Ed Fallon is a Democrat, and candidate for Congress in Iowa's 3d congressional district. He is a Change Congress candidate (pledging 4 out of 4 planks), and I asked him to write a bit about why he has chosen not to accept money from lobbyists and PACs. Here's his post:

Throughout my political career, I have refused contributions from PACs and lobbyists. Since 1992, campaign finance reform has been the centerpiece of my political agenda. Nearly every other issue – including health care, the environment, and sustainable agriculture – is compromised by the presence of corporate money in politics. America needs what Maine, Arizona and Connecticut have at the state level: voluntary public financing of elections.

When I ran for Governor of Iowa in 2006, as a matter of principle I maintained my commitment to running a campaign free of big money. Pundits predicted I’d receive only 5% – 10% of the vote, but I finished a strong third with 26%. In fact, I won Iowa’s third congressional district, and now I’m running for Congress against a Democratic incumbent who has voted far too often with President Bush and against the priorities most Iowans value.

My opponent is Congressman Leonard Boswell, who in 2007 raised $722,327. Of that amount, 74% came from PACs, the vast majority from corporate PACs, including Wal-mart, AT&T, Boeing and various agribusiness interests.

Serving in the Iowa Legislature without PAC or lobbyist money allowed me to be a consistent, progressive voice for the public’s interest. If we are to take back our government and our country, we need to build a bluer Democratic Congress one seat at a time. My primary election is an opportunity to do that, and I welcome the support of reform-minded Americans in Iowa and beyond. For more information about my campaign and to make a donation, please visit FallonforCongress.com. Thanks!

So welcome to our blog. All posts on my blog related to Change Congress will be echoed here, and sometimes when something makes sense here only, I'll post it here only.

One promise: Everything posted under my name purporting to be from me will be written by me.

Stay tuned for more soon.

Let the conversation begin.

Hopefully, we've been reasonably good at returning email. What we're finding is that there is an immense amount of energy out there to achieve the goals that Change Congress stand for and its been an amazing week with Congressman Cooper's pledge as well as many other candidates running for Congress this election cycle. We'll be releasing these candidate's once we confirm their pledge support.

For now, please use this blog as a communication tool. We know its rather simple right now and as we get rolling we'll be adding more pieces to it, but it will serve the purpose of getting the conversation going at the moment. Also, we hope people will post their own updates on research, information and tidbits they're finding about their own members of Congress from their districts.

Thanks again and stay tuned for more as we pick up the pace.