The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Democrat challenging incumbent Republican Joyce
Incumbent Republican David P. Joyce is squaring off against Democratic Challenger Betsy Rader for the U.S. House of Representatives 14th District seat in the Nov. 6 general election.
Joyce is seeking his fourth term in office. The former Geauga County Prosecutor has held the seat since 2013. Both he and Rader ran unopposed in their respective primaries in May.
The 14th Congressional District is composed of all of Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties, plus portions of Cuyahoga, Portage, Summit and Trumbull counties. The annual salary is $174,000 for members of Congress, who are elected to serve two-year terms.
Here is some of what the candidates had to say on the election questionnaires sent to them by The NewsHerald.
Dave Joyce
Joyce, 61, is currently serving his third term in Congress. Prior to his election he spent 24 years as Geauga County Prosecutor.
If reelected, Joyce said he will “continue to be laser-focused on our economy, preserving the Great Lakes and protecting our communities.”
Joyce said in his questionnaire that the “booming economy didn’t just happen out of thin air.” He wrote that priorities of enacting policies to reduce taxes and to reduce regulatory burden “allowed the job creators to unleash America’s economic engine.” Joyce said that engine was stalled on the side of the highway too long, but now there is a 20-year high for optimism. He added that more work needs to be done, however.
“We need to continue to help the job creators remain competitive in a global economy, and we still need to stand up to China’s unfair trade practices,” he said. “We also need to make sure economic security for our middle class remains a priority. We need to focus on how to help the middle class navigate paying for college for their kids, their ever-increasing healthcare costs and retirement security.”
Joyce said that the Great Lakes are not only an economic powerhouse, but also a national treasure. The Great Lakes contain 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface drinking water. He said he’s proud to have written legislation that helps protect and preserve those lakes through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that was first signed into law under the Obama administration.
Joyce said as a former prosecutor, protecting his communities remains an area close to his heart. That means continuing to rebuild the military, which he said he’s “proud to report we made a down payment on restoring our military needs recently by increasing our defense spending.” It also means tackling the opioid epidemic.
Joyce said that the role of a member of Congress is two-fold: tackle the big issues facing the country and serve as a local councilman in the district.
Betsy Rader
Rader, 57, is an employment lawyer at Betsy Rader Law, LLC. If elected to the House of Representatives, it will be first elected office position.
She said her top priorities in Congress will be lowering the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs, creating good-paying jobs and fixing the broken campaign finance system.
Rader said in her questionnaire that the cost of healthcare is simply far too high. She said work must be done to reduce the cost of prescription drugs because no one should ever have to decide between their medications and putting food on the table.
“To begin addressing this problem, the law should be changed to allow the government to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies,” she said. “Congress should also create a consumer watchdog agency that can levy fines against pharmaceutical companies that inappropriately raise prices. Another meaningful step we can take is to give people the option of buying into Medicare. This would give consumers a lowercost alternative to private insurance, lower the cost of private insurance by creating more competition in the market, and improve the risk pool for Medicare.”
Rader said that the country must invest in the future of the country’s economy. Congress should take the important step of making major public investments infrastructure jobs to repair crumbling highways and bridges and write the country with highspeed Internet, she said.
“And investing in our water and sewage infrastructure can also help to address pollution in our Great Lakes,” she said. “Congress must also work to encourage both manufacturing and service jobs to stay in America. American workers can and do compete with the best in the world, but they are not playing on a level playing field when businesses move jobs to countries that don’t protect their workers or the environment. Congress should take strong measures to bring jobs back to America, incentivize companies who employ people rather than robots, and end unfair tax loopholes for companies shipping jobs overseas.”