UNCONVENTIONAL: Driver raps politics as usual.

The British native, who lived in London during World War II, points to himself as both a family man (three grown children and six grandchildren) and as an environmentalist (the solar home built with his wife in 1979 has enabled them to eliminate oil bills, he says, and his 10-year-old Geo gets 50 mpg).

Driver, who is making an independent challenge to US Representative James R. Langevin, a three-term Democratic incumbent, took part this week in an e-mail interview.

Why are you running in the second congressional district?
I first got involved in politics, helping other candidates, in 1951, when I was in college. My primary motivation was, and still is, my concern for human rights and US foreign policy. I am not happy when my country is using my tax dollars to hurt people who have done nothing to us.

This has led to my opposition to US wars and interventions in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Our government has done its best to overthrow governments and/or impose regimes of its choosing in Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, Palestine, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, and many more. Every US war I can think of since the end of World War II has been based on lies.

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US policies today are as bad as they were when I first became involved. But I expect to keep trying to make changes as long as I’m breathing.

What are the main differences between yourself and representative langevin, including in the areas of jobs and education?
I received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Minnesota. I worked at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque with a Q-clearance for six years before coming to Rhode Island in 1969. I taught mathematics at URI until retiring in 1998.

Langevin and I each won our first elective office as delegates to the 1986 Constitutional Convention. Then we both served in the RI House for several terms. The difference between us was apparent from the start. Mr. Langevin immediately caught on to the system: For success in politics, follow the leadership of whatever body you happen to be in. I was unwilling to pay this price. I refused to (knowingly) vote for bad bills to gain favor with the leadership.

At the Constitutional Convention, Langevin supported whatever the Convention president supported, including the “Paramount Right-to-Life” amendment. This proposed amendment to the RI Constitution sought to assure a “right-to-life” beginning with fertilization. It made no exception for rape or incest. And its author, Texas law professor Joseph P. Witherspoon, said it would even permit RI to use its police powers to prevent a woman from leaving the state to get an abortion elsewhere.

At the convention, I authored the minority report in opposition to this amendment. Then I published information that, I believe, contributed to its defeat by the voters, 66 to 34 percent.

In the RI House, the follow-the-leader system was so well established that through 1987, many members would lock in their green voting buttons with pieces of cardboard. Then their “aye” votes with the leadership were cast throughout a session by “automatic pilot.”

The member did not have to read, listen, or think or even stay in the chamber. When the electronics changed in 1988, it was no longer so easy to automate votes. But members were still voting “aye” without reading or paying attention. Many bad bills passed this way.

Congressional incumbents get reelected at a rate of close to 100 percent, because of their generally superior name recognition and campaign war chests. How do you plan to overcome this?
The public approval of Congress is below 25 percent. And yet incumbents running for re-election win 98 or 99 percent of the time. The problem is that citizens have no idea how their representative votes — and it isn’t easy to find out. A challenger must try to tell the public what the incumbent has been doing. But this is difficult without a lot of money for advertising. 

Langevin gets [lots] of dollars from special-interest groups, because those groups want influence. They are not pouring money into his campaigns because they think he is doing a great job. 

One idea for leveling the playing field is the “Clean Elections” concept of public financing of campaigns (See “Is Rhode Island ready for Clean Elections?,” News, February 25, 2005). I have testified for this at the state level, for General Assembly races. But any such major reform requires the support of the General Assembly or Congress, as the case may be. And incumbents are not generally interested in leveling the playing field.

Why don’t you run for an office, like one in the general assembly, where you might have a greater chance of winning?
After the 1986 Constitutional Convention, I served eight years in the RI House. Frankly, I didn’t enjoy it that much.

I could stand on the floor and try to explain what was wrong with a credit-union bill, a voter-registration bill, a get-tough-on-crime bill, a gambling-expansion bill, a bill to reduce educational standards, or a bill to give a special tax break to a group of multi-millionaires. But if the leadership wanted it to pass, the members being good “team players,” including James Langevin, voted for it.

The problem in Congress is similar. But Congress is the place where I can advocate for my primary concerns — a just and humane foreign policy, and protection of civil liberties in the US.

There is already a small core of representatives in Congress who steadfastly vote for these things, even when everyone else is running away. I’m thinking of representatives such as Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Ron Paul and Pete Stark. Others join them in many cases. If I am elected, there will be about a 20 percent increase in this core group.