Citizen S.O'B. | About Shawn Casey O'Brian

Citizen Shawn Casey O’Brien

Throughout the nineties Shawn worked as the executive director of the Unique People’s Voting Project, or UP, as it is more commonly known. As co-founder of UP Shawn envisioned California’s 3.8 million disabled citizens of voting age coming together to form the state’s largest minority voting block, and thereby securing for the community a powerful voice in state politics. In addition, it was, and continues to be a part of the UP mandate to have their activities in California serve as an example for an ongoing movement to bring power and security to the nation’s most disenfranchised citizens through the ballot box.

UP was America’s first grass roots voter registration program specifically aimed at disabled citizens. Founded in 1991, and operating with a Non-Profit status on a shoestring budget, UP was able to register in excess of 100,000 disabled Californians and their families throughout the 1990’s. UP got the community excited about taking power! For 9 years Shawn traveled up and down the state organizing and empowering the disabled community and registering voters -- all the while believing in the mantra of history's great grass roots efforts that small actions done repeatedly will eventually amount to a large change.

As a non-profit organization UP was not allowed to choose sides in elections and so remained “ruthlessly non-partisan”. Shawn spoke out endlessly on the importance of disabled citizens voting in their own enlightened self-interest, or ESI, preaching that “when the disabled community votes in their own enlightened self-interest, regardless of party affiliation, all of society benefits. Because the issues that concern disabled citizens concern everyone. The health care system and social safety net that you vote to protect today, you or some one you love will access at some point in the future.”

UP was bringing power to the powerless, one voter at a time, in the finest of grass root traditions. But things changed after the November Y2K election. It became clear in the minds of many Americans that their votes did not necessarily count. Not surprisingly, UP and most voter registration organizations around the country felt that their work had been severely undermined by the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush vs. Gore and the subsequent outcome of the Y2K Presidential election.

That’s when Shawn decided to give up his non-partisan stripes and run for statewide office. Being in touch with his constituency on a grass roots level he knew he had the power of numbers on his side. He knew that the office of Secretary Of State, with it’s principal role being the state’s chief elections official and caretaker of democracy, would be the ideal place to put his years of experience with the democratic process to work for all of California’s citizens.

Citizen S.O’B. is the story of Shawn Casey O’Brien’s bid to gain a position on the 2001 electoral ballot and become the loving caretaker of California’s democracy. With great wit, charm and dogged determination, one of America’s most outspoken voices for the disabled gives us a rare, inside look at what happens when the average citizen enters a statewide political campaign without corporate funding or party backing.

Citizen S.O’B. was conceived to inspire citizens of all stripes to use their democracy and become a force for positive change in America and beyond. And also to carry the mandate of The Unique Peoples Voting Project beyond the grass roots of California to the forty million disabled citizens living in the USA, and beyond.

Shawn Casey O'Brien is running for the California Assembly in 2006. For more info visit O'Brien for Assembly.