Russ Diamond
Encyclopedia
Russell H. "Russ" Diamond (born July 26, 1963) is an entrepreneur
, political activist
, and politician
from the U.S. state
of Pennsylvania
. He attempted to secure ballot access as an Independent
candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2006. He is currently running for Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor as a Republican.
. He graduated from Northern Lebanon High School
and received a degree from Lebanon County Career and Technology Center in 1981. He went to work in a factory
after graduation, then became a professional musician
. In 1992, he opened a recording studio
in Annville, Pennsylvania
. The company eventually went into CD
and DVD
manufacturing and duplication.
politics. He ran simultaneously for the U.S. House of Representatives
and the state legislature as a Libertarian Party
candidate. He was defeated in both races (receiving 2% and 17% of the vote, respectively).
In 2005, after members of the state legislature voted themselves a pay raise
during a midnight session, Diamond created PACleanSweep.com, a website dedicated to ousting every incumbent
legislator in the state. This later spawned an informal grassroots
organization, a nonprofit corporation and subsidiary political action committee
. PACleanSweep set out to accomplish this by recruiting candidates in every House and Senate district. The group was non-partisan, recruiting candidates of any party. The only requirement was that they sign a pledge to repeal the pay raise that had inspired the group; allow Pennsylvania voters to decide future legislative, executive, and judicial pay raises by referendum
; and not pass any legislation put before the state legislature until citizens had been given 10 business days to examine it.
PACleanSweep eventually found candidates for two State Senate districts and 44 State House Districts. On May 16, 2006, the day of the primary election
, 35 of the CleanSweep candidates won their primaries. 16 of the winners were running in contested races and 7 of them defeated incumbents.
on January 1, 2006.
Diamond later authorized the Draft Russ Diamond political committee, a group aiming to test the viability of his candidacy for office. On April 13, 2006, he announced that he would run for Governor as an Independent.
Diamond advocated abolishing the property tax
, funding public education
out of general revenues, auditing all government expenditures for efficiency and usefulness, calling a constitutional convention
to modernize the state's constitution
, repealing legalized slot machine
s, and "stimulate economic development
" by reducing taxes and regulation. He promised to serve only one term and not run for re-election. He selected Tom Lingenfelter
, a former Republican state committeeman and Democratic candidate for Congress run with him for Lieutenant Governor
.
To qualify for the general election ballot, Diamond needed to collect approximately 67,000 signatures by August 1, 2006, but he informed the media that he had only collected about 38,000.
A four-time divorcee, Diamond's minor brushes with the law were briefly mentioned in the press during his 2004 campaigns and in 2005-2006. Diamond's elderly father was arrested in 2005, shortly after the creation of PACleanSweep, after a lengthy armed standoff with police.
In March 2006, Diamond attempted to remove five of the ten members of PACleanSweep's Board of Directors. Diamond requested the resignations of all board members, and cut off access to those who refused. Ironically, Diamond continued to operate PACleanSweep, with the assistance of board members who had submitted their resignations, over the protests of many in the reform movement. Diamond would later attempt to add four individuals to the group's board, and then resigned in April 2006 to run for governor.
In April 2006, several members of PACleanSweep's Board of Directors represented by attorney Charles A. Pascal, Jr.
, sued Diamond for violating nonprofit corporation law and the organization's charter. A Lebanon County
judge declared that the four board members Diamond attempted to add were not legal directors of PACleanSweep, and ordered that corporate access and voting rights be returned to the rightful Board of Directors.
When this move failed, Diamond and his supporters attempted to disband the corporation entirely. He was unable to garner even a simple majority for dissolution (the organization's by-laws called for a two-thirds supermajority
for such a move).
Diamond and four others then refused to discuss business with the organization's other board members, and filed court papers seeking the involuntary dissolution of corporation. A hearing was held on August 7, 2006 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania
, where a judge granted the motion to dissolve PACleanSweep. Inc. Diamond continues to operate a website, PACleanSweep.com (which reverted to his control in July, 2006), suggesting that the dissolution attempt was simply a means to undermine the clout of Diamond's personal detractors.
for the 101st district
in the 2008 election
. On April 22, 2008, he finished second in a three-way Republican primary behind Gingrich with 22.9 percent of the vote.
race. He garnered 4.5% of the votes in the Republican primary.
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
, political activist
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
, and politician
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...
from the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. He attempted to secure ballot access as an Independent
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2006. He is currently running for Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor as a Republican.
Personal Background
Diamond was born in Hershey, PennsylvaniaHershey, Pennsylvania
Hershey is a census-designated place in Derry Township, Dauphin County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The community is located 14 miles east of Harrisburg and is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. Hershey has no legal status as an incorporated municipality...
. He graduated from Northern Lebanon High School
Northern Lebanon High School
Northern Lebanon High School is a high school in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania. The building also contains the Northern Lebanon School District's middle school, grades 7 and 8. The school's mascot is a Viking. -Academic Achievement:...
and received a degree from Lebanon County Career and Technology Center in 1981. He went to work in a factory
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
after graduation, then became a professional musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
. In 1992, he opened a recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
in Annville, Pennsylvania
Annville, Pennsylvania
Annville Township is a township and census-designated place in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 4,518 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Annville Township is located at ....
. The company eventually went into CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
manufacturing and duplication.
Political Beginnings
In 2004, Diamond entered third partyThird party (politics)
In a two-party system of politics, the term third party is sometimes applied to a party other than the two dominant ones. While technically the term is limited to the third largest party or third oldest party, it is common, though innumerate, shorthand for any smaller party.For instance, in the...
politics. He ran simultaneously for the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and the state legislature as a Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
candidate. He was defeated in both races (receiving 2% and 17% of the vote, respectively).
PACleanSweep
2005 Pennsylvania General Assembly pay raise controversy
In the early morning hours of July 7, 2005, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed pay increases for state lawmakers, judges, and top executive-branch officials. The vote took place at 2 a.m. without public review or commentary and Governor Ed Rendell signed the bill into law...
during a midnight session, Diamond created PACleanSweep.com, a website dedicated to ousting every incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
legislator in the state. This later spawned an informal grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
organization, a nonprofit corporation and subsidiary political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
. PACleanSweep set out to accomplish this by recruiting candidates in every House and Senate district. The group was non-partisan, recruiting candidates of any party. The only requirement was that they sign a pledge to repeal the pay raise that had inspired the group; allow Pennsylvania voters to decide future legislative, executive, and judicial pay raises by referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
; and not pass any legislation put before the state legislature until citizens had been given 10 business days to examine it.
PACleanSweep eventually found candidates for two State Senate districts and 44 State House Districts. On May 16, 2006, the day of the primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
, 35 of the CleanSweep candidates won their primaries. 16 of the winners were running in contested races and 7 of them defeated incumbents.
Accolades and Gubernatorial Run
PACleanSweep made Diamond known throughout the state, culminating in his being named one of three "Citizens of the Year" by the Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
on January 1, 2006.
Diamond later authorized the Draft Russ Diamond political committee, a group aiming to test the viability of his candidacy for office. On April 13, 2006, he announced that he would run for Governor as an Independent.
Diamond advocated abolishing the property tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
, funding public education
Public education
State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...
out of general revenues, auditing all government expenditures for efficiency and usefulness, calling a constitutional convention
Constitutional convention (political meeting)
A constitutional convention is now a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...
to modernize the state's constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
, repealing legalized slot machine
Slot machine
A slot machine , informally fruit machine , the slots , poker machine or "pokies" or simply slot is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed...
s, and "stimulate economic development
Economic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
" by reducing taxes and regulation. He promised to serve only one term and not run for re-election. He selected Tom Lingenfelter
Tom Lingenfelter
Tom Lingenfelter is a teacher, historian, intelligence agent, businessman, and political activist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. He is a perennial candidate for public office and was an Independent candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in 2006....
, a former Republican state committeeman and Democratic candidate for Congress run with him for Lieutenant Governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
.
To qualify for the general election ballot, Diamond needed to collect approximately 67,000 signatures by August 1, 2006, but he informed the media that he had only collected about 38,000.
Personal Controversy
Diamond has been the subject of much controversy. Many have labeled him a "self-promoter" who used PACleanSweep and the reform movement to enhance his political profile.A four-time divorcee, Diamond's minor brushes with the law were briefly mentioned in the press during his 2004 campaigns and in 2005-2006. Diamond's elderly father was arrested in 2005, shortly after the creation of PACleanSweep, after a lengthy armed standoff with police.
Schism with PACleanSweep and the Reform Movement
Critics point to efforts by Diamond to prevent PACleanSweep from searching for gubernatorial candidates as evidence that Diamond planned to seek office from the start.In March 2006, Diamond attempted to remove five of the ten members of PACleanSweep's Board of Directors. Diamond requested the resignations of all board members, and cut off access to those who refused. Ironically, Diamond continued to operate PACleanSweep, with the assistance of board members who had submitted their resignations, over the protests of many in the reform movement. Diamond would later attempt to add four individuals to the group's board, and then resigned in April 2006 to run for governor.
In April 2006, several members of PACleanSweep's Board of Directors represented by attorney Charles A. Pascal, Jr.
Charles A. Pascal, Jr.
Charles A. Pascal, Jr., of Leechburg, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, was born December 24, 1963. An attorney, Pascal graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree.-School Board...
, sued Diamond for violating nonprofit corporation law and the organization's charter. A Lebanon County
Lebanon County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 120,327 people and 32,771 families residing in the county. The population density was 332 people per square mile . There were 49,320 housing units at an average density of 136 per square mile...
judge declared that the four board members Diamond attempted to add were not legal directors of PACleanSweep, and ordered that corporate access and voting rights be returned to the rightful Board of Directors.
Current status
With PACleanSweep's Board of Directors now divided, Diamond then attempted to change the voting structure by granting himself and Lingenfelter voting rights, despite a unanimously-passed corporate policy that prohibited political candidates from exercising control of the corporation.When this move failed, Diamond and his supporters attempted to disband the corporation entirely. He was unable to garner even a simple majority for dissolution (the organization's by-laws called for a two-thirds supermajority
Supermajority
A supermajority or a qualified majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level or type of support which exceeds a simple majority . In some jurisdictions, for example, parliamentary procedure requires that any action that may alter the rights of the minority has a supermajority...
for such a move).
Diamond and four others then refused to discuss business with the organization's other board members, and filed court papers seeking the involuntary dissolution of corporation. A hearing was held on August 7, 2006 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Lebanon, Pennsylvania
Lebanon, formerly known as Steitztown, is a city in and the county seat of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,477 at the 2010 census, a 4.2% increase from the 2000 count of 24,461...
, where a judge granted the motion to dissolve PACleanSweep. Inc. Diamond continues to operate a website, PACleanSweep.com (which reverted to his control in July, 2006), suggesting that the dissolution attempt was simply a means to undermine the clout of Diamond's personal detractors.
Tip of the Spear
Diamond recently released a book, "Tip of the Spear" detailing how and why he started the PACleanSweep organization, some of the difficulties involved in building a statewide organization in such a short time and the reasons behind his attempted run for governor. Tip of the Spear also provides a blow-by-blow of the post-pay raise era in Pennsylvania Politics.2008 campaign for the State House
Diamond challenged Republican incumbent Mauree GingrichMauree Gingrich
Mauree A. Gingrich is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 101st District and was elected in 2002. She serves on the House Aging and Older Adult Services, Appropriations, Health and Human Services, and Local Government Committees.-Personal:Gingrich lives in...
for the 101st district
Pennsylvania House of Representatives, District 101
The 101st Pennsylvania House of Representatives District is located in Lebanon County and includes the following areas:* Annville Township* Cleona* Lebanon* Mount Gretna* North Cornwall Township* North Londonderry Township* Palmyra...
in the 2008 election
Pennsylvania House of Representatives elections, 2008
The 2008 Elections for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives were held on November 4, 2008, with all districts being contested. Necessary primary elections were held on April 22, 2008. The term of office for those elected in 2008 will run from January 6, 2009 until November 2010...
. On April 22, 2008, he finished second in a three-way Republican primary behind Gingrich with 22.9 percent of the vote.
Candidacy for Lieutenant Governor
Diamond made a bid for candidacy in the 2010 Lieutenant GovernorLieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania
The Lieutenant Governor is a constitutional officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Lieutenant Governor is elected every four years along with the Governor. Jim Cawley of Bucks County is the incumbent Lieutenant Governor...
race. He garnered 4.5% of the votes in the Republican primary.
External links
- Russ Diamond for Lieutenant Governor official campaign website
- Tip of the Spear, by Russ Diamond