My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

The 1st Congressional District race has shaped up to be a clear choice between a Tea Party fringe candidate and a moderate Democrat the NRA has endorsed multiple times in previous elections. DFL incumbent Tim Walz is best positioned to represent this district most broadly.

Walz’s Republican opponent, Jim Hagedorn, has tried to make Walz’s support for the Affordable Care Act a major campaign issue. I’m not sure why some Republicans are still running against the ACA, except perhaps to remain consistent prophets of doom after they predicted it would be an unmitigated disaster.

Despite the glitchy roll-out — and House Republicans assailing it dogmatically with dozens of symbolic repeal votes instead of accomplishing other tasks — a clear majority of Americans are satisfied with the provisions of the ACA (with the notable exception of the individual mandate), even though many are not aware they are part of the ACA. For example, 70 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of Republicans, favor guaranteed issue, i.e. a person can’t be turned away from buying health insurance due to pre-existing medical conditions. Only 54 percent of Americans recognize it is part of the ACA.

The rate of uninsured Americans is down, especially among young adults and the working poor. While Hagedorn claims that the ACA is a “catastrophe”, total health care costs have only risen 1 or 2 percent each year since its provisions started kicking in, the lowest increases since the year 2000. The ACA needs a lot of tinkering, but repealing it would unnecessarily undo many gains that are already helping families.

Hagedorn is backward-looking in other areas as well. In his erstwhile blog “Mr. Conservative,” he referred to female politicians as Barbies and bimbos and laced his criticisms of male politicians with gay innuendo. His crass writing used the cover of “satire” to launch tasteless ad hominem attacks at Democrats and moderate Republicans rather than engage in constructive discourse. He has since apologized, citing “a rigged game of political correctness.”

I don’t know about “political correctness.” I go by the measure “common decency,” which everybody should aspire to. We all make mistakes and he’s not the only politician to run into this — Sen. Al Franken has had to apologize for jokes that were just as off-color. It’s OK to wholly apologize instead of making it sound like Hagedorn yearns for the “good old days” when this kind of demeaning and abusive language was acceptable.

Walz has worked to restore civility and bipartisanship to the legislative process. We have to transcend our political differences if we’re going to solve our most pressing challenges. One area in which he has worked across the aisle is in energy policy, which requires a comprehensive, pragmatic approach to address domestic demand, foreign tensions and climate change. A major focus of energy legislation he has co-sponsored across party lines is infrastructure renewal, growth of green energy jobs, resource conservation, and environmental protection.

Hagedorn uses “regulation” and “government” with a negative connotation in most cases, and it’s not productive. We need to focus on better, more efficient government and fair regulations. Corporations turn to government all the time to grease their wheels; that’s why they have a veritable army of well-paid lobbyists with headquarters on K Street in Washington. And yet many politicians, especially in the Tea Party, essentially tell regular people that government isn’t meant to work for us; it is by definition an obstacle to our freedom and happiness. That has only expedited the common people’s handover of power to special interests.

Walz doesn’t want people to give up our power, he wants us to take it back. That’s why he is opposed to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, which effectively treat money as speech, sweeping away many limits to spending on political campaigns.

Walz pushes for transparency and openness in the workings of Congress, and he supported the STOCK Act, which made it illegal for members to reap financial rewards in the stock market or commodities futures due to their access to nonpublic information, a long overdue reform.

Elect the candidate who works hard to restore our faith in government. Vote for Walz in the 1st Congressional District race on Nov. 4.

 

Albert Lea resident Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.