I sat down with all the Democratic candidates for the 10th District today in an attempt to gain some insight into their stances on the issues. Although these issues may not all be discussed at the debate this week, I thought it would be good for the voters to get to know the things that are most important to the candidates. I asked each candidate two questions: “What are your top three most important issues?”, and “Which issue do you have the most developed platform at this point in the race?”. Their answers were varying in detail, but I got a good sense about what each campaign was about in the process.

      The first candidate I interviewed was Marisol Acuna. Her top three most important issues were abortion, gun control, and the minimum wage. Her most developed platform at this stage was her view on gun control. She first of all stated that she did not want to take away guns or buy guns back from citizens, but rather put more restrictions on the gun-buying and gun-owning process. She cited Japan’s model as a great example: in Japan they do regular mental and physical health checks in order to own guns, as well as require gun owners to document where they store their guns and ammunition in the house. I was impressed with the detail she included this single issue.

      The second candidate was Jacob Hill. His top three issues were climate change, the minimum wage, and illegal immigration. On top of these three issues, Jacob wanted to make it clear to me that a central theme of his campaign was to be “bringing people together” in this nation that has become too full of “fear, hate, and violence.” I liked this message, and I saw how it was incorporated into his stance on illegal immigration. He claimed that illegal immigrants are a benefit to our economy, and although we should try to hinder illegal immigration, we should also make it easier for people to come here legally. He wanted to emphasize that America is “a melting pot of people,” and I could tell he genuinely believed in what he was saying.

      The final candidate I interviewed was Alex Gammon. His top three issues were the minimum wage, climate change, and social inequality. Everything about him and his team was impressive. His attire, his experience, and his answers were all very sophisticated, and I liked it. When asked to explain his most developed issue, he answered that he wanted to reset the criminal justice system so as to get people the most justice while restricting civil liberties as little as possible. One example of this was him saying that he wanted to repeal the death penalty, as he saw that as an infringement on civil liberties. He cited his years as defense attorney as to say that he had witnessed many false convictions and resultant death penalties.

      Today was a very interesting and informative day, and hopefully this article will shed some light on the candidates’ stances on the issues. Come back here next week for my interview with the Republican nominees.