As we move toward the 2018 mid term elections we need to take a close look at the two candidates running to represent our CA #4 District in the House of Representatives.
Tom McClintock is our current representative and Jessica Morse is running against him.
I recently attended a Meet and Greet for Jessica Morse. She is dynamic and very clear about the needs of our diverse communities. Morse’s roots go back five generations in our district. Her family still has the original homestead that they lived in after crossing the Sierra as pioneers.
She worked as a civil servant in Iraq for the State Department and the US Pacific Command (Defense Department). We need a public servant not
a politician.
McClintock does not live in our district and is a political transplant from Southern California. McClintock is trying to tell us that Morse does not live in our district.
It is really important to examine the voting record of any incumbent politician. What they say and do are not necessarily the same.
Morse will fight to lower taxes for middle class Americans who will see their taxes increase if they make more than $100,00 a year.
Unfortunately McClintock voted for the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill that mainly benefits the wealthy and corporations with very little trickling down to the rest of us. Morse will fight for affordable, quality heath care for ALL of us.
McClintock voted 18 times to get rid of the ACA (Obamacare). She believes in protecting our neighbors with pre-existing conditions. The newest health care plan from Congress, Association Health Plans (AHP’s), does not protect pre-existing conditions, emergency care, opium addiction, maternity care, and many other health needs at, of course, a lower cost. Seniors 50-62 will pay a much higher premium than anyone else according to AARP.
Morse believes it is extremely important to lower prescription drug costs. McClintock has taken more than $26,000 from big drug companies and then voted to keep drug prices high. McClintock has taken over $170,000 from health insurance companies that stand to benefit from the plan he supported.
Morse believes seniors are entitled to the retirement savings they spent their entire careers paying into. She will vote to protect and defend the Social Security Trust Fund. McClintock voted for a budget that cuts $4 Billion from Social Security and $537 Billion from Medicare.
McClintock has voted against Disaster Relief for fire victims for decades. When he voted NO on HR4667, which provided federal aid to victims of the California wild fires our community was shocked. Only a few months ago he voted NO on the House Appropriations Bill that provided funding for fire prevention.
We need a representative that will support a sustainable ecosystem, clean water, clean air, and a forest management program that will protect us from massive wild fires, and a plan that does not include giving our public lands to oil, gas, and mining as McClintock proposes.
We have been patiently waiting since 2006 for the representative we need. Morse will finally be that representative. We need to examine more of McClintock’s voting record before the absentee ballots come out around October 6.
McClintock said after the Judiciary Committee testimony by Dr. Ford regarding Brett Kavanaugh and her sexual assault by him; “crazy talk—why did it take over 30 years to come forward—that doesn’t pass the smell test for me—dismissed calls for FBI investigation—they don’t have anything to investigate.” We need to elect a public servant who will work to fix the system instead of blaming the survivors.
I listened to an in depth interview with Morse at Pantsuit Politics on 9/21/2018. If you are interested knowing more about MORSE it was an outstanding conversation. She is a smart, dynamic, problem solver. She has a Masters Degree from Princeton with a focus on nuclear non-proliferation. She has 10 years of Foreign Service experience.
McClintock voted NO on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. CHIP is the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He voted
to replace Medicare with a voucher system. He voted YES to REPEAL the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act of 2015. McClintock has a 2%
approval rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) with 4.2 million members. He supports privatization and other market-based reforms.
On the Tax Cut and jobs Act of 2017 he voted YES, after he originally said “I am convinced that the business side of this bill will provide dramatic growth for the national economy, however, I believe on the personal income tax side it does significant harm particularly to many families in the high cost, high tax state of California.” Pro business vs. CA families.
We need a representative that supports the 1st Amendment and will not tolerate the premise that the press is “the enemy of the people.” We need a representative that will fight for making public education as great as it used to be, not someone like McClintock that believes in the voucher system that does not pay full tuition for private schools. He also prefers charter schools over public education. He has an abysmal voting record from the Ca. Teachers Association and College Associations.
We need a representative who will vote for sensible gun safety laws to protect our children in schools, people in movie theaters, people at concerts, etc. Morse has no intention of taking away our guns. She comes from a family of hunters and outdoor people. She respects the 2nd amendment. It is incredibly sad that little children can get their hands on an unsecured gun and shoot themselves or other children.
Morse believes we need to get back to a civil society that cares about our fellow beings, that respects others, and most of all that will not tolerate and promote hate.
We need a representative that will not sit in Congress silently and do nothing to prevent our Democracy from being attacked by a foreign adversary.
Cheryl Reynolds
Shaver Lake
I was at the same “Meet and Greet” with Jessica Morse & found her to be very grounded and pragmatic, and refreshingly non-partisan. She is not running on party distinctions, and argues we need to go beyond the labels and focus on what we want for our district, what we want for our kids and grand-kids. She really seems to get the idea that forest management and fire risk reduction includes logging and grazing, but done using the best science and with a fully-funded forest service to protect our watershed and water supply! I’m supporting Jessica Morse this November.