In every age, the democratic experiment is tested—not only on battlefields or in courtrooms, but in the quiet, grinding persistence of those who still believe in its promises. The story I offer here is not one of triumph, not yet. It is a pilgrimage—both personal and political—through the tangled bureaucracy and buried hurdles that silently strangle the ordinary citizen’s access to public office. This is not about a campaign. It is about the cost of admission to the civic table.
To even stand as a candidate for California's Assembly District 63, the state levies a toll—$1,300 merely to have your name appear on the ballot. It can be reduced to zero with 143 signatures (during Holy Week), so I decided to take a chance. But that is only the beginning. A 250-word profile, those few lines that might be the sole lifeline to an informed voter, comes with a price tag of $3,600. That is $14.40 per sentence in a democracy that claims to value speech. And then come the forms—Form 700 (Statement of Economic Interests), California Form 410, and California Form 460—shackles dressed as paperwork. Most who contemplate this gauntlet quietly abandon the path.
Still, I began. My first stop was my church—my community, my people—during Holy Week, a sacred time of reflection and rebirth. Yet I found no such voice. Among a thousand worshippers, I could not speak a word. I had entered a sanctuary not only of faith but of silence, shaped by law and history into quietude.
The silence, I would learn, has a history. In the summer of 1954, amid the prosperity and conformity of postwar America, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, eyeing reelection, proposed an amendment that would alter the nature of religious expression in public life. Slipped into the tax code, the Johnson Amendment barred tax-exempt institutions—churches, schools, charities—from endorsing political candidates. It was not debated, not publicly examined, but passed quietly, reshaping civic life for generations.
Churches could feed the poor, they could speak on poverty, on war, even on abortion. But they could not say, “Vote.” In this supposed safeguard of neutrality, the voice of the faithful was muted. Some call it wise restraint; others, a betrayal of the First Amendment. The consequence has been clear: politics saturated by the moneyed and the secular, while the pulpit stands silent. And in that silence, civic engagement withers.
My pilgrimage continued. At the Lake Matthews sheriff station, I asked if I could collect signatures to avoid the $1,300 fee. I was told, politely but firmly, to leave. "Go downtown," they said. Democracy, it seemed, did not reside here.
Then to the local assembly office—Bill Essayli’s district space, elegant and polished. I met Casey, the district director, whose professionalism stood in contrast to the process itself. “No political discussions,” he reminded me. Even here, behind the scenes of representative government, the system has trained its guardians to avoid the democratic impulse.
Still, I pressed on. I got my haircut at Crown and Stash in Dos Lagos—my home turf, a business rooted in the soul of this place. There, among Clippers posters and barbershop banter, I felt more political than anywhere else. Here, democracy lived in the hands of working people, each snip of the blade a reminder of labor, of dignity.
At Target, I was asked to leave the parking lot. I stood instead at the bus stop, among strangers and wanderers. Every signature I gathered was earned with conversation—ten minutes, sometimes an hour—each one a small miracle of civic connection. No one opposed my platform. Not one.
I passed through Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, and eventually Mount San Jacinto College, where former students and colleagues met me not with skepticism, but warmth. Here, too, the soul of democracy flickered—young, alert, and open.
I delivered the signatures myself to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. The staff there—especially a certain Lakers fan I won’t name—welcomed me not just as a candidate, but as a fellow citizen. I was not alone. I was part of something.
And that, perhaps, is the deeper truth of this pilgrimage. Democracy is not dead. It is barricaded—behind fees, forms, silences, and fear. But it lives in those who still show up. Who still believe. Who still walk the gauntlet, however steep.
The struggle to engage in civic life—like all struggles in American history—must be seen not as a test of personal will, but as a measure of who we are as a people. We must ask: What kind of democracy requires $4,900 to be heard and forbids the church from whispering its conscience?
And more importantly: What kind of people still walk into that storm and keep walking?