Pennsylvania’s Race For Senate Nomination

By Spencer David Potts
Op-Ed Editor

editor’s note: this is not an endorsement of any candidate, the absence of any candidate’s answers does not reflect their ability to hold office or any Playwickian endorsement

On April, 26, 2016, Pennsylvania will have its primary election. The race between former Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders in the presidential race is tightening and Pennsylvania has many delegates up for grabs, however a possibly more important race is underway in Pennsylvania, the race for the U.S. Senate. Vying for the democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate race against incumbent Senator Pat Toomey, Mayor John Fetterman, former Secretary Katie McGinty and Admiral Joe Sestak are campaigning for the hearts of Pennsylvania Democrats.

John Fetterman is the mayor of Braddock, Pennyslvania. He literally wears his heart on his sleeve: his postcode is tattooed on his arm, five dates of murders in his city are tattooed on the other arm. His personal involvement in his city’s revitalization, youth-oriented programs, and protests across the state have gained him some notoriety, appearing on Colbert Report, A Day In The Life, The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and other shows. He has endorsed Sanders for president, and he has been endorsed by former Treasurer of Pennsylvania Barbara Hafer, host of Mike Malloy Show Mike Malloy, former Governor of Maryland and 2016 presidential candidate Martin O’Malley, The PennLive/Patriot-News Editorial Board, and Pittsburg National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Unfortunately Fetterman did not answer any of the questions. Presumably due to the busy campaign, he was unable to respond to any emails or Twitter messages.

Fetterman’s Campaign Site

Katie McGinty is the former Chief of Staff to Governor Tom Wolf, former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Environmental Policy Advisor for President Bill Clinton, and candidate for Governor in 2014. Her environmental strength is proven through even her business record, serving environmental redevelopment and clean technology investment firms in various functions, as well as her role in negotiating deals between India and the U.S. to support clean energy companies and combat climate change. She has endorsed Clinton for president, and she has been endorsed by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senators Bob Casey Jr., Al Franken, Kirsten Gillibrand, Patty Murray, Harry Reid, Brian Shatz, and Jeanne Shaheen, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, current Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, U.S. representatives Bob Brady and Michael F. Doyle, 16 state legislators, 38 municipal leaders, 19 labor unions, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, EMILY’s List, Equality PA, League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club, Ocean Champions, Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, Steel City Stonewall Democrats and United Ward Leaders of Color.

Unfortunately McGinty’s campaign has not sent her interview responses yet. Presumably due to the busy campaign, she was unable to respond to the questions. When the McGinty campaign sends their answers this article will be updated to include them.

McGinty’s Campaign Site

Joe Sestak is a former U.S. Navy three-star admiral, former U.S. representative for PA 7th district and democratic nominee for U.S. senate in 2010. He has endorsed Clinton for president, and he has been endorsed by U.S. representative Matt Cartwright, perennial congressional candidate Manan Trivedi, Council for a Livable World, VoteVets.org, Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Due to the very limited time in the campaign, Sestak was only able to answer five of the questions. The five answers he gave were comprehensive.

The Sestak Campaign provided this image for the interview
The Sestak Campaign provided this image for the interview

3 You have expressed your support for the LGBT community, now that issues facing the transgender community have become more apparent in the political sphere, how do you plan to support transgender Americans?

I have always been an ally to the LGBT community, and cosponsored legislation to to repeal the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy as well as the Defense of Marriage Act. Although the Supreme Court’s decision to make marriage equality the law of the land was an important step forward for LGBT rights, there is still much to be done.

In Pennsylvania, you can still be fired from your job and evicted from your home because of your sexual orientation or gender identity. And as recent laws attempting to curb the right of transgender individuals to simply use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity show, we needed trusted advocates in the Senate – warriors, actually – who will further the fight for equality.

I believe that transition-related care for transgender people, including hormone therapy, psychological services, and sexual reassignment surgery, should be covered by insurance, and will support efforts to ensure that services related to transgender individual’s transition are not wrongfully rejected by insurance companies as ‘cosmetic’ or ‘elective.’ In addition, I will continue to support the Affordable Care Act (which protects transgender people from discrimination in receiving medical services on the basis of gender or sex) and support efforts to continue strengthening our nation’s health security so that more transgender people have access to the care they deserve. I will also fight to expand nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment, and all public accommodations to all people, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

5 What has your experience in the military and house of representatives taught you? How does that affect your policy in foreign affairs?

One of the key lessons I learned from the my 31 years in the Navy is that militaries can stop a problem, but we can’t fix a problem – does anyone think we fixed Iraq?

That’s why it’s so important that, in circumstance where we must use our military, we have a plan to not only win the conflict, but to secure the peace the day afterwards. If we had worked to fix the illiteracy rate of women in Afghanistan, which was 98 percent at that time, we would have done more to secure the peace than we could through just military means.

That’s one reason I’m concerned about the fight against ISIS – what is the plan to secure the peace after this terrorist state is defeated? How do we prevent another vacuum of power, and what is the end game? This is also why I’m deeply concerned about the dearth of national security knowledge and experience in the Senate. Along with a Senator’s vote to confirm a Supreme Court Justice, the most important vote a Senator can make is that to go to war – we need Senators who understand the gravity of this decision.

My time in the Navy, including my experience as President Clinton’s Director for Defense Policy and as the first Director of the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit, has left me with five principles when it comes to our national security.

First, in a global war, no nation stands alone. I saw this firsthand after 9/11, when I commanded a battle group in the Persian Gulf. I had 30 ships to carry out our mission – but only 10 of them were American ships. We were a coalition, and success was defined by our ability to work seamlessly with foreign militaries. It’s how we won the Cold War, with over 60 defense arrangements with other nations, as well as U.S. leadership of international diplomatic and economic institutions.

Second, and in conjunction, diplomacy matters. Look through the Wiki-leaks and see how resourceful in intelligence gathering, alliance building, spying, and advancing U.S. interests the State Department is. The downgrading of their manpower and resources has hindered our efforts at a time when information sharing is our most-needed asset.

Diplomacy isn’t meant to be a cup of tea. It is often intended to “hurt” if the diplomatic overture isn’t accepted (e.g., Iranian and Iraqi sanctions). Diplomacy is used to benefit another nation’s interest – if we gain by doing so.

Third, economics is the bedrock of power – ours and our adversaries’. It’s why China wants to dominate the South China Sea: to secure the undersea resources that it needs for economic power projection. And it’s why the ISIS caliphate must be denied the approximate $2 billion in annual revenue flow from oil field profits to taxes, ransom to theft.

Our airpower must more aggressively kick the legs out from under these economic support systems that fuel ISIS’ foreign policy (such as destroying oil fields and not just oil tankers) and cutting off internal funding by destroying the infrastructure that collects/extorts taxes from the population. Our Treasury and international banking institutions we lead need to close down the remaining money to choke ISIS to death.

Fourth, the new domain of warfare is cyberspace. We must dominate this new area of warfare as we do any other, so that we know what ISIS is thinking, trying and doing. With troubling questions about the competence of Belgium’s and other allies’ intelligence and law enforcement services, we must enhance our support for their efforts in order to protect ourselves.

The right metric of warfare today is knowledge gained by sensors, human intelligence and the network, and our capability to quickly turn this gained information into swift action. Measuring what it takes to win our conflicts requires leadership that shifts the procurement benchmark away from capacity in numbers of ships, brigades, air wings, and toward capability in acquiring knowledge.

Finally, don’t just win the war, but secure the peace – or, as General Powell said, we will still “own” the aftermath of unresolved conflict in the Middle East.

Military strategists cautioned centuries ago that, in war, leaders must not “take the first step without considering the last.” U.S. strategy to defeat ISIS needs an explanation of how we want our military and diplomatic efforts to end.

For once the Caliphate ends, where do remaining ISIS forces lurk off to? Who fills the cracks left by the Caliphate’s breakage? How is Syria rebuilt after 9 million of its people have been displaced, 250,000 killed, and more maimed?

What of the replacement of basic services and infrastructure in the region, from homes to rudimentary sanitary and water services? What conflict do these open areas provide fertile ground for?

What is the ending we want with the demise of ISIS that precludes us from having to return?

Simply, although imperfect, it is a peace that provides us stability, which likely means Russia’s continued influence in Syria; Iran with its limited role in the outcome; Sunnis and Shias separated if they cannot peacefully co-exist; and the Kurds no more restive than a semi-autonomous state.

After all, while our military stopped the problem of a fascist Germany, it took the Marshall Plan of economic recovery to secure the peace by a democratic Germany with economic security.

As I reminisce on the time from the plane striking the Pentagon on 9/11 to today’s effort to stop ISIS – an outgrowth of Al-Qaida in Iraq that arose after our invasion of Iraq – I acknowledge that the fog of war means no strategy is perfect.

But today, the fog can be lifted by better utilization of the light that cyberspace can shine; the intelligence sharing that other nations and groups can provide; a diplomacy that binds others to our common interests; and a strategy that has as it’s ultimate objective not only winning, but securing the peace for our security and prosperity.

As John F. Kennedy said, “The hour is late, but the agenda is long,” and we must be persistent in this long fight, as well as persistent in adhering to the national security principles that can both win and secure the peace.”

8 Where do you stand on the Every Student Succeeds Act? How do you plan to fix issues within the education system like disproportionate funding and competition with charter schools?

My experience in the Navy taught me that the best decisions are made based on facts and data. Our national inability to make meaningful policy about K-12 education is the result of individual states using measurement systems intended to artificially inflate their own numbers, and the lack of assessable data on what students are expected to know in each grade.

In 2009, for example, 86 percent of New York’s students who took standardized tests scored “proficient or better” in math. These results were roundly criticized as being inflated, so New York raised the cutoffs for “proficient” the following year, giving 61 percent of students “math proficiency.”

Policy makers are using data without definition. Yes, tests may be standardized, but they haven’t been linked to any actual standard. Teachers can’t measure their methods, parents don’t know if their child is falling behind, and students spend sweat and tears taking tests that don’t improve their skills.
Once accountable standards are adopted, modern testing focusing on problem-solving instead of bubble-filling will be put in place, creating accountability to a common standard across the country. This will produce data that is actually usable because even if states still try to play the “proficient” definition game, we will have a national context to know whether a metric is mislaid or meaningless.
In addition to creating accountable standards in our schools, we must also do more to ensure that our schools have the tools they need to prepare all of our children to achieve their American Dream. It’s why the government should fully fund the Individuals with Disability Act for the first time in history. And while charter schools should continue to be experimented with, studies have shown that they are no better and no worse on average than public schools, and I do not support charter school vouchers.

10 How do you plan to make college affordable? Does support of adult basic education or putting a lid on the escalating costs come into play?

While all students seeking higher education have access to the national student loan program, the affordability of higher education has dramatically diminished. From 1999 to 2009, tuition rose 73 percent while median family income fell by 7 percent. The costs have eaten up an ever-increasing share of family income, forcing more students to borrow beyond what their family can sacrifice.

To put all of this into a broader perspective… total student loan debt is at a daunting $1.2 trillion, with an average debt of $29,400 for bachelor’s degree graduates. At $1.2 trillion, student loan debt accounts for more debt than America’s auto loans and credit cards, and is the largest source of debt for households aside from mortgages.

This has ramifications for our economy and future growth. Today’s graduates take longer to purchase homes, are significantly less likely to buy a car, and contribute less to overall consumer spending. Worse yet, new small business creation is negatively affected by the increasing level of loan debt as our entrepreneurs find it harder to pursue their ideas while saddled with debt.

We need to address both sides of the college affordability equation – federal aid and accountability from colleges for skyrocketing costs. Our leaders have focused heavily on how to structure federal aid while letting institutions of higher education of the hook for drastically increasing their sticker prices. One first step on the student aid side of the equation is to restore the year-round Pell Grant program that was cancelled without proper review, but creating greater access to federal grants is not enough.

Indeed, beyond ensuring access to aid, we must also hold the higher education community accountable to rising costs. Drastic steps may be necessary. I believe the time has come for legislation conditioning government transfer of loan money to colleges and universities upon the institution’s annual increase in tuition and fees being at or below inflation.

We also need interest rates that are predictable for families, affordable for students, and reliable to the taxpayer. Currently, student loan rates are set on a year-by-year basis with the 10-year Treasury note rate as the base security, plus a certain percentage based on the type of loan given. Based on anticipated loan rates under this equation, the government will make $127 billion in profits from student loans in the next decade as students continue to drown in debt.

Going forward, I propose a better equation that takes into account a variety of factors: 1) our national need to invest in knowledge; 2) the dual premises that the government shouldn’t be in business of making money from students, but that students should bear a reasonable burden for the risk incurred; and, 3) a student’s cost of living at the time of the loan. This includes reducing the student loan interest rates by basing them on the 10- and 30-year Treasury notes.

15 What is your primary goal in congress?

I want earn the trust of the people of Pennsylvania by truly walking in their shoes once elected to the Senate, because the biggest deficit we face in this nation is not the federal deficit: it is the trust deficit. It’s why for my campaign kickoff I walked 422 miles across the state on foot, to show my willingness to walk in the shoes of the people I seek to represent. My top priority is to be a public servant accountable to the people, above party and type, who will work for real solutions facing our state and our nation.

I will fight to make education available and affordable for all families, to get our economy moving again by investing in our infrastructure and creating good-paying jobs by giving small businesses the tools they need to thrive, and to defend and improve the Affordable Care Act to continue strengthening our nation’s health security.

And in doing so, I want to restore the American Dream for working families. For the first time in our nation’s history, the next generation may not have the opportunity to do better than their parents. I want to create economic mobility, ensure our national security, create family-sustaining jobs where all wages rise, invest in education and workforce training, and reverse the erosion of the middle class so that all people have an opportunity to be all they can be.

Sestak’s Campaign Site