Sam Cason's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Sam Cason has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2018 Political Courage Test.
Alaska State Legislative Election 2018 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | a) Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| Yes | b) Should abortion be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape? | ||
| No | c) Do you support the prohibition of public funds for organizations that perform abortions? | ||
| During the early stages of pregnancy, the freedom of a woman to choose should be unfettered, and her choice not economically constrained. Late term abortion should only be available in exceptional circumstances. Every child should be a wanted child, and once a child is born it will need care. I am proud to be endorsed by planned parenthood, which uses no public funding whatsoever to provide abortions, but which is one of the most efficient providers of low cost health care to both men and women. | |||
Budget Stabilization:Indicate which proposals you support (if any) for balancing Alaska's budget.
| a) Do you support the creation of a state income tax in Alaska? | |||
| b) Do you support using money from the "Permanent Fund" to pay for state programs and services? | |||
| Yes | c) Do you support state government funding to provide a teachers pension fund? | ||
| No | d) Reducing state employee salaries AND/OR pensions? | ||
| No | e) Instituting mandatory furloughs AND/OR layoffs for state employees? | ||
| No | f) Reducing benefits for Medicaid recipients? | ||
| First we must be sure we are getting our fair share of the oil wealth; in 2017 the state received 8% of the value of the oil produced. Governor Hammond wrote in his book "Diapering the Devil," "When I was in office, the state, the oil companies, and the federal government agreed to split the oil wealth pie roughly one-third, one-third, and one-third." We must have services and I support an income tax over sales tax or elimination of the pfd. There should be a 1:1 cap on spending permanent fund earnings on state government vs. distributing earnings as PFDs. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support any limits on campaign contributions to state candidates? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support the use of an independent AND/OR bipartisan commission for redistricting? | ||
| No | d) Do you support requiring a government-issued photo identification in order to vote at the polls? | ||
| Our voter cards do not have a photo on them, and having them as acceptable ID has worked just fine. We should continue to require paper ballots so that there is a paper trail that can be accessed if evidence of machine fraud is discovered. In general barriers to voting should be minimized, and opportunities to vote expanded. We should have an explicit policy of encouraging informed participation in the democratic process, and implement programs to encourage it. | |||
| No | a) Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes? | ||
| c) Should a minor accused of a violent crime be prosecuted as an adult? | |||
| No | d) Do you support the enforcement of federal immigration laws by state and local police? | ||
| Capital punishment is not worth the extra cost to the system, and has been applied in a discriminatory way. It is irreversible but there are hundreds of documented cases of it being mistakenly applied. Life in a cage with no parole is a worse punishment than an easy death. We as a society should be better than the worst of us - and even those who do not "deserve" to live should be treated with compassion. Immigration is a federal issue. On a sliding scale, minors may or may not need to be treated as adults. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support state government spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | b) Do you support lowering state taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support reducing state government regulations on the private sector? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support expanding access to unemployment benefits? | ||
| No | e) Do you support requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test in order to receive benefits? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support an increase of the minimum wage of Alaska? | ||
| Our tax burden is the lowest of any state, and we are not providing the services we demand from government. Those who speak of our state budget being bloated do not specify where further cuts should be made. We need police, courts, corrections. We receive massive federal matching funds, often at 9:1 for our expenditures on highways. We are constitutionally obligated to provide an adequate education. Regulations should further important public interests, not restrict private initiative. Drug tests for welfare are counter productive and punish families for being poor. No one working full time should be in poverty. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support adopting federal education standards in Alaska? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support state funding for charter schools? | ||
| c) Should immigrants unlawfully present in the United States who graduate from Alaska high schools be eligible for in-state tuition at public universities? | |||
| In general Federal education standards are minimums - all children in the US should receive the benefit of an education. We should take from the Federal Standards where appropriate, and adopt even more rigorous ones where appropriate. Charter and magnet schools are laboratories in which new educational theory can be tested and applied next to traditional theories; children with different gifts can find pathways to success, and the whole system made more resilient and robust by competition in the market place of ideas. An Alaska public school education should be the envy of the nation. Immigration is a federal issue. | |||
| No | a) Do you support state funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)? | ||
| b) Do you support state government regulations of greenhouse gas emissions? | |||
| Yes | c) Do you support increasing state funding for clean drinking water initiatives? | ||
| In general the state should not fund industry. The state should fund research and provide public infrastructure that will facilitate private sector development. Greenhouse gas regulation tends to be overly simplistic and the state has in its power more effective ways to encourage and regulate the development of renewable energy systems. We should regulate greenhouse gas emission only to the extent the costs of greenhouse gas emissions can be quantified. As the world economy shifts toward renewables, we should be shifting with it to exploit our renewable energy resources. | |||
| No | a) Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| Yes | b) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows? | ||
| No | c) Should teachers be allowed to bring guns into the classroom? | ||
| No | d) Should a license be required for gun ownership? | ||
| I am a life member of the NRA since 1978. I do not support making criminals of all the gun owners who would not comply with retroactive licensing requirements. Gun violence should be studied by the CDC as a public health risk. Reasonable regulation of gun sales does not infringe on the 2nd Amendment. My Dad, a teacher, was stabbed, my wife's dissertation professor was shot, both at school. Schools should be gun free zones, except to the extent there is an educational or sporting purpose for the presence of firearms - e.g. hunter/firearm safety classes, gunsmithing, riflery, skeet, biathlon. | |||
| Yes | a) Should the state government increase funding for treatment facilities to combat opioid abuse? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support Medicaid expansion through Alaska's health care programs? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support requiring individuals to purchase health care insurance? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support legislation that grants citizens the right to choose to die through euthanasia? | ||
| No | e) Do you support eliminating religious exemptions for vaccinations? | ||
| No | f) Should able-bodied Medicaid recipients meet a work requirement to be eligible for benefits? | ||
| Provision of health care services is actually cheaper if it is done on a preventative and holistic basis first. For that model to work, up front access needs to be inexpensive so that people will participate even while healthy. Health care costs are THE leading cause of families declaring bankruptcy in America today. Whether by single payer or private insurance, by expanding the "risk pool" to include every one, costs to the individual can be controlled. Access to reasonable and adequate health care should be a basic human right. Health care reform should mean more people are covered, not fewer. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support the inclusion of sexual orientation in Alaska's anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the inclusion of gender identity in Alaska's anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support greater efforts by Alaska state government in closing the pay gap between men and women? | ||
| Discrimination, whether based on gender, race, or other factors not salient to a person's participation as a productive member of society diminishes us all. | |||
| We have a constitutional obligation to provide adequate schools; but achievement levels are declining as resources are cut. Our educational system should be forwarded funded and a stable place for teachers to work. Teachers, police, and public servants should be part of a retirement system. Our Base Student Allocation should be fully funded and inflation proofed. Cutting all our programs has resulted in increased crime and reduced public safety. It's all about resources and with our savings almost spent, it becomes even more important to base our budget on stable and predictable revenue sources, not magical thinking. |
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