Come out and Vote!
I’ve personally knocked on close to 4,000 doors during this primary campaign.
You can expect that same level of dedication when I’m in office.
Republicans, Democrats and Independents, choose the combined (A-D-L) ballot.
Please come out and vote on August 26 for New Leadership for Juneau.
Sign Wavers Wanted!
Election day is only 3 days away, but there’s still time to help!
Join David on the corner of 10th and Egan on Tuesday morning, from 7 - 8, or in the afternoon from 4:30 - 5:30, to wave those Newman for House signs! Come for the entire hour, or only a part. Every bit helps!
Give David a call at 723-8021, or e-mail him at david.newman@alaska.com to let him know you’ll be coming, or just show up! We’ll have signs ready and waiting.
(But if you let us know you’ll be coming ahead of time, we’ll have coffee and donuts for you to munch on in the morning).
David to Appear on KINY Capital Chat
Tune in to KINY radio’s Capital Chat on Friday, August 22 at 10:00 a.m., when David will be participating in a debate with Representative Kerttula, moderated by Pete Carran.
Letter of Support
The following letter of support was sent to David from a former client. Because her situation involved domestic violence, she asked that it be published anonymously, to protect her safety.
*******
David Newman has true courage, intelligence, strength and integrity, the very qualities people pray their leaders will have, but rarely find among them. David understands, in his heart’s deepest core, the anguish and pain endured by the many thousands of people in our society who are victims of injustice, of ignorance, of sheer cruelty. He recognizes fully the humanity of those citizens who have been abandoned by society – by society’s legal flaws and society’s ingrained callousness - to injustice, to violence and to pain. He refuses to abandon these thousands of people; he refuses to live the life of comfort and ease he could be living if he could put the cries of the suffering and the wronged out of his consciousness.
David Newman knows the law, and respects the law. And, knowing and respecting the law, knows and respects the potential of the law to be a greater, a more compassionate and more just mirror of society’s greatest potential than it is at present. David recognizes that the blessings of his legal education, his knowledge, his professional experience and his urgent sense of empathy, require of him the deepest commitment to honorable action on behalf of those in our society who struggle for their basic human rights.
I know that this is true, because I have known my own human rights to feel bitterly and hopelessly out of reach; I know this because I was blessed to be represented by David when, as a battered woman with scant financial means, I sought David out as an attorney and he, seeing the bleakness and terror of my situation, took me on as a client for what was, in truth, the merest fraction of a fraction of what most attorneys would consider a fee, in spite of his practice being already precariously overloaded with other pro bono (charity) clients as desperate as myself to find freedom for ourselves and our children from battering and abuse.
But David did more than represent me honorably in court – and heaven knows, he did represent me honorably and admirably in court. He did something which set him apart as a human being and as a leader: he faithfully asserted my humanity and my dignity at all times, and insisted that they be respected.
For example, I will never forget the last time we stood in the courtroom together. I was leaving the court after a hearing where the batterer and his family had been present. Such hearings in family court are grueling ordeals for the victims of domestic violence, because in order to justify the violence of the perpetrator, the victim is portrayed by the perpetrator in distorted and terrible ways – in effect, the victim’s character is as much on trial as the perpetrator’s violence. David’s calmness, his strength and his integrity stood as a dignified and honorable challenge to the sometimes ugly proceedings.
David asked me where I would be going after leaving the courthouse. I told him that I had to go to the grocery store to get food for my son’s dinner. David insisted on going with me to the store, and he accompanied me, in his very lawyerly suit, up and down the aisles of the market as I shopped, saying he did not want me to be alone right so soon after the hearing in case I turned a corner and the batterer were there. Only when I had finished shopping, and David felt comfortable that I was on my way safely home to my son, did he shake hands and say good-bye.
Before they reach political office, few people have made the leap of choosing whether they will stand up for the wronged and the abandoned, for the impoverished and the most desperately vulnerable. David Newman is one of those few who have made this choice. A gentleman in the best sense of the word, he has chosen to lift his voice – a voice of sanity, wisdom, intelligence and pure, dignified, decency – on behalf of women and children and the future they represent. Perhaps more people would be this way if they fully understood, as David understands, that violence against women and children are crimes against society itself, crimes so terrible, so egregious, that they must be recognized, challenged and eradicated.
Women and children, who together form the majority of our society, have the fewest and more fragile rights and liberties. David recognizes the responsibility of every human being, of every leader, to ensure that society progresses to the point where women and children are safe, and their rights and needs are protected and guaranteed. To him, this is a fundamental component of a functioning democratic society. Imagine what society would be like, if women and children were free of violence. Imagine the remarkable health and growth that society could enjoy. One can only hope that such a candidate with such vision – and such determination - will find his way to office.
