Originally published on the CGS blog on October 7, 2013.
What’s a Congressional Candidate Questionnaire?
We here at the Global Solutions Action Network want to know what you want to ask Congressional candidates on our 2013 Congressional Candidate Questionnaire. This raises the question: What is the 2013 Congressional Candidate Questionnaire? Basically, the questionnaire is a tool used by the Global Solutions Political Action Committee to gauge the positions of Congressional candidates on issues important to Global Solutions. This information is then used to determine which candidates the PAC endorses and donates to. The questionnaire is incredibly useful, especially for learning about new candidates who have not run for office before or are not on the record. This information also helps voters make informed decisions . This is the first time that the Global Solutions Actions Network has reached out to you to contribute questions. This helps us ask the questions that truly matter to the Global Solutions Action Network community.
Many of the candidates the Global Solutions PAC contributed to based on past questionnaires won their elections — they include: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN). Concerning Global Solutions and the PAC, Sen. Heinrich said,
“Global Solutions has focused on the critical challenges that can no longer be ignored.”
Rep. Patrick Murphy said,
“Grassroots support from thousands of individuals committed to human rights and common-sense governance can truly make a difference.”
Regarding the questionnaire and the resulting campaign contributions, the CEO of GlobalSolutions.org, Don Kraus, says “I cannot tell you how amazing it is to give a candidate a contribution because of their work on international issues. They never get money because of what they do globally. They don’t realize that their constituents care about these issues.” With the questionnaire the Global Solutions PAC can support candidates that care about the same issues that the Global Solutions Action Network community cares about.
Before I became a research associate at GlobalSolutions.org, I had never heard of their Congressional Questionnaire. It makes a lot of sense to me; you wouldn’t want to donate or have your donated money going to a candidate you don’t know anything about. With this tool we can get the answers to the questions we are concerned about. There are no surprises or unknowns and we don’t have to guess or rely on official party talking points. I believe that reaching out to the Global Solutions community for their input is a great idea. Instead of generating the questionnaire completely in-house, we get to hear from you, about what’s important to you, and act as a facilitator between you and Congressional candidates. When we receive your input and decide on questions, we will send out the 2013 Congressional Candidate Questionnaire and find out which candidates we should support and endorse. When the responses are received they will be put up on our website.
Here are the results of last year’s questionnaire. Click here to suggest a question for the questionnaire.
