For my neighbors in the 6th who are tired of being lectured
We Work for You, So It's Time We Start Listening
Kevin Martin has spent 30 years as a controller: the person who audits
the books and asks why the numbers moved. He's running for Congress in Georgia's
6th. Before he tells you what he thinks, he wants to know what you expect from the
people you vote for.
The One Thing That Kevin Will Always Promise You
"I promise you will always be in charge, and your
voice will matter most."
We have elected too many people who sound good and do nothing. They show up with
an agenda they never ran on and a goal they never mentioned. Whether any of it
actually helps you stopped being the point a long time ago.
You are not supposed to be the audience. You are supposed to be the boss.
Kevin has said the same thing to every employer he has ever worked for, and he means
it the same way here:
"You're employing me to help you handle your business. If you
don't like what I'm doing, talk to me. I can make the changes."
— Kevin Martin
Ask yourself honestly: when was the last time your congressperson made
your life better?
Fifth generation. Same district.
"I have blood in the district."
— Kevin Martin
Kevin is a fifth-generation native of Cobb County. His mother grew up
off Bolton Road, his father in Center Hill, out along Bankhead Highway. His family has
been in this stretch of Georgia for generations, and he has lived here his whole life.
His grandfather had a third-grade education and came to Atlanta on the
WPA in the 1930s, the son of a sharecropper with nothing behind him. He built his own
business anyway, hired people out of his own community, and kept a garden that
neighbors could work when they needed to eat.
Kevin's father spent 42 years at Atlanta Gaslight as a crew foreman.
His mother spent 35 years at BellSouth and worked her way up to first-level supervisor.
The four of them lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house under 1,500 square feet. His
parents gave him and his brother what they needed rather than what they wanted, and
told them the way out was a better education than they had gotten. Kevin started
cutting grass at nine years old, because if he wanted a bicycle he was going to buy
the bicycle.
That is the whole reason he takes the question of who gets a fair shot
here personally. He has watched this district from the inside for his entire life, and
he is not asking anyone to take his word for where he comes from.
What 30 years of auditing actually teaches you
At one company, payroll kept climbing. So did the number of people
getting checks. Nobody could say why.
Kevin went through it department by department, headcount by
headcount. The payroll officer was adding their own family members to the payroll.
The fraud stopped, and the person responsible was gone, because somebody finally
asked a question nobody else was asking.
"Constantly asking the question of why our constituents are
suffering is how we get to better solutions."
— Kevin Martin
That's the whole discipline. Checks and balances. Audit every aspect.
Catch the fraud before it compounds, and find the waste sitting in between. He thinks
Washington could use somebody who does that for a living.
The system isn't just broken. It's completely fixed…
…and you are not the one that benefits.
Ask Kevin what is actually wrong here and he doesn't reach for a
culture-war answer. He walks you through the math, one step at a time.
Our schools stopped being the same school district. People point
at Cobb County's overall numbers and call it good. Go school by school instead, out
toward South Cobb and South Fulton, and you are looking at a different district
entirely.
So young families stopped moving in. Nobody moves their kids
somewhere the schools are struggling. Kids who grow up here finish school and leave.
The ones under forty who stay are largely the ones who can't afford to move out of
their parents' house.
And the people left behind carry the whole bill. An aging district
with a shrinking tax base has one lever left, so property values get pushed up and
the tax bill follows. Seniors who paid their homes off decades ago get taxed out of
them.
Congress is doing nothing but bickering over what headlines and what
sound bites will make it easiest for them to win re-election. The right and the left
agree on one thing: the system is not built for you to win.
What Makes Kevin Different
Kevin doesn't blame anyone except the members of Congress who do nothing.
Congress is elected to solve problems and talk through hard things. Sound
bites are not a substitute for good government.
Your life experience matters more than our ideology.
It keeps getting harder to put food on the table, and harder to believe a
better life is still ahead. Neither extreme has bothered to listen to what you
actually live through.
Kevin doesn't believe he knows everything.
You are not the enemy, and you don't have to agree with him. Your perspective
has a place, and that is how better solutions get made.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives write and vote on federal laws, including the federal budget. Each represents one district and serves a two-year term. Tax bills must start in the House, only the House can impeach federal officials, and members oversee federal agencies through their committees.