KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Friday, candidates for the 61st District in the Michigan House of Representatives met with WKZO for a debate.
The debate was between Democratic candidate and Kalamazoo County Commissioner Christine Morse and Republican candidate Bronwyn Haltom, who discussed various issues concerning Michigan residents.
Both are campaigning for the seat currently held by State Representative Brandt Iden, who is term-limited for his position.
The debate aired over WKZO on Friday and was replayed on Saturday. A recap of the debate can be viewed below:
Emergency Orders Amid the Pandemic: Do you support the Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) being an alternate source of authority, as the governor put it, and if not, who should make the critical decisions in dealing with a pandemic here in Michigan?
Christine Morse: I for one was very concerned when the Supreme Court overruled the Governor’s Executive Order authority. The work that she has done to
Christine Morse is the Democratic Candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives 61st District. (Photo by Jeana Gondek)
keep our communities safe has really been effective. I saw on Twitter a graph that shows where Michigan started out in the cases of coronavirus, and how we very quickly dropped down to the lower states in terms of our infection rates and deaths. That being said, I understand that the Supreme Court has ruled as it has ruled. I do support MDHHS’s authority in this instance. We still have a global pandemic ongoing, and are at risk of a second bout, especially considering flu season. We need to continue to protect the citizens of Michigan so that our kids can go back to school and our workers can go back to work.
Bronwyn Haltom: I think where we all want to be is, we’re both running for State Representative, and our laws are written in the State House. We need to work together, we need to follow the data. I trust the doctors and our public health experts, so if I was in the legislature right now, I would want to work with both sides of the aisle to find solutions to keep our state healthy, but I do think the place it should originate is the House, work with the Senate. Obviously we have a divided government, so we all need to come up with bipartisan solutions. We’re now months and months into this crisis, so it’s really important we’re using the data, using the lessons learned over the past several months, so let’s get those guidelines and get them to the governor and have her sign them into law. Certainly, getting our kids back into the classroom is very important, but I trust data, I trust the doctors, and let’s let the legislation be lead by our experts.
Security at the Capitol: In light of the recent foiled plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, do you think that lawmakers should take greater steps for safety and security at the Capitol?
Haltom: Our elected officials should be safe, and I commend both the FBI and state law enforcement, and I am incredibly grateful that the governor was safely protected in that scenario. I’ve been to the U.S. Capitol, there’s a lot of security there, and there’s security there for a reason. I trust our law enforcement, and if they say we need similar guidelines in our state Capitol, I would follow the experts on that, and I would be open to having a conversation having the guidelines here in our state look more like the U.S. Capitol.
Morse: The Capitol Commission, again, has had months to take action on this issue. Full stop, we should not be allowing open carry within our Capitol. Not only is it dangerous for our legislators, a dangerous situation for our law enforcement to control it, our legislators should have the freedom of speech, and that, I would think, would chill what they are saying on the floor while they’re trying to pass legislation to protect the citizens of our state. So absolutely, I think we should move forward with banning guns in the Capitol and make sure we are keeping our legislators and administration safe.
Unemployment: In the lack of a new stimulus package, how should the State help those who stand to lose unemployment benefits due to orders that were struck down?
Morse: The Democrats moved months ago and have been asking for the legislature to move forward to increase the unemployment benefits without action by our Republican-lead House and Senate. It’s very disappointing that we are in the midst of a global pandemic and our government can’t seem to work together to make sure that our people can survive this with their economic lives and health intact. I sincerely hope that our legislature will come together and make movement on this, because we need it. And as for other stimulus, we are waiting for the federal government to take action on that. They are choosing to do other things at this time. We have 215,000 Americans dead, and without action by our Congress to protect the people of the State of Michigan or our Country.
Bronwyn Haltom is the Republican candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives 61st District. (Photo by Jeana Gondek)
Haltom: I want to say that over the last several months, I’ve talked to hundreds of people, socially distanced at their door, and a lot of them, the problem isn’t even that the unemployment is running out now. I’ve been talking to people months into this that have called the Unemployment Agency thousands of times. And for them, I was talking to one family, seven adults lived in the home, and all but six of them had been laid off, and their unemployment hadn’t come through. One of them, they were finally approved and got a check for one week, and it was all of the back money that hadn’t arrived yet. So I do think we need a lot more oversight over the unemployment agency in the way, that even months into this pandemic, they’ve been treated. It just isn’t right.
Reopening Michigan: As Michigan tries to recover from this health and economic crisis, what should be done to help Michigan businesses survive and reopen safely?
Haltom: When I talk to business owners, one of the biggest things they talk about is clarity. In the beginning, it was very hard, especially for the smaller stores. It was tough when the regulations weren’t clear, and some of the smaller businesses in our district were being disproportionately hurt because of this. Now we’re months into this crisis, some businesses are allowed to open. Nothing’s been more devastating than getting a call a couple of weeks ago from somebody in the district saying, “Hey, do you know of a bankruptcy attorney? I’m just teetering on the edge here.” We need to make sure that as we safely reopen, we look at what can be done safely in allowing those businesses to operate as full-capacity as they can. These are devastating times, and then we need to also make sure help is available for those businesses.
Morse: I will share with you that my husband is a partner in a small business, and we spent some anxious times talking about how they were gonna pay their 30 employees when they completely shut down. It was a scary time, but it was the right thing to do. They found a way, our Governor provided a lot of help for small businesses, as well as the federal government early on, so my husband’s business thankfully survived and they are back to work. What we need to make sure we’re doing going forward is providing those small businesses loans and grants, so they can get back on their feet through what has been a very difficult time. The other point we need to think about is consumer confidence. Sure, we can open the businesses, but there are a lot of people who don’t feel safe going out. They don’t feel protected, they don’t want to get sick, and if they get sick, they can’t go to work. We need to make sure we are providing PPE, making sure there are adequate supplies so our businesses can operate safely.
Absentee Ballots: The use of absentee ballots has exploded in Michigan leading up to this election. Are you confident in the voting process here in Michigan?
Christine Morse is the Democratic Candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives 61st District. (Photo by Jeana Gondek)
Morse: Yes, in fact, this is law in the State of Michigan, so being comfortable with absentee ballots or not, this is the law that we have in our state, and it is available to every voter. You can even register to vote on the day of in the Clerk’s office if you haven’t done it yet. My husband and I were military, we voted absentee from Japan. We felt comfortable with the process back then, and I think people should feel safe about it. Our Secretary of State is ensuring that we have every protection in place. We have local clerk’s who are working their tails off and making sure people have every opportunity to cast their vote. So do I feel confident that absentee ballots are a safe way to vote? 100 percent.
Haltom: Yes, my husband and I just got our ballots in the mail a little while ago. We filled those out and are gonna be driving them over to our local clerk in Texas Township later today. I want to encourage everybody, don’t wait, you can vote now. It’s an exciting election. If it gets down to the final week, don’t put it in the mail, just go on and drive it to your local clerk if you have any concern about that. Just make sure that you’re voting, and I feel very confident in my absentee vote. So don’t wait, vote now.
Education: Moving forward, what do you see as the legislatures role in education in Michigan? Everything between funding to mandating programs.
Haltom: I want to start by saying thank you to the teachers, administrators and the people keeping our schools running over this crazy time. My nephew, he’s 11 in sixth grade and lives with us, and just watching the teachers go to such lengths to make sure our students are still learning in this difficult environment, so thank you. Number one, it starts with funding. For me, I will not compromise on education funding, that’s where we have to always start with the budgeting process. I was grateful to see the bipartisan budget that was signed by our Governor very recently that prioritized education. One thing I was particularly glad to see was they had an incentive in there for teacher retention. With the heck teachers have been through over this last year, we’ve got to keep good teachers in the classroom. So I want to focus on things like that. I will close by saying I went to Kalamazoo Valley Community College, it was such a resource for me, so when we talk about education, when we talk about colleges, it’s not just U of M where I went or MSU where Christine went, it’s about all of our colleges and making sure every student has an opportunity to reach their full potential in Michigan.
Morse: These obviously are very tough times for schools, teachers and students. I have two kids still in public schools, one is learning virtually, the other is going mostly full-time face-to-face, but it’s hard. Everyone is struggling. The number one priority that I have said over and over is that we need to properly fund our public schools. We have been doing a disservice to our schools for 20 years. Revenue has been flat for 20 years, and our system for funding schools is extremely convoluted, not very transparent, and not protected. I 100 percent want to make sure that we are fully funding our public schools so every child has the opportunity to succeed. My opponent, however, says she will support public school funding, but has accepted support of the DeVos family, as well as the Betsy DeVos-funded Great Lakes Education Project, which is a charter school lobbying organization. So the question is, do we trust her to actually fund public schools, or will she divert it to private educations and for-profit institutions?
Flooding and Environmental Issues: Areas of the 61st District have been plagued by flooding in recent years, and the safety and quality of our drinking water has been an issue at times here in Kalamazoo at the surrounding times. How should this issue be addressed?
Morse: As a county commissioner who serves on the Texas Township Flooding Task Force, I have a fair bit of experience with the flooding issue in particular. That is a bipartisan group that has been working for almost three years now to solve this flooding that we’ve had, which encompasses two lakes in the surrounding neighborhoods. There is no easy solution, there really aren’t government programs in place to help people in this type of situation. So I’m hoping, moving forward, we can as a government be more proactive, but right now I’ve done all I can as a county commissioner to help get the long-term solution to the courts so that the process can continue. In terms of keeping our drinking water safe, of course that is an issue I’m sure we can all agree on. We have had two instances of PFAS contamination here in our county alone. We need to make sure we are actually making polluters pay for the damage that they do to our systems. We need to keep our drinking water safe, period.
Bronwyn Haltom is the Republican candidate for the Michigan House of Representatives 61st District. (Photo by Jeana Gondek)
Haltom: It’s devastating, I think we’ve all seen the pictures, I’ve talked to folks who are losing their homes. It’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s just a vacation home,” no, these are people’s lives that are being destroyed. Something that I found really concerning is EGLE, the environmental quality office, it often feels like it’s moving very very slowly. My commitment, as a state representative, I would go in their office and I wouldn’t leave until we got faster answers. We all want to follow the data, we want to follow the science, but I’ve been really concerned how long it takes to get some of those decisions. I’ve talked to folks, there’s agony, people are losing their homes and livelihood, and the stress it’s putting on parents and children, the mental anguish is just devastating. We need to have a representative that’s going to make sure those decisions are being made faster. When it comes to PFAS, we need to have the testing there. We found it in Portage, luckily those levels were low enough that it was within the safe standard, but making sure we fund testing in this district is very important to me.
Healthcare: What should the government’s role be in dictating Healthcare? Should it be a federal issue, should it be a state issue, or should it be left out of the government’s hands entirely?
Haltom: As I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of people, this is often the number one issue that comes up. My husband has a pre-existing condition, there is nothing more important to me than protecting those with pre-existing conditions, and I would even like to see that codified in state law so we never have to worry about what’s happening nationally. My number one commitment is protecting those with pre-existing conditions. We need to focus on lowering prescription drug prices, and then we’ve seen some work on surprise billing. The legislation that was proposed is not perfect, we need to make some changes there, but when you go to the doctor, you should never come away with bills that you weren’t expecting. We need to make sure we’re focusing on the relationship between the doctor and the patient in lowering overall costs. Lastly, I will reiterate my support for protecting those with pre-existing conditions. Regardless of what some may say, that’s just simply not true, that I wouldn’t protect those with pre-existing conditions.
Morse: As a cancer survivor who has had to navigate the healthcare system, even with good insurance, I understand how challenging it can be. What we know from our recent global pandemic is that millions of people have lost their health insurance because they’ve lost their jobs. This is a federal issue first and foremost, and I truly hope that Congress can move forward. The Affordable Care Act is currently under attack by the Trump administration at the Supreme Court level, and if that is overturned, we lose the mandated requirement that pre-existing conditions are covered. So hopefully the state will come in to fill that vacuum, there has already been a bill package offered that would mandate insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions in Michigan. Also, that would expand Healthy Michigan, which is an amazing program currently serving 808,000 Michiganders and providing affordable health care. My opponent can say she’s gonna support it, and I sincerely hope she does, but she also worked for the Trump administration in the past that has done everything it can to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
Final Question – Mask Mandate: With the ongoing and sometimes political debate over face masks. Plain and simple: Do you support a statewide mask mandate? Why or why not?
Morse: That is a very divisive issue which doesn’t really make sense to me, considering the fact that we are in the only global pandemic that any of us has faced in our lifetime. But I have an aunt that had polio in her 20’s, and was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, and that’s what always gets me back to, we need to make sure that we are protecting the people of the State of Michigan. If people will not comply voluntarily, than perhaps a mask mandate is what’s required. I lived in Japan, and people would regularly walk around with masks on when they were ill because they wanted to protect others, and that’s why we should be wearing masks, first and foremost. In case we have something we don’t know about, we are protecting others, and likewise, if we wear a mask, we are protecting ourselves. It’s really an unselfish thing to do, and at this point where there’s still so many questions around this global pandemic, I would support that we are making sure people are masking up.
Haltom: I’ve got my mask here, I’ve been wearing it, my mom made some homemade masks early in the pandemic, and have delivered hundreds and hundreds of them throughout the district to people that needed masks. I’m fully in favor of it. When I go to the dentist or doctor, they always have a mask on, I feel good that they’re wearing it. I like to wear it for my little nephews to keep them healthy and for people like my parents, so Mask Up Michigan. We’ve gotta do our part to keep our state healthy and get back to schools and our normal way of life.
Further Viewing:
- Audio for the debate can be heard on the WKZO Podcast page at this link.
- For a video of the debate, click here.
- WKZO also recently hosted a debate between Congressman Fred Upton and State Rep. Jon Hoadley. A recap of that debate can be read here.
