MOUNT VERNON — At Thursday’s night debate, Ohio Senate candidates Gary Cox and Louise Valentine made their case to the voters as to why voters should select inexperience in state government over the experience of opponent Republican Andrew Brenner.
“Because he’s a career politician, and where has it gotten us?” said Cox, Green Party candidate. “If you vote for the red or the blue card, you are complicit in the two-party system, and you are going to get more of the same.”
“If you believe over the last eight years of one-party control that your lives are better, vote that way,” said Democrat Valentine. “I don’t think that’s the case.”
Cox also noted that he knows how laws are made and work and that he knows how to “push back on government.”
Valentine said she will bring her 12 years experience in the corporate business world with her to the statehouse.
Both agreed Brenner, who declined the invitation to participate in the debate, has not done a good job in the education arena, but they differed on how to solve the ongoing problem of school funding.
Valentine said it is the state’s responsibility to fund schools and that schools cannot “rely on levy after levy.” Rather than creating a state budget and allocating what is left to public schools, she said legislators need to figure out how much it costs to educate and then allocate that money. “That’s how [students] are going to get a leg up and succeed,” she said.
Cox leans toward placing funding authority at the local level. “Invest authority to local school boards and let them come up with a budget, and then put it on the ballot to the people to vote up or down,” he said.
Both Valentine and Cox favor increasing the minimum wage. Valentine, who describes herself as “a product of a middle-class family,” recommends an immediate raise to $12 an hour and taking that up to $15 over the course of a year. Citing Seattle’s raise to $15 an hour, she said, “They’ve found that it doesn’t hurt the economy like some people are telling us it does. There’s more money in the pockets to be spent, so that helps business.”
Cox would raise the wage to $20 per hour, which he said would start an economic boom with people buying more, businesses making more products and hiring more people. “You put more money in people’s pockets, the economy’s going to thrive,” he said.
On fighting the drug problem, Cox said that government has a lot of power. His solution is for the legislature to pass a law making it illegal for a person to possess, convey, or transfer any drug. “Make a simple law like that, and that should take care of the drug problem.”
Valentine’s solution is two-fold: stop the bleeding and get people treatment, and give law enforcement the tools they need to go after traffickers and distributors. She would take 5 percent of the state’s $2.8 billion rainy day fund and put it toward treatment. “Once we solve why people are getting addicted, you won’t have them getting addicted,” she said. “If there’s no demand, there’s no supply.”
Regarding agriculture, Cox would like to see a different food distribution system that includes all products being raised, fed, and sold within Ohio, specifically preferring organic. Noting that crop farmers are “slaves to Monsanto,” he asked, “Why can’t schools have their own gardens? Why can’t universities and colleges have working farms?”
“The decision about what is best for each farmer, what to sell and who to sell to, is best left up to the farmers,” said Valentine. “There’s plenty of room for international trade.” She agreed that the priority is to first take care of Ohioans and Americans.
Responding to a question about separation of powers regarding State Issue 1, Cox said he favors separation of power and also favors Issue 1. Regarding the issue’s lower penalties for drug possession, he said “I cannot commit a crime against myself. Where does the General Assembly have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot possess?”
Valentine agreed in the separation of powers but said she is against State Issue 1 not because of it’s contents but because it is enshrined in the Ohio Constitution, ties the hand of judges, and should be a legislative fix. “If we have not had a legislature willing to take this up and do it, vote them out,” she said.
Mount Vernon Nazarene University hosted the debate. Representatives of media outlets KnoxPages.com, the Mount Vernon News, WNZR, and WMVO/WQIO asked the questions. Voters can watch the debate on demand at www.mvnu.tv.
