A five-question “Yellowhammer Questionnaire” was sent out to U.S. House candidates in Alabama’s First Congressional District last week. We gathered all of their answers and will be presenting them to you throughout this week — one question per day. The candidates’ answers are presented unedited and side-by-side for easy comparison. Candidates are listed in alphabetical order.
TODAY’S QUESTION: Many congressmen specialize in specific policy areas when they get to D.C. What areas are you most interested in and how would you use those interests to help the First Congressional District?
ANSWERS:
Bradley Byrne (Republican)
My priority will always be the needs of our district first and foremost. We have unique opportunities with dedicated solutions to help the people of the 1st district. From getting the federal Government out of the business of regulating how many fish we can catch to creating an interstate pact to lower the absurdly high wind insurance premiums in our area, I will always work for our district. The focus of my entire career has been economic development and fixing broken parts of government, and I intend to do just that in Washington
Randy Davis (Republican)
My educational background has given me insight into the teaching and learning process and I bring knowledge and understanding in this area. However, while serving in state government I worked in areas of regional importance such as Constitutional Reform, Agriculture and Conservation. Working with reapportionment, constitution reform, and fair campaign practices has given me great insight into court rulings of late and how they affect this state. Having to implement the laws passed by Congress, I fully understand the process at the state level and the effects to individuals and businesses in each community.
Chad Fincher (Republican)
Our fundamental rights, freedoms, and constitutional guarantees are under assault day in and day out by the Obama administration. This violation of what we hold most dear carries over to our ability to thrive economically, prevents us from protecting ourselves, denies us our fundamental property rights, robs the unborn of the right to life, seeks to redefine our most sacred institutions, and infringes upon our religious exercise and conscience. Due to the abuses of the Obama administration, my primary job in Congress will be to fight to keep us a free people. Specifically, I look forward to fighting to lower taxes, ending cuts to our military, joining Congressman Roby in the great work she is doing for our veterans, continuing with the recent momentum in the pro-life movement, and, as a small businessman, working to bring jobs to South Alabama. With all of these issues, we cannot afford to focus on one particular problem, but, instead, must be relentless if fighting against the radical Left and working to advance our conservative values on every front, never yielding ground and never surrendering.
James Hall (Independent)
I am very passionate about getting the Federal Government out of our business in the First Congressional District. That comes in many forms, IRS, EPA, DHS, Dept. of Education, etc. An easy one should be getting Red Snapper away from federal management. Just like our deer herd is managed at the state level, so should Red Snapper. How about calling off the war on coal? We get 55% of our electricity from coal fired plants in Alabama. I know I do not want our electricity prices to do what our gas prices are doing. My other passion is correcting our political system. I will push for term limits to ALL federally elected officials. I feel like this is the biggest single contributor to our broken system right now. This is the first step in a long journey to get our country headed back in the right direction.
Quin Hillyer (Republican)
An ever growing Federal Government with its exploding debt is a threat to the America that our parents and grandparents grew up in. If we do not get the debt crisis under control immediately, there is not much else to talk about because our children’s livelihoods will be leveraged to the hilt to pay for our reckless spending. Therefore, fixing the debt crisis will be a specific policy area I will specialize in. I alone have the necessary experience working in Congress and within the media to draw attention to ways we can sensibly cut spending and put this country back on a path towards a balanced budget, the way we did when I worked up there in the 90’s and laid the groundwork for the first balanced budget in three decades. I also expect to draw on my experience in Defense Appropriations to support our military personnel and cutting edge equipment and vessels like Littoral Combat Ships.
Jessica James (Republican)
My key interest at the moment is workforce development. With unemployment continuing to be high in a large part of the District, I will focus on workforce development needs so that when the new industries we’ve recruited to our area are ready to hire we’ll have trained employees from our own District to meet their needs.
I will focus on defending our Constitution and our freedoms. People across the First District are worried about the federal government taking away their rights, like their right to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, and attacking our Conservative values. I would work to restore Americans confidence and trust in our federal government, and to ensure that our federal government is working to protect our freedoms—not destroy them.
Dean Young (Republican)
I would work on getting our nation back to following the U.S. Constitution. The people of the First Congressional District are tired of a lack of accountability and having a federal government which is out of control.
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