Editor’s note: This is the second half of a two-part series profiling the two candidates running for Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District – incumbent Glenn Thompson (R) and challenger Kerith Strano Taylor (D). The first half of this series, profiling Thompson, appeared yesterday.
Kerith Strano Taylor knows that “you can’t just wake up and run for Congress,” but that didn’t stop her from doing exactly that.
Strano Taylor, an attorney specializing in family law, says politics have been part of her life since childhood. Her mother worked in Democratic politics in Florida, making government a part of her everyday life. She fondly remembers going to the polls with her mother and discussing politics and current events at the dinner table.
As an undergraduate in political science at Penn State in the mid-90’s, she was heavily involved with student government. In 1994, she interned with Rep. William Clinger of Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District. She’s now the Democratic candidate for that same office.
Though Clinger was a Republican and she was a Democrat, Strano Taylor says it never mattered in the office. Republicans and Democrats worked side by side, giving her “a glimpse into how the system is supposed to work.” Unfortunately, she says something has changed in the way both parties approach their politics.
“It isn’t like that anymore. It’s all very ugly now,” Strano Taylor says. “If you were to turn on the news, regardless of the station, it’s always someone else’s fault. And I think people are sick of it.”
The year after Strano Taylor’s internship with Clinger, the federal government went through a 21-day-long shutdown fueled by partisan disagreements over the federal budget. She says that kind of partisan disagreement has only worsened over time, as evidence by the 2013 federal shutdown.
After her undergraduate work at Penn State, Strano Taylor pursued a law degree at George Mason University. Describing the school as conservative, Strano Taylor says she was “the token Democrat.” Since then, she’s served as president of her local school board and now runs the Taylor Law Firm in Brookville.
Strano Taylor says these experiences have taught her “the skills of negotiation and compromise,” why she says are important to the political system and increasingly rare in elected officials.
But it was only after she spent an hour in Congressman Glenn Thompson’s office in November that she decided to run for office herself.
She began their discussion by asking if the government would be open in the spring, referencing the recently ended federal shutdown of 2013 and the appropriations bill that funded government offices through that February. Strano says that Thompson – much to her surprise – said that very few people were personally affected by the shutdown.
She related the story of a couple that came to her law office because they were unable to obtain the deed for a federally foreclosed house they purchased. Because of the shutdown, they were unable to move into their new home – but says she and Thompson still disagreed on the impact on the shutdown.
They were also unable to come to a consensus on public education. She says Thompson claimed that public schools could be improved by following the model of private charter schools. Strano Taylor, arguing that charter schools don’t outperform public schools and cost roughly the same amount of money, couldn’t see how.
When she left the office, she kept thinking about their conversation. When she woke up the next morning, she’d decided to run for Congress.
While on the campaign trail, Strano Taylor says she discovered voters on both sides of the aisle feel the government is somehow broken, even if they disagree on the reasons. Strano Taylor believes her centrist positions and focus on compromise will help her appeal to both Republican and Democratic voters if they’re willing to listen.
“When I talk to Republican folks … one of the first things they often ask is, ‘are you going to take away my guns?’,” Strano Taylor says. “No, I like to shoot. That’s not an issue for us. So then they ask me, ‘what do you think is wrong with our government?’ and that’s when the conversation starts.”
Strano Taylor says part of generating honest conversation in Washington is being willing to disagree with her own party – which she does on several issues.
“I can’t give the really, really liberal democrats everything they want, and I can’t pretend I’ll satisfy everyone on the other side,” Strano Taylor says. “Not everyone will get everything they want – but that’s the definition of a good negotiation.”
In addition to her stance on gun control, she says she wouldn’t seek a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. Some Democrats have sought to outright ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, because of its negative environmental impacts.
Though she’s not a huge fan of the process, Strano Taylor says she recognizes that a fracking moratorium isn’t possible in Pennsylvania because the issue has been settled by the state supreme court. She advocates simultaneously investing in clean, renewable energy sources while ensuring agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency have the funding and resources to monitor and regulate the oil and gas industries.
She says many Democrats “want to embrace the Affordable Care Act like it’s the best thing ever, but it’s not a perfect bill.” Strano Taylor says 300,000 Pennsylvania residents now have health insurance who didn’t before, but says the coverage cutoffs at the top and bottom income levels are “poorly designed.”
If a family makes “one dollar over the limit, they get cut off … And there’s no real way to predict that dollar as you go through the year.” Because of this, families can be punished for making more money — by losing their healthcare, Strano Taylor says. She advocates for a more gradual system where recipients are slowly phased out their healthcare plans if their income changes.
She says the 2014 Farm Bill – which Thompson calls an important success of his most recent term – has not done small farmers any favors. Because of the federal budget sequestration, she says federal subsidies to farmers have actually decreased and will continue to decrease. She recognizes the importance of agriculture to Pennsylvania, and says the small farmers she talked to at fairs like Ag Progress Days hadn’t seen benefits from the Farm Bill.
Strano Taylor also says raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour is an important issues she’d like to help tackle if elected. She says the American taxpayer ultimately shoulders the burden of the low minimum wage, since many underemployed workers on the minimum wage use food stamps paid for by taxes.
She calls arguments that raising the minimum wage will hurt small business a “scare tactic,” arguing that every state that has raised its minimum wage has seen economic growth. By raising the minimum wage “we’re putting more money into the economy, and we’re putting a tip in someone’s pocket.”
Strano Taylor also identifies closing the pay gap between men and woman, allowing college graduates to refinance their student loans and improving health care for veterans as key components of her campaign platform.
“The folks I talk to are angry and disenfranchised. They feel their government has been bought, and I don’t think they’re wrong,” Strano Taylor says. “We don’t have politicians beholden to their constituents; we have politicians beholden to their donors.”
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