Why David Van Os?
& Why should you care about the Texas Attorney General?

Did you know that the Texas Constitution charges the Attorney General with a special duty to protect the people against runaway corporate greed?

Indeed it does. Article 4, Section 22 of our Constitution requires that the Attorney General "shall especially inquire into the charter rights of all private corporations," and "take such action in the courts as may be proper and necessary to prevent any private corporation from exercising any power or demanding or collecting any species of taxes, tolls, freight or wharfage, not authorized by law." The Framers' choice of wording, "shall especially", was careful and deliberate. They meant what they said, that protecting the people from corporate excess was a mandatory duty of the highest importance for the Texas Attorney General.

Did you know that Article 1, Section 26, of the Texas Constitution declares that monopolies "are contrary to the genius of free government and shall never be allowed"? Article 1 of the Texas Constitution is the Bill of Rights. When the Bill of Rights guarantees you protection from monopolies, it is a protection that especially belongs to you as your Texan birthright, never to be taken away or trifled with.

Nowhere did the Framers of the Texas Constitution place an asterisk with a footnote that says, "except in the case of big oil companies, insurance companies, or pharmaceutical companies."

The Framers of the Texas Constitution knew that too much great concentration of economic power was bad for democracy and free enterprise. This was a guiding principle for the hardy men and women who gave birth to the special place called Texas.

Our Framers also were determined to protect the rights and liberties of the individual through a strong Bill of Rights and through strict Constitutional checks and balances. They insisted on the strict principle that the people are the masters and government the servant.

But something has gone off track and most people know it. Too many of today's holders of public office have come to treat their public offices as their personal property. Too many think their public office gives them a guaranteed career ladder and a guaranteed right of self-promotion and self-enrichment. "Too many modern-day politicians sell out to the very evils they are supposed to protect the people against. Too many modern-day politicians protect the corporations from the people, instead of the other way around."

~ David Van Os

David Van Os believes with all his heart in the fundamental principle of both the United States and Texas Declarations of Independence that government belongs to the people. He believes that government has become disconnected from the people through money-driven political processes that have become self-absorbed ivory towers. He decided that in his campaign for Attorney General of Texas he would pursue his determination to restore government to the people by making a whistlestop tour to every one of the 254 county courthouses of this vast state and speaking in public, in the open, to the people of each county. In today's television-driven state political culture, no state political candidate has personally carried his or her message to every county in Texas in many years.

David also decided that he had to take a stand against the consultant-driven habit of to many modern political candidates to give the voters vague spin and slick advertising instead of plain and forthright statements of what they intend to do if elected. Therefore in order to show his fellow Texans that he means what he says, David Van Os files sworn affidavits (written oaths) of his convictions and intentions in the public records of every county that he visits.

David has this to say to you personally:

"I am traveling in person to every one of the 254 counties in Texas. I am speaking at the county courthouses because that is the most public of places and the structure that most symbolizes government belonging to the people. I am also placing written oaths in the public records in every county, because my fellow Texans have a right to know exactly what my intentions are and that I mean what I say.

"Incumbent attorney general Greg Abbott is sitting on a campaign bank account of approximately $7 million from big business executives and corporate law firms who have written huge checks to purchase the office of Texas Attorney General. But I am reaching out to every county in Texas, placing my trust in the people and in democracy.

"Abbott's millions are nothing but legalized protection money. Greg Abbott serves his paymasters well. He uses the office of Attorney General to protect the corporations from the people, when it should be used to protect the people from the corporations.

"All over Texas, the good people of this great state want their government back. They want government to serve and benefit the people, as Article 1 of the Texas Constitution guarantees.

"A Texas government that serves the people as it should will include an Attorney General who understands that his job is to be the people's lawyer and that the office belongs to all the people, not just corporations, business executives, rich lawyers, and political hacks. I am working harder than I've ever worked at anything in my life, taking to all the people in every part of Texas my message that the Attorney General's office belongs to them. Just as government belongs to the people, my campaign and my message belong to the people in every part of Texas.

"In my written oath I solemnly promise that I will use every legal means available to me by the office of Attorney General to protect Texans and their property from the unconstitutional attack on the integrity of our land and property known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. I will enforce and uphold the Texas Constitutional promise that runaway corporate monopolies will not be allowed to devour democracy and free enterprise. By way of example, the people of Texas are entitled to protection form the greed and arrogance of Big Oil, the Insurance Monopolists, and all the other robber barons. On behalf of the people I will fight them Ôtill hell freezes over, then I'll fight them on the ice.

"I further solemnly promise under oath that I will enforce and uphold the fundamental principle that public authority should never be used for special private gain. Further I solemnly promise that I will enforce and uphold every enumerated right and liberty of the Bills of Rights of the United States and Texas Constitutions, such as the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

"Further, I will honor and treat all persons who encounter the giant bureaucracy of the child support system as individual human beings entitled to impartial and equal justice under law, rather than as statistics to be exploited in self-congratulatory press releases. The office of Attorney General will belong to the people and I will be the people's lawyer."

David Van Os

JUMP TO: ABOUT DAVID :: WHY DAVID? :: BIOGRAPHY + BACKGROUND :: ENDORSEMENTS

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