Horn slams private prisons at forum
WARR ACRES — At a forum meant for two but attended by one, Democrat Kendra Horn called for an end to private prisons, vowed to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and committed to voting for a clean Dream Act if elected to Congress.
Voices Organized in Civil Engagement — a left-leaning coalition of Christian congregations, labor unions and nonprofits — held a forum for Horn and Republican Rep. Steve Russell on Sunday in a St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church auditorium. About 100 people attended, but the congressman was not among them.
When asked by Heather Sparks, a former Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, what criminal justice reforms she would adopt, Horn stated her support for two: ending private prisons and removing marijuana from the federal list of Schedule I drugs.
“We have to start by eliminating the private prison industry, from the state to the federal level,” Horn said, garnering loud and sustained cheers. “It is immoral, it is unethical and it is a waste of taxpayer dollars. If somebody wants to talk about wasting taxpayer dollars, talk about that. And it doesn’t help us.”
Though the group is nonpartisan and organizers repeatedly stressed they were not choosing a candidate, it was a friendly crowd for Horn, who is seeking to ride a national Democratic wave to victory Nov. 6 in the 5th District, which has been safely Republican for decades. The district includes most of Oklahoma County and Pottawatomie and Seminole Counties.
Attendees briefly booed and groaned when it was announced Russell would not be attending. A seat with his name on it, to the left of Horn’s seat, sat empty throughout the forum. Organizers kept a scorecard with “YES” written next to initiatives Horn supports and “ABSENT” written by Russell’s name.
Allison Smith, Russell’s deputy campaign manager, said the group was informed in late September that Russell would not attend due to the possibility of House votes. In a statement Monday, Smith called VOICE an “activist group with an agenda” and said it “is linked to a radical leftist, Alinskyite group in Chicago.”
When the group was created, it was criticized by some for its association with the Industrial Areas Foundation, a Chicago-based national group founded by community organizer Saul Alinsky. Alinsky, who died in 1972, has become a villain on the right, in part because President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton studied his community organizing tactics.
“That Kendra Horn would take such pride in associating with an Alinskyite group tells voters a lot about Kendra Horn’s real agenda,” Smith said.
During the forum, Horn vowed to “absolutely” protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency created after the 2008 financial crisis and often criticized by conservatives in Congress. She called for restrictions on payday lenders, who she accused of being predatory.
“We are trapping the working poor into a cycle of repayment that they can never get out of. We hold — and we should do a better job of it, mind you — but we hold banks accountable. We need to hold credit card companies accountable as well and we have got to get a handle on this predatory payday lending,” she said.
Horn has stopped short of endorsing a singlepayer health care system that is in vogue with many in her party. She said the Affordable Care Act has brought desperately needed protections “but it’s not an end-all, be-all” and called protections for pre-existing conditions critical.
“Health care is a right; it is not a privilege,” Horn said. “It is a right because every single one of us in this room — every single one of us — needs health care at some point. This isn’t something (where) we can choose, ‘If you have money, you get care; if you don’t, you don’t.’ Unfortunately, that’s what we’re doing right now.”
Horn said people have lost their lives because Oklahoma chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. There were murmurs of agreementwhenshestated support for the Dream Act, legislation granting residency to minors brought into the United States illegally, and the Butch Lewis Act, which would create a federal trust fund to shore up pension plans at risk of insolvency.
Under the rules of the forum, Horn was told to avoid attacking her opponent or even comparing herself to him. She violated the rule once, when discussing her opposition to privatizing Social Security.
“There are many that would seek to privatize it,” she said. “I know comparison is not something we’re supposed to do but, in the absence of someone on the other side, I do know that there are many people, including those holding this particular seat, who have publicly said they would privatize Social Security.”
Horn and Russell have not shared a stage to date. They are scheduled to participate in their first debate, hosted by NonDoc, an online news publication, on Oct. 24.