Powerful Voices Review
Nick Paro opens this Powerful Voices interview by welcoming Joseph Perez-Caputo — law student, former actor, former gardener, Sicilian-Boricua, and the Courage Candidate running to unseat Representative Jim Himes in Connecticut’s 4th District. CT-04 runs from Bridgeport down to Greenwich, through Ridgefield and Redding and all the idyllic New England towns in between, and Joseph moved back in with his mother in Stamford at 33 years old to run for the seat. That detail is not incidental. It frames everything else in this conversation: the man did the math, decided the district needed this, and went.
Before a single policy question, the episode gives real time to the mechanics of getting onto the ballot in Connecticut — and the picture is ugly. The state runs closed primaries, which means you either win 15% of delegates from Democratic Town Committees (people picked by the party infrastructure you’re challenging) or you petition. Joseph is pursuing the petition route. No one in Connecticut history has successfully petitioned their way onto the congressional ballot since the country was founded. The numbers explain why: he needs 2% of registered voters who voted in the last election — which translates to roughly 4,500 signatures, all from registered Democrats, all collected in 42 days, all meeting archaic literacy-law standards requiring cursive, specific ink colors, and a form the state doesn’t even release until April 28th. Modern campaign wisdom says double it. One previous candidate got close, had the state delay releasing his forms by three days, and then watched the court rule against him when he argued the delay was unconstitutional. Joseph knows all of this and is running the petition route anyway — because, he says, the petition is about the voice of the people. The delegates route would require him to walk back into a district he left during the pandemic and ask party insiders to hand him support. He didn’t want to do it that way. You sense he wouldn’t have respected himself if he had.
The policy section of this episode is dense and genuinely interesting. Joseph’s first legislative priority is a tax abatement program for residential and commercial property taxes, structured around converting lawns into native cultivar havens or community vegetable gardens — routed through local CSAs, farmer’s markets, and food pantries to eliminate food deserts. He built this idea out as a gardener a decade ago and has been waiting for the right moment to run on it. The ecological case he makes is real: existing research suggests that if most American lawns were converted to native habitat, the cumulative effect would approximate a 22 million hectare national park. The economic case is equally direct — prop up the gardening trade as legitimate skilled work, bring fresh local produce into grocery supply chains, and give communities a new category of economic participation. From there, the episode covers affordable housing (the luxury-apartment gentrification wave gutting CT-04), the AI revolution’s impact on labor (tech layoffs, energy usage, water consumption), and a genuinely open conversation about universal basic income as a mechanism for letting people change careers without a three-month gap in healthcare. Joseph is not a fan of AI. He wants regulation on what data it can access, what it can be connected to, and what it can be used to generate — including explicit deepfakes made without consent. His critique of AI mirrors his critique of social media: we failed to learn the right lessons the first time, and the greatest repository of social behavior data in history (Meta) exists entirely for advertisers, not for public benefit.
The sharpest section of the episode is on FISA 702. Joseph’s incumbent, Representative Jim Himes, has been the public face of pushing clean reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s subsection 702 — the mechanism under which, through the data broker loophole, the government can purchase commercially available data on American citizens without a judicial warrant. Himes fought hard for clean reauthorization, got pushed back by constituent pressure, wrote a 14-page amendment Joseph describes as a press release, and still didn’t close the loophole. Joseph’s critique is not rhetorical. He’s in law school. He explains the difference between legal terms of art and plain meaning rules, walks through how the phrase “commercially available data” has been interpreted to mean everything, and makes the point plainly: someone could be watching this conversation right now through a phone camera, and it would be legal. The fix he wants is twofold — class action restitution rights for citizens whose data has been breached or sold, and actual defined terms in the statute so that “commercially available data” and “acted with a foreign national” have precise legal meanings instead of acting as open-ended surveillance licenses. When Nick asks whether this warrants a constitutional amendment to enshrine data sovereignty and human protection into the Bill of Rights, Joseph says categorically yes — and notes that 12 years ago he organized an international protest whose central demand was exactly that: a constitutional convention and a constitutional restatement of rights for the digital age. The punk rock dude who wants to build a machine he doesn’t want to rebel against is already thinking at that level.
The episode closes on impeachment, and here Joseph is explicit that he holds the more aggressive position within Courage for Democracy. Impeachment is the floor, not the ceiling. What he wants is to pursue treason charges — under RICO, against the full network of business, NGO, and political machine actors — after the impeachments. He cites On Treason by Carlton F.W. Larson as the legal framework, draws a line from the Confederacy to the current president, and names Pete Hegseth’s alleged orders for extrajudicial killings as falling under the same category of accountability that would send a soldier to Leavenworth. He wants a full DHS review. He wants the new Nuremberg — and he says the first one wasn’t intense enough because of Operation Paperclip. He’s aware that saying this on camera is not safe. He says it anyway. Nick’s response is worth noting: he’s been saying the same thing on his own platform for some time, and he’s glad a candidate is willing to speak it out loud, because public opinion has to exist before Congress will act. Citizens’ Impeachment has been building exactly that — and Joseph is one of roughly 130 Courage for Democracy candidates already operating as a collaborative, pre-formed legislative block across 38 states. They have a policy matrix on the Courage for Democracy website showing nearly 99% agreement across issues. They’re not waiting to get elected to start working together. They’re already working.
Key Takeaways
Connecticut’s ballot access system is designed to fail challengers. No one has ever successfully petitioned onto a Connecticut congressional ballot. Joseph needs 4,500+ signatures from registered Democrats, collected in 42 days, on a form the state won’t release until April 28th, following 150-year-old literacy laws. If you’re in CT-04, find him at JPC4CT04 and help collect signatures.
The gardening tax abatement program is ready to become a bill. Joseph’s proposal — abating property taxes in exchange for converting lawns to native cultivar havens or community gardens — has ecological benefits at national scale (22M hectare equivalent national park effect) and economic benefits at the local level. It’s also the kind of policy that crosses partisan lines: lower property taxes, local food access, and skilled trade creation are not ideologically divisive asks.
FISA 702’s data broker loophole means everything is commercially available. Your IP address, your phone camera, your communications with anyone in another country — all of it potentially falls under the current legal framework. Joseph’s incumbent is fighting to keep reauthorization “clean.” Joseph’s campaign is now primarily focused on defeating that effort and defining terms that actually protect citizens. Citizens’ Impeachment is tracking this fight and acting on it.
Impeachment is the floor, treason charges are the ceiling. Joseph is explicit that he holds the more aggressive position within the Courage Candidate network — RICO charges, full network accountability, a new Nuremberg that goes further than the last one. Public opinion needs to exist before Congress will act. Say it out loud. Keep saying it.
The Courage Candidate network is already functioning as a pre-formed congressional block. 130 candidates across 38 states, with a policy matrix showing ~99% agreement. The candidates who didn’t make the primary ballot are staying committed locally and will be offered staff positions if their peers win. Find the candidate in your district at couragefordemocracy.com and make noise before the advertising money arrives.
The House of Representatives is the only branch that can create law. Joseph’s answer to the Supreme Court running renegade is legislative: go into the old cases, read the dissents and the dicta, find the reasoning, and write the bill that undoes the bad decision. Executive orders are suggestions. The Court can strike down bad law but can’t create new law. A functioning legislative body can undo everything the Court has enabled — if it does its job. That’s the argument for why the candidates in this network matter.
Terms and Concepts
Closed Primary (Connecticut) — A system in which only registered party members can vote in that party’s primary. In CT, getting on the primary ballot requires either 15% of Democratic Town Committee delegates or a successful petition drive — both designed to be difficult for challengers.
Petition Route — The path Joseph is pursuing for ballot access. Requires ~4,500 signatures from registered Democrats, collected in 42 days from April 28th to June 8th. Has never been successfully completed in Connecticut history for a congressional race.
Tax Abatement Program (Agrarian Integration) — Joseph’s signature legislative proposal. Property tax abatements for property owners who convert their land to native cultivar gardens or community food gardens. Designed to eliminate food deserts, create a new skilled trade economy, and produce national ecological benefit.
FISA 702 / Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 — The surveillance law that allows intelligence agencies to collect communications involving non-U.S. persons abroad. The data broker loophole allows the government to purchase “commercially available data” without a judicial warrant, potentially capturing U.S. citizens’ data.
Data Broker Loophole — The mechanism by which private companies sell personal data to each other, and then to the government, without triggering warrant requirements. Joseph’s incumbent argues this is not addressed in the statute. Joseph argues that’s precisely what makes it a loophole.
Citizens’ Impeachment — Nonpartisan grassroots organization working to force Congress to act on impeachment and accountability. Connected to the Courage for Democracy candidate slate.
Courage for Democracy — Non-partisan candidate slate of 130+ candidates across 38 states running for federal office. Policy matrix shows ~99% agreement across candidates. Operating as a pre-formed legislative collaborative.
RICO — The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Joseph proposes applying it to the current administration’s conduct, treating the full network of actors as a coordinated criminal enterprise.
Ranked Choice Voting (Joseph’s Federal Proposal) — A federal bill Joseph would pursue allowing each party to place two candidates on the general election ballot, with ranked-choice voting determining the winner. Designed to expand democratic choice while respecting state control over elections.
Constitutional Amendment for Data Sovereignty — Joseph’s long-standing position: data protection, biometric sovereignty, and human rights protections should be enshrined in the Bill of Rights, not left to statutory interpretation.
Sources & References
Joseph Perez-Caputo Campaign — creatingcommunityeverywhere-jpcforcongress.org
On Treason — Carlton F.W. Larson (2019)
FISA Section 702 reauthorization — ongoing legislative fight, CT-04
Connecticut closed primary and petition ballot access requirements
Thank you Evan Fields, NeuroDivergent Hodgepodge, LeftieProf, Bee's Free Verse/True Verse, StandUp12, and many others for tuning into my live video with Nick Paro and Joseph Perez-Caputo! Join me for my next live video in the app.
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