Gallagher, Liegeois face off for Congress
8th District hopefuls have divergent positions
GREEN BAY – Mike Gallagher and Beau Liegeois are more alike than they probably want to admit.
Both are military veterans. They both take issue with parts of the political process. Both want to tackle the cost of health care, albeit each in his own way. And both want the support of voters in the 8th Congressional District next month.
Liegeois, a Democrat, aims to unseat the firstterm Republican congressman in the Nov. 6 election.
Gallagher was elected in 2016, defeating Democrat Tom Nelson with 63 percent of the vote to represent a congressional district that spans northeastern Wisconsin. He replaced former Republican Rep. Reid Ribble, also a Republican, who opted to retire after three terms in office.
Born and raised in Green Bay, Liegeois has worked as an assistant district attorney in the Brown County District Attorney’s Office for the past 10 years. He also served eight years in the Wisconsin Army National Guard as a judge advocate captain.
This is Liegeois’ first time running for any office. He said he entered the race in part because he was disheartened by rhetoric during the 2016 presidential election.
“Like many patriotic Americans, (he and his wife) were optimistic that the tone would change after the inauguration in January 2017, but we observed the tone get worse,” he said.
Gallagher, a Green Bay native, Marine Corps veteran and former marketing strategist for Breakthrough Fuel, said he wants to continue the work he started in his first term. He echoed his pledge from 2016 to treat his time in office as a deployment, not a career, and promises to work hard for his constituents. The political process today is so distorted that Congress can’t even debate some of the issues, he said.
“It’s clear to me the current political environment is not working out well for people in either party,” he said.
Health care, water quality dominate debate
One of the driving forces behind Liegeois’ decision to run was the 2017 House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. To him, it represented a Republican effort to take health insurance from millions and remove protections for people with pre-existing conditions. It ran contrary to his values and those of the community, he said.
If elected, Liegeois wants to preserve the Affordable Care Act while pushing lower health care costs and cheaper drug prices for Medicare recipients. He also believes the government should increase tax credits for middle-class families so they can buy more affordable policies.
“My father has Parkinson’s disease. ... My health care policy, the way I vote on health care bills, will be based on my own personal experience with the health care system,” he said.
Gallagher supported the Affordable Care Act repeal in 2017 and believes the health care system is still headed in the wrong direction. The Affordable Care Act excessively hiked premiums for some and resulted in others losing their health care plans, he said. He contends states should be given the freedom to experiment with different health care systems.
Gallagher said he’s also an advocate for price transparency in health care, arguing it’s necessary to understand what people are paying for to tackle changes in the system. To that end, he co-sponsored legislation with Democrats and Republicans last year that would require hospitals, health care providers and pharmaceutical companies to disclose the prices of their products.
“I think price transparency is a huge, huge part of this,” he said.
He also touted his efforts to promote clean water and sustainable farming, noting that he continued Ribble’s “Save the Bay” initiative.
Save the Bay is a coalition of farmers, environmentalists, scientists and others that looks atwater quality issues in northeastern Wisconsin.
“We were given this gift in northeast Wisconsin,” Gallagher said. “We have to preserve it and we have to improve it.”
Liegeois believes the government needs to do more to ensure existing water quality protections are enforced, pointing to rural areas in Door and Kewaunee counties, where groundwater and wells have been contaminated by manure runoff.
“It’s unacceptable in the United States in the 21st century that you can’t drink the water coming out of your own kitchen tap,” he said.
Money, money, money
One way Liegeois sets himself apart from Gallagher is through his pledge not to accept contributions from corporate political action committees.
According to the Federal Election Commission, Liegeois had gathered roughly $161,000 in donations as of late July, the date of the candidates’ most recent reports. That money came from individuals, plus about $1,000 out of Liegeois’ own pocket.
Liegeois believes money has distorted the political process, and he pledged not to be “shackled” by large donations if elected next month.
He also criticized Gallagher for accepting money from corporations and claims Gallagher backs policies that benefit those donors.
“They flood money into his campaign, and he floods money right back to them from our tax treasury,” he said.
Gallagher had raised over $2.2 million in contributions by late July. The campaign is largely bolstered by individual donations, but Gallagher also received about $728,000 from committees.
Among some of his corporate donors are Caterpillar, Exxon Mobil and MillerCoors.
But Gallagher emphasized his support from individuals and noted that he’s backed legislation to reform campaign finance.
He co-sponsored a bill dubbed the Honest Ads Act that called for greater transparency in online political ads.
Gallagher also believes there needs to be transparency in super PAC spending, saying the government needs to tackle the “corrosive money” in politics.
It’s all politics
The Cook Political Report considers the 8th District to be solidly Republican. Every county in the district, excluding Menominee, backed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
The district has elected Democrats in the past, including Steve Kagen, who held the seat for two terms before he was defeated by Ribble in 2010, and Jay Johnson.
But when congressional districts were redrawn in 2013, the 8th District became a little more conservative with the addition of Calumet County and more of northern Wisconsin.
Still, voters showed there is an opening for Democratic Party candidates in the spring election for state Supreme Court, when a majority of voters in Door, Menominee, Brown and Outagamie counties supported Democrat favorite Rebecca Dallet.
Liegeois said he’s been sticking to the issues and staying positive throughout his campaign to counter the heated rhetoric coming from Washington.
To him, it’s important to focus on health care, water quality and putting money in the pockets of middle-class people.
“The way I am is the way I’ve always been, and it’s honestly the way that I was raised by the people in this community,” he said.
Gallagher believes officials need to be better-focused on the issues and not their next re-election bid.
He also wants to see Congress exercise its authority on matters like tariffs instead of surrendering authority to the executive branch — a stark contrast to some of his GOP colleagues.
“I didn’t take an oath to obey anyone in the Republican Party,” he said.