Republican Jim Hagedorn is challenging incumbent DFLer Tim Walz for election to the U.S. House of Representatives District 1 seat, which represents Rock County and Minnesotans across the very southern region of the state.
The Minnesota Newspaper Association surveyed each candidate and provided their responses for distribution in community newspapers statewide.
The original survey included a dozen questions relating to congressional responsibilities, but for this print edition, the Star Herald focuses on six issues, the questions for which are stated here.
Full responses to all the questions can be found online at www.star-herald.com.
Top priority: If elected, what is your top priority for the 2017 Congress? Why are you running for office?
Health care: Health care costs have increased under the Affordable Care Act, and it remains unpopular with many Americans. Would you vote to abolish the Act? Barring that, are there specific reforms you would support?
Education: What role should the federal government play in ensuring that U.S. graduates can compete in the global economy? Are there specific measures that you advocate?
Transportation: What role should the federal government play in funding state and local transportation infrastructure? Be specific.
Agriculture: agricultural leaders fear that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will use perceived authority under the Clean Water Act provision Waters of the United States to invoke practices and requirements on private farm land, which could alter future crop production practices and livestock grazing. Do you support the provision? Why or why not?
Immigration: Do America’s immigration laws need to be changed? What should be the tenets of any immigration reform legislation?
Other issues: Are there other issues you want to address?
Tim Walz
Top priority
Our nation faces a number of challenges at home and abroad. We must continue to improve affordability and access to health care. While our economy is growing, we can do more to ensure that good-paying middle class jobs and affordable workforce housing are available. We must pursue tough, smart national security measures and provide our military with the tools and support they need to fulfill their responsibilities.
We must enable our farmers to continue to feed, fuel, and clothe the world. Our efforts to conserve our air, water, and land will benefit from our continued development of renewable energy. We must be tireless in our efforts to provide excellent education for our children and make sure that college and job training are affordable and available.
To meet these challenges and opportunities, we need people in Congress who have experience working across the political aisle to get things done.
Health care:
Millions more of Americans now have health care coverage. Pre-existing conditions cannot be used to deny coverage. Preventative care is now covered.
Current law can be improved, but complete repeal would erase the gains that have been achieved.
For 95 percent of Minnesotans, premiums have stabilized. We must address the large premium increases for the 5 percent of Minnesotans who purchase insurance on the individual market. We must take additional steps to counter steep increases in some prescription drug prices.
I am committed to working with anyone on both sides of the political aisle who wants to improve affordability and quality of health care.
Education:
Strong public schools are the foundation for our democracy and are indispensible to a growing economy. My years of teaching high school reflect my commitment to providing our students the education they will need to achieve their dreams. I support Minnesota’s work to expand pre-K education, which aligns with my support for the federal Head Start program.
We must address college affordability and expand opportunities for job training. College and job training are paths for Minnesotans to achieve their dreams and for employers to grow our economy. I will continue my work in Congress to help stem the tide of student debt and to ensure that job training is available and affordable.
The federal government can be a helpful partner with state and local education leaders. At the same time, it is important to recognize that local decision-making is essential if our schools are to serve our students and our communities.
Transportation:
Transportation is critically important to southern Minnesota. We rely on a safe and dependable system of roads, bridges, rail, ports and airports for our economy and region to thrive. We know that our farmers and businesses need a reliable network to compete across the nation and around the globe. Short-term solutions are not the best way to preserve and improve our transportation system. Smart investment and cooperative projects by federal, state, and local partners offer tremendous potential.
Agriculture:
Minnesota farmers feed, fuel, and clothe the world. Our farmers and producers are proud stewards of their land.
We do not have to accept the false choice between agricultural productivity and clean water. I will continue my work with agricultural, environmental, and land stewardship stakeholders to reach common-sense solutions.
If you didn’t need a permit before, it should generally be true that you shouldn’t have to apply for a permit after rulemaking is complete.
Immigration:
Our nation has the sovereign right to secure our borders. Generations have come to America in pursuit of freedom and opportunity. The current immigration system must be fixed. Congress must enact comprehensive immigration reform.
This would strengthen our national security, provide immigrants legal means of entering our country, and enable the world’s best and brightest to come and contribute to our economy and our communities. This would help Minnesota’s employers, who want to do the right thing, to hire legal workers.
Other issues:
We must ensure that our veterans can receive high-quality care from the VA. We have work to do to meet this responsibility. We must reform the policies and programs of the VA and ensure that all generations of veterans receive the care and support that they deserve.
For this reason, I hosted a national veterans’ roundtable in September to review the Commission on Care’s recommendations. This includes reducing wait times and improving access to care, especially in rural areas.
I am committed to working across party lines to find common-sense solutions to the issues that face us. This is why a study recently found that I am the fourth most bipartisan member of Congress. I work with my Republican and Democrat colleagues to achieve progress on issues ranging from veterans care, military readiness, and national security to conservation, farming, education and our economy.
Background and qualifications
I’m a teacher and football coach, and I served 24 years in the Army National Guard. I am the highest-ranking enlisted soldier to ever serve in Congress. I have a bachelor’s degree from Chadron State University and a master’s degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato. My wife, Gwen, and I live in Mankato with our two children.
My military experience prepared me well for addressing the national security, military, and veterans matters that face our nation.
Spending summers working on the family farm taught me lessons about agriculture that help me represent southern Minnesota’s farmers.
I understand the challenges facing our employers and workers. My years as a high school teacher and coach instilled in me the critical need to help our students receive the education they need for the future they seek.
Hagedorn
Top priority:
Our nation is in serious trouble and rapidly moving in the wrong direction. I stand for bold change to transform the federal government and send power back to the states and American people. Southern Minnesotans, like all Americans, want national leaders to defend the United States and protect the American people from illegal immigration and Islamic supremacists.
They also want elected representatives who will create an economic atmosphere so small businesses, farmers and manufacturers can thrive and create high-wage jobs without extreme EPA regulations, regressive fuel and estate taxes and disastrous laws like Obamacare. Lastly, voters want leaders who will protect their Constitutional rights, including the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
Health care:
Obamacare is a top-down Washington, D.C., disaster that is destroying the doctor-patient relationship, reducing health insurance competition, forcing millions of Americans from private health insurance to government-subsidized insurance, killing high-wage full-time jobs and forcing thousands of southern Minnesotans to pay astronomical health insurance premiums with deductibles so outrageous the underlying insurance is all but worthless (because people do not reach their deductibles).
Tim Walz voted for Obamacare and made promises that turned out to be completely false: for instance, families would save $2,500 per year on health insurance. It was the worst vote that Walz will ever cast. Even DFL Governor Mark Dayton says the Affordable Care Act is not affordable.
I support replacing Obamacare with free market reforms to create nationwide competition for health insurance and place downward pressure on the cost of insurance and deductibles, expand the use of Health Savings Accounts to encourage medical care shopping and reward people for healthy living, offer federal tax credits directly to individuals so workers can take health insurance plans from job to job, create high-risk polls so patients can be fully treated for cancer and other serious medical conditions without driving up costs for “healthy” people, and support tort reform to limit medical malpractice awards and place downward pressure on the cost of medicine.
Education:
The best way the federal government can help college students is to minimize college tuition debt and create a pro-business, pro-jobs economic climate. I support the use of pre-tax dollars for college tuition and a policy of allowing all Americans, age 18 – 30, to capture up to $50,000 of federal income tax money from earned income and use it for college, to start a business, save, invest, etc.
As for growing the economy and creating high-wage jobs, I support these bold solutions: regulatory reform, tax simplification, work-for-welfare, budget reform, replacing Obamacare and U.S. energy independence.
Transportation:
I support block granting money and authority to the states so governors, state legislators and others at the local level are in charge of determining the transportation projects that will best meet the needs of the people and state and local economies.
Agriculture:
The EPA's “Waters of the United States” regulation grants federal bureaucrats the power to meddle, harass and coerce farmers and small business owners by expanding government regulation over ponds, ditches and streams across Minnesota.
The rule gives the EPA broad authority to regulate and penalize farmers, businesses and land owners for routine activities. This poses a direct threat to southern Minnesota’s agricultural-based economy, family farming and our rural way of life.
To promote economic growth and create higher-paying jobs, I believe Congress must reform the federal regulatory process, reclaim regulatory authority from rogue agencies like the EPA and defund implementation of excessive federal regulations that are stifling our economy.
Immigration:
I stand for the following straight-forward immigration policy: Secure America’s borders; enforce the existing immigration laws of the United States; implement a verifiable work program for foreign labor; establish a biometric entry/exit U.S.
Visa and passport system; deport those who enter the United States illegally or overstay temporary Visas and passports; enact Kate’s law; block federal funding to Sanctuary Cities; and, reject Obama’s amnesty for illegal aliens.
As for the migration of refugees, unfortunately, Minnesota has a terrorist-recruiting problem from existing refugees. For that reason, I have proposed a Refugee Resettlement Program Time-out and the creation of safe-zones for refugees until our government can fix the problem.
The first responsibility of any federal official is to defend the United States and protect the American people. By contrast, my opponent, Tim Walz, is an open borders liberal who voted for Obama’s amnesty and supports the massive transfer of refugees to America from countries that hate America.
Other issues: No response
Background and qualifications:
Born in Blue Earth, Minnesota (where I reside today) and grew up in southern Minnesota on the Hagedorn grain and livestock farm near Truman.
I have a wealth of national legislative, media and government reform experience as well as Minnesota small business experience: former Legislative Director for U.S. Rep. Arlan Stangeland (MN-7th); former Director of Legislative and Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Management Service and Bureau of Engraving and Printing; and former businessman with Steuart’s of Mabel, Minnesota.