Here & Now

Seventh Congressional District Candidate Shares Platform

Wausau’s seventh congressional district is represented in Washington by Republican Sean Duffy, who is in his third term. Congressman Duffy was invited to appear together tonight with his opponent. He said he was unable to schedule it. We also asked if he would sit down with us for a one on one interview to be taped anytime, anywhere during this past week. He declined that request as well. The challenger in the race is Democrat Mary Hoeft. In addition to her years as a professor at UW-Barron County in Rice Lake, Ms. Hoeft is also a former Rice Lake School Board member. Mary Hoeft joins us now, and thanks very much for being here.

Mary Hoeft:

Thank you Frederica, it’s my pleasure.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well now it’s quite a jump from school board to Congress. Why did you decide to take on a well-financed incumbent?

Mary Hoeft:

Well, I didn’t take on a well-financed incumbent. I took on a mission. My university students were suffering. I saw their plight. I saw the difficulty for them to pay their tuition, to, they had full time jobs, supporting moms and dads, poverty in Wisconsin 30 year all time highs, so when Democratic leaders came to me and said Mary, do this, I said I have to. I’m doing this for my students.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now you’ve repeatedly asked Sean Duffy to withdraw his support for Donald Trump. His response to that has been variations on this theme which we quote now in his absence. He says “Trump’s recent comments are reprehensible. “I never endorsed Donald Trump because of “his stance on women or his family values. “I endorsed him for his policies. “Defeating ISIS, securing our border, “and growing our economy.” What is your reaction to that reasoning on his part?

Mary Hoeft:

Well, it makes no sense. This is a man, we’re talking Donald Trump right now, who has admitted to the sexual abuse of women. So you, he calls that, Sean Duffy calls that Donald Trump’s private life, but that is a man who would be president, and as a man who would be president, he’s going to be addressing issues of gender and equity, violence against women and men, reproductive rights. These are all policies that a president is going to have a huge impact on, and Sean Duffy knows that. He knows that. You can’t separate the two.

Frederica Freyberg:

For his part, he asked how you can support Hillary Clinton?

Mary Hoeft:

Oh, Hillary Clinton, all someone has to do is do the research on this woman. A woman who when she graduated from law school, could have taken any prestigious job. Instead what she’s done is spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of women and children. I have great admiration for this woman, and what she has done for us as Americans, great admiration.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is your number one issue in this, the seventh congressional district?

Mary Hoeft:

It’s changed. Right now it’s my realization that money is buying the votes of people in Congress and Senate. My opponent Sean Duffy recently has accepted $400,000 in political contributions from bankers, but he chairs the banking oversight committee in Congress. He’s accepted the money from the people he oversees, and he knows they want something in return for their votes. Something he’s, for their money, something he’s willing to give them. He has made it his cause to cripple the consumer financial protection bureau and that’s the bureau just recently that uncovered what Wells Fargo did.

Frederica Freyberg:

I took a look at the campaign finance reporting, and yours says that you have raised $63,000. That’s quite a difference from Congressman Sean Duffy.

Mary Hoeft:

Frederica, I think it’s better than that, now. It’s way better, it’s, it’s how I’ve raised my money is not from, I don’t have the Koch Brothers in back of me like he does. It’s why he says there’s no such thing as climate change. He has to. The Koch Brothers right now have companies that spew 24 million tons of carbon into the air that you and I breathe every year. He has to deny it, so he gets their big funding by denying that there’s such a thing as climate change.

Frederica Freyberg:

We should reiterate at this point that we did invite Congressman Sean Duffy to join us and he declined that opportunity–

Mary Hoeft:

And I think this is why he declined and I think it’s why he micromanaged the debates that we’re gonna have.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to move on to healthcare, and specifically the Affordable Care Act. There are stark differences between your positions. Here is his, quoting from his website, his campaign website again in his absence. It says “Sean Duffy has voted to repeal Obamacare “dozens of times now, and he has also kept his promise “to introduce his own proposal. “Sean’s market-focused proposal” it says on his website “retains the few good portions of Obamacare, “but puts doctors and patients in charge of health decisions “rather than unelected government bureaucrats.” Respond to that, and also tell us about your support of a plan that’s akin to Medicare for all.

Mary Hoeft:

Right, Sean Duffy made a promise. His promise to the people was that he would not vote against the Affordable Care Act until he had an alternative that was viable, and that, the alternative that he’s talking about right now is an alternative I haven’t even seen. What right now, what the people need. All people, well thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we’ve got 20 million people who previously weren’t insured were at almost 90% of the people in our country that are insured now, people with pre-existing conditions like I just talked to a man who is near tears when he said my son with diabetes finally now can get insurance, and that’s important. But what’s, what’s, the problem is is that it’s too expensive for many, and so we’ve got to have a single-payer, and that’s a viable plan.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, we need to leave it there. Mary, thanks very much.

Mary Hoeft:

Thank you.