Jeremiah Liend for District 8: Liberty and Justice For All
Hello,
My name is Jeremiah Liend and I’m running as an independent candidate for Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. I am running as an independent because I believe the two-party duopoly has become too rigid, polarized, and toxic to successfully address the problems we mutually face. Both parties have valid concerns and worthwhile ideas, but too often politics has become more about defeating opponents than producing results. My goal is to offer a constructive alternative: one focused on truth, public service, and solutions that can earn support across party lines.
This is not a conventional campaign. I could not commit to a conventional campaign because, like most of you, I work. I work to provide for the next generation of swashbuckling adventurers. When I’m not working or spending time with my family, I harass the Pulitzer Prize for Drama board through my playwriting. That leaves very little time for the kind of full-time, professionally staffed campaign that Congress has come to expect. Even if I had that “retired insurance agent” free time, there are no guarantees. The electoral system is still fundamentally broken, designed and leveraged in ways that advantage money, institutions, and career politicians over families and working people. Even if I don't win, I am running for those families and working people, too. Trying to give them a voice, representation, and agency in this process. Working people deserve a voice in our government, untethered from the special interests that have poisoned and diminished it.
I’ve run for office before, and I’ve seen firsthand what a conventional campaign demands. So this time I’m running according to my own rules and with a few clear promises. This is a funds-free campaign. I will spend no money beyond minimal printing and negligible gas to get to and from public forums and debates. Accordingly, this campaign will accept no donations. That choice is partly practical, I have no interest in burying myself in campaign finance paperwork, but it is also principled. Money has distorted and degraded every level of our political system, and I refuse to build a campaign that depends on it. I will neither seek or accept endorsements from a political party, organization, or individual. I don’t want money. I don't want endorsement. I need your attention.
If the internet decides to get involved, perhaps a little virality.
These ideas, these tactics, and these fixes are the campaign.
If what I’m saying resonates with you, please share this.
That’s how we win.
The Platform is to Fix What’s Broken
We live in the Adjacent States of America, more divided and angry at one another than ever. Decades of escalatory partisanship have pitted one half of our government against the other, eroding the cooperation required for anything resembling functionality. This isn’t how the government is supposed to work. Our parties are supposed to be partners, working towards our mutual success, not enemies, working towards our collective failure.
This divide has been fueled by corporations and individuals who profit from keeping us at each other’s throats by monetizing our conflict. We have a choice then: unite and pull up the nose of our declining republic, or maintain our current trajectory and watch it all plow into the ground.
I’ve run past campaigns on broad ideas. Big theory, little specifics. This time, I’m running on three clear goals. Three laws that would seek to fix some of the biggest foundational cracks in our crumbling republic.
We Fix Citizens United Through Publicly Funded Elections
Money isn’t speech and if we don’t stop letting corporations buy our elections, we will never reclaim this government. The Constitution does not begin with We the Corporations.
We the people must reclaim our vote. I propose publicly funded elections where every candidate gets the same, equitable budget to campaign. No donations. No PACs. No dark money. Just real people, sharing their ideas and truths with their potential constituency.
We Fix Presidential Immunity Through Expanded Impeachment Powers
If there’s still a government by 2026, we need to make sure the current president (as every president) is not above the law. The Supreme Court decided otherwise, so now we have to fix it. They claim that the power to hold the executive branch accountable is impeachment, so those measures must be clarified and empowered.
Likely, this means a constitutional amendment, one that demands instantly forwarding any unprotected criminal or unconstitutional conduct by a sitting president to Congress for review and impeachment. This isn’t partisan. This is about the integrity of our entire system. Because when one person rises above the law, a republic becomes an empire.
We Fix the Supreme Court Through Term Limits
No more lifetime appointments. It’s a bad idea. It was always a bad idea. It’s not an instant fix, but it prevents us from having a dysfunctional, hyper-partisan court for generations at a time. A judiciary should evolve with its people, not remain an intransigent wall against change.
Why Am I Doing This?
I’m running to do three things. Three problems. Three solutions. Simple but certainly not easy. I want to be clear about how this campaign works. This is a funds-free campaign. I am not asking for donations. I am not seeking endorsements. I am not spending campaign money. If I make the ballot, it will be because enough people, using nothing but their own names and signatures, decide that this voice belongs in Washington, representing them. In lieu of a filing fee, I will be collecting the required number of voter signatures during the May filing period. If I do not meet that threshold, I will suspend this campaign. Full stop. Democracy only works if participation is real, voluntary, and earned. In 2020, more than 8,000 people in Minnesota House 2A placed their trust in me with their vote. If at least a fraction of them join others who likewise believe that in this moment representation matters, then I will once again be on the ballot.
I’m running under a simple motto: Liberty and Justice for All. Not liberty for some. Not justice for people we agree with. Liberty and justice for all. It’s a pledge that many have sworn as stewards of this nation and now it’s time for us to uphold it. We are living in a moment of extraordinary division. Political polarization is no longer abstract; it lives in our families, workplaces, churches, and schools. We’ve stopped talking with one another and started talking around one another. We live side by side, but no longer united. My platform rests on three principles: unity, reason, and accountability. Unity doesn’t mean uniformity. It doesn’t mean silence or sameness. It means refusing to treat your neighbor as an enemy. It means choosing connection over escalation, especially when it’s uncomfortable. We have to come together before political division hardens into something far worse, because once that line is crossed, it’s very hard to come back. Reason matters. Democracy only works if we share reality. We don’t need identical opinions, but we do need shared facts, good-faith engagement, and the humility to change our minds when evidence demands it. Reason isn’t an ideology. It’s a civic responsibility. Accountability is how trust survives. People in positions of power, political, institutional, or cultural, must be responsible for their words and actions. Accountability isn’t punishment. It’s stewardship. Without consequences, bad actors of every persuasion will continue to diminish, disregard, and divide us unchecked. Outside of politics, I work as the Technical Coordinator for Performing Arts at Bemidji State University. I live in Turtle River with my family. They are the true and only reason I’m doing this. So my children can see that in this moment in history I didn’t sit quietly, accept perpetual atrocity, and trust someone else to fix it. They and all of us deserve a better, safer, more functional world. I’m a theater maker, a writer, and a humorist. I’ve spent my adult life helping people tell stories, on stages, on screens, in classrooms, and on the page. Art and storytelling are how humans make sense of chaos. They help us see one another more clearly. They soften hardened assumptions. They create spaces where people can sit together, even when they disagree. Politics alone often fails at that. Art reminds us that we are better than our worst ideas and louder than our cruelest words. This campaign isn’t about tearing things down, it’s about rebuilding hope in a free and just nation. Slowly, imperfectly, painfully, but together. It’s about choosing participation over inaction. Love over despair. It’s about remembering that democracy isn’t something that happens to us, it’s something we must actively work to protect. Liberty and justice for all is an idea worth protecting. I’m not promising certainty. I’m not promising victory. I’m offering an invitation to step back from the brink, to share reality again, and to remember that the people around us are not abstractions. They are not statistics. They are not enemies. They are our neighbors, our family, and our friends. Our futures are not set, a better world is possible, for all of us. If you believe unity is still possible, that reason still matters, and that accountability is essential, then I need your help. I need you to share this message, right now, to everyone you know. Write a letter to the editor. Alert the media. Then if you live in Minnesota Congressional District 8, I need you to meet at Paul and Babe by Lake Bemidji on May 19th, at 5:00 PM to help get this campaign on the ballot. If I get 1,000 signatures or more, I need you in November, choosing hope over the lesser of two evils. In the time between I need you to hold on to that hope and share it with others.
If you believe in this, please share it. That’s the campaign. That’s how we win. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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