. Levitt gives us a progressive alternative. He will speak for us and not the corporations.”—Geo. M., Long Beach

“He supports the legalization of marijuana, does not support the war in Afghanistan, wants the country to provide Medicare for everyone, and supports the Occupy movement.  He wants to take corporations out of politics.”—Tabitha., San Diego 

“PhD in Science from MIT and Silicon Valley innovator. We need scientists in government to meet the tech challenges we face.”—Shan R., Castro Valley

“Feinstein is going to get on the ballot this fall, and I think it'd be amazing to have a more progressive candidate to push the debate. I like Levitt and he has single payer healthcare as one of his top 3 items on his platform, so he's my choice and i think he might be the most likely to win #2” —Kendra J., San Francisco

“David Levitt understands how well-educated citizens are needed to protect our democracy from corporate influence.” —Sandy P., Pleasanton

“Of all the democrats on the ballot, he has shown explicit support for all social/fiscal issues important to progressives. Also, he has an incredibly professional website and seems like he could potentially win the race. We NEED to get that fake progressive (Feinstein) out of office!”
—Perry D., Berkeley

“I like where he stands on just about every issue. He seems honest, up front, and gregarious. In contrast, I've never been fond of many of Feinstein's positions.”—Ferdinanda F., Vallejo

“Read up on his issues. He's a real progressive, not like PIPA-supporting Feinstein.”  —Eric T., San Diego

“We need a younger, more progressive voice in the Senate.”—Sheldon R., Calabasas

“I trust him” —Michael R., Rancho Cordova 

“Dianne Feinstein is a corporate Democrat who needs a wake-up call, David Levitt is a true progressive and could actually serve if elected. He's not just a protest candidate.”  —Deborah G., Los Gatos

“He presents a logical and positive approach to problem-solving that's far more progressive than Feinstein yet far less divisive than many of the other candidates.” 

“Supports marriage equality, legalization and regulation of marijuana, ending the war in Afghanistan and science!"”—Benjamin E., Rio Linda

“From what I have seen - he will be good for California - and the nation.”   —Robin J., Cathedral City

Attending an amazing California Unity Conference in Sacramento, sponsored by a coalition of groups that range from California NORML to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, led by Americans for Safe Access to medical cannabis.

Hundreds of California legislators, activists, patients, care givers, workers and business owners are standing up for rights California passed 16 years ago with Prop 215, Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana, which have yet to be fully implemented.

AB 2312 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) will create a board to develop statewide standards for medical cannabis, limit taxation to 2.5%, and make banning patients cooperatives and collectives harder. Click here to learn more about the bill and what you can do to get it adopted!

SB 1182 by Senator Mark Leno (D-SF) will add patients' medical cannabis cooperatives, collectives, and other associations to the list of those protected by the Medical Marijuana Program Act (SB 420). This will help prevent unnecessary harrassment, arrests, or prosecutions in cities and counties statewide.

Everyone here is excited about the Levitt 2012 for US Senate campaign because efforts at safe access to medical cannabis in California have been stymied by a failure of leadership in the US Senate for the past 16 years.

In this video US Senate candidate David Levitt is welcomed enthusiastically by the patient and activist community at an Americans for Safe Access lobby training day.

Sample and Absentee Ballots Arrive for the June 5th Primary!

Most of California has just received sample ballots for the June 5th primary election.

And every one of them has on it:

DAVID ALEX LEVITT, Party Preference: DEM
  Computer Scientist/Engineer

Pulled an absentee ballot out of the mailbox?  Go ahead and mark David Levitt now!

First find me on your ballot among 24 candidates -- it's laid out differently but I always seem to be sandwiched between Libertarian Lightfoot and Republican birther Orly Taitz.  (Below the fold: the full Sonoma County ballot list with all 24 Senate candidates.) 

Waiting till June 5th to vote?  Just watch this race get more exciting.  About 100 people just watched the astonishing Republican Candidates Campaign Hatred video I recorded at a recent San Mateo GOP “Get to Know Your Candidates” event.  It shows so clearly how bad politics as usual have become, and how badly we need a change.

(FYI, Ms. Taitz is famous because she believes the artifacts from accidentally scanning a Certified long form birth certificate with the OCR option set to ‘On’ are really evidence it was forged.)

Help me win a few hundred thousand votes I’ll need to beat Ms. Taitz's followers and get on the November ballot!  Post, tweet, and tell your friends about this extraordinary race.  

I participated in an astonishing Get to Know Your US Senate Candidates event yesterday evening along with many of my Republican Senate challengers, before a GOP audience at the American Legion Hall in San Mateo.

The candidates threw plenty of red meat to the audience – rich in homophobia, Islamophobia, contempt for teachers and public education, a sprinkle of racism, and much more.  They practically booed the Peace and Freedom candidate off the stage.

But when I spoke, without rancor or partisanship, challenging their party's conventional wisdom and the other speakers' misleading misstatements and with hard facts, they listened with rapt attention and concluded with a round of applause.

We caught it all on video, which is being edited for posting ASAP.

Standing up for our soldiers and veterans – in particular, by ending the wasteful Afghanistan war and caring for our Middle East war vets - has always been a top priority of our campaign.  For more than decade, our Senate has needlessly put our troops in harm's way without making us safer.  Here are Senate candidate Levitt's answers to the April 4th questionnaire from the Veterans Democratic Club of Sacramento County, printed here with permission.

Q: What is the most important issue affecting veterans you seek to represent and what will you accomplish for veterans during your tenure?

A: This answer is summed up in four of the points detailed below: 

• leave Afghanistan in 2013, without leaving troops behind
• proper health care and suicide prevention
• the apology most veterans deserve
• enable veterans' families to live in vacant and stolen bank­-owned homes

Ordinarily a foreclosed home's value is immediately slashed, often by half, the moment it becomes vacant.  When this happens with more than one home, a neighborhood is blighted - neighboring homes slashed in value, theft of copper piping and other vandalism.  The bank no longer receives mortgage premiums or a penny of revenue from it.  It's bad for the banks that own the homes, bad for their stockholders, and terrible for the pension funds that bought their fraudulently "AAA-rated" securities with a promise of a 30 year revenue stream.  But banks' long standing culture of greed and short-term thinking keeps foreclosure agents in charge, and prevents them from seeing smarter ways to protect their investment.  

What if a deserving family was living there instead?  A family that had already sacrificed beyond the call of duty for its country?  A smarter bank - or a patriotic U.S. bank - would jump at the chance to keep the home they own properly inhabited, its neighborhood healthy, and the value of other homes it owns from falling further.  The bank could charge an employed veteran's family an affordable rent and come out way ahead.  It could pay an unemployed veteran's family to maintain the home and still come out ahead when the home's and neighborhood's value are factored in.  

These are the same banks that we learned last fall secretly received $7 trillion dollars in "loans" at near-0% interest, with no strings attached, from our Federal Reserve.  They can afford to spend some of it helping our veterans protect the bank's own real estate investments.

So this proposal won't even cost taxpayers.  It's not even clear new legislation is required.  It just requires leadership, imagination, and a sincere commitment to challenge banks and speak out for veterans.  Amid millions of empty, foreclosed homes and millions of veterans - often un- and under-employed, some even victims of fraudulent foreclosure themselves - this approach to homes for veterans makes logical and moral sense.

Why haven't we heard such solutions?  They elude politicians who routinely consider a bank that has stolen a home (as through robo-signing, a fraud on the court) to be above the law, so it is never convicted and keeps the property - while routinely treating veterans as third class citizens before, during and after combat.

Below: California Dem Vets questionnaire and answers:

Dr. Martin Luther King stood for equality and justice until his death 44 years ago today.

The Levitt 2012 campaign announced Dr. Levitt's 2012 Senate candidacy at an event in Sebastopol on the MLK holiday in January.
In these two video excerpts, Dr. Levitt speaks about Dr. King's legacy, equality, and justice in their generation.

MLK's Fair Housing Triumph in California
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 disrupted housing discrimination in California and throughout the United States, but its legacy continues today in the restrictive clauses still signed by new homeowners.  You may be surprised to hear what's in them.

Protecting the Troops and the American Dream of Justice
In Dr. King's era, Americans openly aspired to justice and due process for the accused and even for the guilty.  Dr. Levitt talks about the responsibility to protect the troops and contrasts the War on Terror with the American values Dr King's generation grew up with.  We won't let today's generation of politicians steal that legacy from us, or our children, today.

At the Santa Rosa Registrar of Voters, David Levitt completed the final paperwork, finalized how he will appear on the June 5th primary ballot (David Alex Levitt, Computer Scientist / Engineer), and took his oath to protect and defend the US and the California Constitution.

Levitt, one of more than a dozen nationwide citizen candidates running for Senate and Congress in 2012 without corporate money, has been video taping some of his interactions with the Registrar of Voters and other agencies.  

Says Levitt, "Video helps demonstrate that when the system works, our ballots are actually acccessible to ordinary citizens.  While professional politicians are eager to create the impression that it's impossible to get on the ballot, that's not so.  The Registrar of Voters, Secretary of State, Secretary of Senate and the other offices are eager to cooperate with citizen candidates."

(Note: the sound and video quality is weak, especially during the first few seconds.  Levitt is shooting with a mobile phone with one hand.)

 Administering the oath in the video: Debra Russotti from the Registrar of Voters.

Update: California's Secretary of State reports 121 signatures, nearly double the required number.  The extra count lowers the filing fee. 

Feb 23rd: After speaking with just one of the 55 California County Registrars, we already have 70 validated ballot nomination signatures.  65 are required.

David Levitt will be on the US Senate June 2012 primary ballot, challenging the status quo with a citizen-fueled campaign!

We in fact collected signatures easily in 10 other counties. 

It was just 5 of us, just citizens making sure to have a few Nomination Petition forms handy one Thursday game night, or saying a few words to neighbors at that mostly music 'open mike' pub one night.  No one was paid.  No one was bothered.  No one sweated.

 The real key was how hungry California voters are for change.  

The following might sound like a joke, or perhaps an insult:

"How do you collect 100 US Senate nomination signatures in just a few weeks?"

"Tell 100 Californians "I'm supporting a progressive Democrat who's running to replace Dianne Feinstein" and wait for them to say "Where do I sign?"

Only it's not a joke or an insult - it's an amazing fact. 

In 11 different California counties it was exactly the same.  Delighted, seemingly unanimous voters heard the message and answered, "It's about time!" and signed.  The message was: stop wasting trilllions on Mideast wars and Drug wars; start investing in jobs and education instead; and give Americans universal health care like very other industrialized country.  The bigger message was: we may be Democrats, but we don't want what wealthy, corporate friendly 20 year incumbents like Feinstein have been offering, and we can't wait for a change.