An Honest Economy
For All of CA-2
Your groceries cost too much. Your doctor is 90 miles away. Your town lost its mill and nobody came back. Gregory Burgess is running a "Show Your Work" campaign — 38+ drafted bills you can read today, covering every county, every problem, before you cast a single vote.
- Third-generation Californian, born in San Francisco, raised in Mill Valley
- Master's in Public Health — food security, environmental health, climate
- CDC Quarantine Public Health Officer
- 30 years behavioral health — group homes, homeless services
- Special Education Teacher · Clinical Engineer · US Postal Carrier
- Teamster · Union Grievance Representative
- Food Security Researcher · Agricultural Resilience Imperative · 2026
R.O.A.R. — Restore Our American Republic
No corporate money · No PAC money · Candidate statements · Festivals · Earned mediaOther candidates make promises. I wrote the legislation. Every bill is public. Every fiscal note is real. I filed a 25-category FOIA request, a DOI Inspector General complaint, and published a congressional food security report — before spending a single dollar on advertising.
"Point Reyes settlement should be examined"
— Ukaiah Daily Journal, February 2026 · Latest: Public accountability letter sent to Huffman — April 2, 2026 →
Four Issues. Real Legislation.
These aren't talking points. They're drafted bills — with constitutional authority statements, fiscal analysis, and sunset clauses — covering every challenge CA-2 faces.
Rural Healthcare — Close to Home
CA-2's nine counties have some of the worst rural healthcare access in California. If you need a cardiologist in Trinity County, you drive three hours. That ends.
- Forgivable SBA loans for doctors & nurses who open rural clinics in CA-2
- Telehealth infrastructure & mobile clinic networks in every county
- Voluntary universal Medicare eligibility — no one forced, no one denied
- Senior independence & aging-in-place: keep elders in their communities
- Childcare: $300M annually for student parents; affordable secure childcare
- Behavioral health: addiction, mental health, crisis intervention — treated as healthcare
Economic Revitalization — Jobs That Stay
California went from 300 sawmills to fewer than 30. Post-cannabis contraction hit Humboldt and Mendocino hard. The fishing industry is collapsing. This district needs jobs that don't leave.
- Reopen mills: 45-day permitting, tax credits up to $37,000/employee for forestry jobs
- Forest slash → farm soil: connect wildfire thinning to composting cooperatives — 100,000+ rural jobs
- Working waterfront preservation: fishing ports, seafood processing, dock access
- Post-cannabis diversification: specialty crops, hemp, agro-tourism, small farm grants
- Broadband: rural CA-2 cannot compete without it — federal infrastructure mandate
- Tribal cultural burning as sovereign right — partner with Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa for forest health
Food Security — An American Emergency
47.9 million Americans are food-insecure. Fertilizer prices are up 30–40% from the Iran conflict. The U.S. cattle herd is at a 75-year low. The USDA cancelled its food security survey in 2025 — we are now managing a crisis with no national scorecard.
- Restore the USDA Household Food Security Survey — the nation's only measurement tool, cancelled in 2025
- Halt APHIS staffing cuts: H5N1 biosurveillance gaps put CA-2's dairy & poultry at risk
- Forest Slash–Livestock Composting Cooperatives: replace fossil-fuel fertilizer with biochar, create 100,000 rural jobs
- Hybrid Organic Transition: decouple American farming from natural gas prices over 15–25 years
- $52M in Modoc grasshopper losses — the Pest Suppression & Restitution Trust Fund pays ranchers first
- Protect SNAP's $1.54B-per-$1B agricultural multiplier — cuts hurt farmers, not just families
Ecological Restoration — Heal the Land & Sea
CA-2 sits on some of the most ecologically significant land on Earth: Klamath River, Pacific coast, old-growth redwoods, Tomales Bay. Protecting them isn't ideology — it's economics. You can't fish a dead ocean.
- West Coast kelp recovery initiative: bull kelp collapsed 95% since 2014 — this reverses it
- Salmon recovery: Klamath dam removal follow-through, Pacific fishery disaster response
- Tri-Zonal forest management: core wilderness protected, working forests restored, buffer zones managed
- Carbon fee-and-dividend: 75% of revenues go directly back to families as dividends
- Water security: aquifer protection, watershed resilience, water-table sustainability provisions
- Indigenous co-management: Traditional Ecological Knowledge as co-equal to scientific management
The Numbers Washington Won't Tell You
Gregory Burgess published the Agricultural Resilience Imperative (March 2026), a nonpartisan congressional policy brief documenting the state of American food security. Here is what the data shows — and what this campaign has already done about it.
Three Actions.
Before Asking for One Vote.
When Gregory Burgess discovered that a federal settlement had displaced 89 Latino farmworkers from 12 Point Reyes ranches — through NDAs and without a public hearing — he didn't wait for an election. He filed federal records requests, a formal complaint to the Inspector General, and drafted legislation to prevent it from ever happening again.
The January 2025 settlement eliminated more than 22% of Marin County's certified organic milk supply, the last USDA-certified organic slaughterhouse in the Bay Area, and world-award-winning food production — during the most severe national cattle supply contraction in living memory.
These are filed federal documents. Show Your Work.
- 01 FOIA Request DOI-2026-003984. 25-category records request filed to the National Park Service covering all settlement financial records, NDA provisions, tribal consultation records, and TNC communications. Administratively appealed March 10, 2026. All before asking for a single vote.
- 02 DOI Inspector General Complaint. Formal ethics complaint filed to the Department of the Interior OIG documenting the transparency failures, NDA use against displaced farmworkers, and the absence of competitive bidding or independent appraisal for the transfer of effective management of 18,000 acres of public land.
- 03 The Right of Return Act. Drafted federal legislation setting the standard that should have existed before 89 farmworkers lost their jobs and homes simultaneously. Mandates operational restoration of federal ranch leases for future lessees and protected farmworker housing on all federally managed agricultural land. A bill, not a grievance.
- 04 Letters to 988 West Marin Residents. Mailed a four-page letter to approximately 988 Point Reyes and West Marin residents documenting the settlement's impact — before this campaign spent a dollar on advertising. Transparency as a practice, not a promise.
Fighting for All of CA-2
Every county in this district has a page on this website with specific legislation addressing its specific problems. Click your county.
38+ Bills. Every Word Public.
Agriculture, housing, healthcare, forestry, fisheries, insurance, tribal justice, education, veterans, workers, tax fairness, and the Constitution. Read them before you vote.
"I practice Environmental Realism: regenerative stewardship honoring working landscapes, sustaining rural livelihoods, and rejecting policies that sacrifice human communities for ideology. Our forests, ranches, and coastlines thrive when the people who tend them thrive."
— Gregory Burgess, Candidate for CA-2
A Public Servant.
Not a Politician.
I am a third-generation Californian, raised in Mill Valley. My mother, Wanda Ballentine, practiced regenerative stewardship before it was fashionable. I grew up drinking Strauss dairy milk, explored Point Reyes with naturalist Elizabeth Terwilliger, and birded with my uncle Stuart Keith — world record holder for bird species observed.
I have never had a conventional career. I have been a counselor, a teacher, a federal officer, an engineer, a bus driver, and a mail carrier. Each of those jobs taught me something a career spent only in politics never could. I know what it means when your rural clinic closes. I know what it means to drive children to school on roads that haven't been repaved in twenty years.
I wrote 38+ bills — covering agriculture, housing, healthcare, forestry, fisheries, insurance, tribal justice, education, veterans, workers, and tax fairness — before I asked for a single vote. I filed a 25-category FOIA request and a DOI Inspector General complaint. I published a congressional food security report. That's what "Show Your Work" means.
Democrat, Republican, Independent: this district belongs to all of us. I am not asking for your money. I am asking for your vote — and your attention. Read my bills at gregoryburgessforcongress.com. I humbly ask for your vote.
This Campaign Belongs to You
No corporate money. No empty promises. Just drafted legislation you can read today — a campaign running on candidate statements, community festivals, and earned media. Show Your Work, start to finish.