Tillsonburg man running for U.S. Congress

Jeff Helsdon, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A Tillsonburg man is running for United States Congress as an independent representing the Green Party.

Jim Casha is running in the 8th District in Michigan, which includes Saginaw and Bay City. If elected, he would be that area’s representative in Washington. Many question how a Canadian could run for an American elected office. Casha, who was born in the U.S. and is an American citizen, said he found a loophole in the American Constitution that states an elected must live in the area they represent when elected. Since Casha is not yet elected and was upfront that he didn’t have much of a chance, he can run.

However, he said he is likely making U.S. history, as he can’t find evidence of anyone else running for Congress and not living in the United States.

He came to Canada years ago to have standard-bred horses trained by Doug Arthur. He met and later married Roxanne Sweazey, who worked for Arthur. Since then, the couple has lived on both sides of the border. They have lived in Tillsonburg for six years and were in Norwich prior to that.

This Casha’s third run at office. It started as an awareness campaign to raise awareness about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder FASD). This is something Casha has immediate knowledge of as his parents adopted two children from the Michigan hospital where they were born. His mother recognized something was wrong with the children, who had FASD. As adults, both had problems that could be attributed to FASD.

“It’s just a disaster and the government denies them their disability and doesn’t recognize they have a disability,” Casha said.

He started trying to raise awareness about FASD in 2006.

“I warned them back in 2013, if they didn’t do something about this pre-natal alcohol problem, they would have school shootings,” he said.

And, unfortunately, Casha said he was right on that one.

This is Casha’s third time running for Congress. The first time he ran as a write-in candidate, as it was a last-minute decision.

“It was mind of spur of the moment,” he said, as he was hoping to raise awareness of FASD.

He received one vote that time around – and he said it wasn’t from him voting for himself as he must vote in his last residence in the U.S., Virginia, and he ran in Michigan.

The second time, Casha also ran for the Green Party. That time he received 1,800 votes.

“It was still kind of a protest run,” he said.

This time around, Casha knows he doesn’t stand a great chance of winning.

“I probably would do better than I had,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds and the media savvy to get elected.”

Casha is talking to both the Republicans and Democrats about FASD.. He pointed to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a hope, saying Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the originator of the Special Olympics. Casha is still trying to get the message to him about prenatal alcohol exposure and school shootings. He dropped off the book The Fatal Link, which is about school shootings, to J.D. Vance’s campaign office.

Casha is currently working on his Canadian citizenship and hasn’t ruled out a run at Canadian politics in the future.