Originally published on May 23, 2015, at NationofChange.org
The Florida postal worker who landed his gyrocopter on Capitol Hill last month pled not guilty on Thursday to two felony counts and four misdemeanors. Although the defiant pilot intended to spread public awareness regarding campaign finance reform and dark money influencing politics, lawmakers in Washington have focused instead on the security lapses that allowed him to fly over restricted airspace. Refusing to be ignored, 61-year-old Doug Hughes now faces a maximum sentence of nine and a half years in prison for his nonviolent protest against rampant political greed.
On April 15, Doug Hughes flew from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and landed on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Instead of carrying weapons, his gyrocopter was equipped with 535 letters that he intended to deliver to the members of Congress. In his letters and subsequent opinion pieces, Hughes has called for a constitutional amendment to nullify Citizens United v. FEC and reforms to systemic political corruption.
“The reason I did it,” Hughes explained during an NPR interview, “although I brought 535 letters to Congress, the reason was to get a message to the American people — not that there’s a problem with Congress but that there are solutions to the problem. Ninety-one percent of Americans know that Congress isn’t working for them. That they’re responding to special interests and lobbyists.”
“Many people don’t know that almost half the Congress, when they retire goes to work as lobbyists, oftentimes making 14 times what they made while they were in Congress as special advisers, and lobbyists, and none of them is worth $2 million a year. They’re getting paid off for voting the way the lobbyist firm that they got hired to wanted them to vote while they were in office. Anybody who looks at this can see that it’s bribery made legal by a delayed payment.”
andrewemett 