I’ve been singing the praises of 1st Senate District Candidate Tyler Nixon for months now. A truly genuine candidate, he unfortunately lost a tough battle against GOP-endorsed Greg Chambers in last month’s primary. Doing what’s best for democracy, Nixon has decided to keep his candidacy alive by running as an Independent in the 1st’s Senate race.
The News Journal, a paper that virtually ignored his candidacy in the run-up to the primary, yesterday published a great Q&A with Nixon. I’ve pulled some of my favorite responses and highlighted them below:
2 – What steps should the state government take to improve the health of its citizens, and make health-care more affordable?
Access to basic health care and necessary medical treatment must be universal for all citizens, without regard to their economic station in life. When moderate to lower income families face crippling financial indenture or even economic ruin just to preserve the health of loved ones, government and the health care system have failed. Public leadership can be an honest broker for innovative public-private solutions the health care industry would welcome rather than resist. But it must use the power to legislate, regulate, and tax as incentive for solutions rather than threat to profits. By the same token, health care providers must never mistake this positive approach as a license to serve private profits behind the guise of public interest. If government works with industry to provide universal access to health care rather than merely a system of insured payments we can give innovative ideas a true shot.
4 - What should the state government’s role be in public education, how well is this being carried out and what should be done to better fulfill that mission?
The state’s job is not to educate but to provide the proper environment and the best tools for our teachers to educate children. We need less allowances for administration and bureaucracy, with non-teaching positions paid obscene salaries, while our schools buildings are out-dated and even crumbling in many cases. Teachers need to be paid the most in our public education system. School buildings must be modern, well-equipped, inviting places for all who learn and teach there. If we pay our teachers what they are worth, as the free market does for its best performers, we will attract quality and innovation to our education system. As long as public education is viewed by state employees as a place for an easy fat paycheck, rather than a sacred duty to prepare young people for their future, we will always be fighting decline in our school system.
8 — Do you support any expansion of gambling in the state, either by allowing new games at existing casinos or allowing additional casino sites? Are there other steps the state should take to meet gambling competition from other states?
Gambling is not where Delaware should be banking its economic future. It is truly a sad state of affairs when the best our “leaders” can do for our State’s economic development is to resort to an expansion of gambling, in the hope it will shore up our State government’s tenuous long-term revenue stability. There should not be a single expansion of a gaming device or facility in this state until every gambler is regulated and licensed. How many people walk into these gambling joints and plunk down money they owe others in public judgments or in back child support or bad debts? Every person who wants to gamble should have to submit to a monthly or periodical credit/public records check before they can spend a nickel.
9 — Do you support any changes in Senate rules governing the power of committee chairpersons over the status of bills, or in General Assembly regulations governing public access to deliberations by the Joint Finance Committee and Bond Bill Committee?
Absolutely. No public meeting of the people’s body should ever be closed from the public. No member of the Senate should be able to exercise personal autonomy over the legislative proposals of another Senator or Senators. Any act or rule that thwarts any Senator’s bill from being fairly, publicly, and timely considered by the full Senate is a serious violation of the constitutional due process rights of citizens. When a Senator’s proposals are crushed into a desk drawer by procedural trickery not only is the spirit of the Senate defiled but the citizens of an entire district are denied their equal voice in the Senate. There should be a specific time period, starting with the bill’s introduction date, after which the sponsor has an automatic right to assert priority calendar privileges for the bill’s floor consideration and final vote.
11 – The federal Justice Department is now investigating the adequacy of state-provided health care for prison inmates, following revelations of poor care in recent years. What changes – if any – do you think are necessary to address shortcomings in health care?
>Any contract like this one for health care services to prisoners must have a percentage of funds devoted to an independent auditing company reporting directly to the agency, the governor, and the legislature about the performance of these services, on at least a yearly basis. These contracts must contain provisions permitting levies against contract payments when the provider fails to perform as promised. Prisoners may be criminals paying their debt to society but they are still human beings and should never be faced with disease and death while in our care because of a private company’s despicable shirking and neglect.
15 – How do you assess the performance of the state and Legislature in the deregulation of electricity sales in 1999 and during the freeze of rates until May 2006? What should have been done differently, and what more can be done now?
De-regulating a utility monopoly simply turns over an important need of every citizen and our economy to the hands of private interests who will always place profits over quality and affordability. The deregulation debacle every citizen is now paying for with rate hikes starting at 59% has proven a dismal failure. It created none of the competition we were promised and has only benefited the large utilities who have done nothing to innovate and who continue to generate electricity by polluting, inefficient methods. Until citizens have real choices in generating their electricity needs, whether by affordable renewable energy technologies for their homes and businesses or by other energy companies offering competitive electricity rates, the rates must be regulated again until this occurs. Delawareans cannot be at the mercy of dominant or monopolistic private companies for something as critical to survival as their energy supply.
The answer to question 15 is a brilliantly worded “screw you” to 1st Senate District incumbent Harris “raise the rates” McDowell, who was one of the brain trusts behind the 1999 vote for deregulation.
Tyler Nixon is a great candidate for many reasons, none the least because he’s a Republican that seems to embrace the values of old-school GOPers like Teddy Roosevelt and not the brand of conservative nutzoids the party seems to prefer these days. He’s defying expectations and is making quite a name for himself these days. Pity he lives in a district that seems to only recognize the big “R” or “D” next to the name of a candidate. He’s the change Dover needs. One of a few who seems genuinely interested in collapsing the culture decadent incumbency and unnatural complacency in Legislative Hall.
Posted by Mike Matthews in First State Filth, Friends