finally: depending who you ask, there are somewhere between 30,000 and 500,000 elected positions in the US, which is a staggering number

but if good, thoughtful, caring people (i.e. you) don't run, these positions are almost all won by party hacks or well-funded pro-business conservatives or tea-party types who want to burn the government down

in short: if you're not thinking about running for some kind of government position in this day n age, you should be!

#uspol

@mrgah I'm independent (super lefty though) but I still love this idea: https://www.runforsomething.net/

@djcp

well you know, state legislative races are usually cheap to run (under $10k), decided by hundreds or a couple thousand votes, and state legislatures often meet part time so that people can work normal jobs

(and the demands of local positions are even less)

I mean, why not run for the state legislature as a lefty independent?

@djcp

I was curious how much it would cost to register with the secretary of state to run in the legislature where I'm from: $85

@mrgah the real cost is time and effort, obvs

@djcp

I've been interested recently because of having a home base in a very flippable state legislative district, but even a state district is a _lot_ of ground to cover, a lot of doors to knock on, and so on

@mrgah right. That's what's neat about https://www.runforsomething.net/, they'll help you figure it out, if you're cool with identifying with the Democrats