Daniel Lutz, Jr.'s Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Daniel Lutz, Jr. has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
West Virginia Gubernatorial Election 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | a) Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support legalizing abortion when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape? | ||
| No | c) Do you support the prohibition of public funds for organizations that perform abortions? | ||
| Abortion is a decision to be made by the woman facing the decision, the attending physician(s) and the father if there are no extenuating circumstances such as law violations, violence issues, etc. | |||
| Yes | a) In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing state employee salaries AND/OR pensions? | ||
| Yes | b) In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support reducing personal property taxes? | ||
| a) In many states public employment is an acceptable form of welfare. The problem being addressed(I think) is the lack of funding revenues, which should be coming from corporations. b) Qualified. the better way to balance the budget is to impose a 1% transactions fee on all traded financial instruments, and continue a progressive income tax at lower rates. c) As governor, I will advocate elimination of property tax funding for schools and replace those moneys with a meaningful extraction/severance//pollution tax. 80% of WV property taxes are directed to schools, with inherent inequalities | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support a limit on campaign contributions to state candidates? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| No | 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? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support automatic voter registration? | ||
| No | f) Do you support creating an intermediate state court of appeals? | ||
| Generally, I favor 1) public funding of campaigns at all levels; 2) ending fundraising and private spending; 3) restoring the equal time provisions to public media;4) retoring the "firness doctrine." In all the times I have worked as a polling place clerk or commissioner, I never saw anyone try to do anything illegal regarding voting. All the problems were registration matters, which were corrected with a phone call. f) An intermediate court of appeals is a mechanism to generate more fees for lawyers. | |||
| No | a) Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | b) Should an individual under 18 accused of a violent crime be prosecuted as an adult? | ||
| No | c) Do you support the enforcement of federal immigration laws by state and local police? | ||
| No | d) Do you support the use of private prisons in West Virginia? | ||
| No | e) Do you support mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders? | ||
| b) This one has to have leeway and discretion applied. This has to depend upon the individual and the crime. My yes is down as far as 16 years. Under that, there must be parental accountability. I favor genuine restitution for the crime committed by an offender of any age over incarceration. Jailing offenders, except the most violent or incorrigible is an example of society shooting themselves in the foot. Pedophiles must be sequestered where they can do no harm if they cannot be treated to return to the population at large. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support state government spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | b) Do you support lowering state income taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | c) Do you support reducing government regulations on the private sector? | ||
| No | d) Do you support requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test in order to receive benefits? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support an increase of the minimum wage of West Virginia? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support requiring employers to provide paid family leave? | ||
| No | g) Do you support providing financial relief to businesses AND/OR corporations negatively impacted by the state of national emergency for COVID-19? | ||
| a) such spending has a 7 to 1 multiplier for the economy in general b) better to close loopholes allowing corporations to escape taxation . d) require satisfactory progress in getting away from drug dependence as a condition of receiving welfare. g) such measures often are a form of welfare for the rich, a form of socialism by which the profits accrued are private but the risks and costs are social. | |||
| No | a) Do you support adopting federal education standards in West Virginia? | ||
| No | b) Do you support state funding for charter schools? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support increasing teacher salaries AND/OR benefits in West Virginia? | ||
| Yes | d) Should immigrants unlawfully present in the United States who graduate from West Virginia high schools be eligible for in-state tuition at public universities? | ||
| a) Being an agricultural economist, education is not my field, so I must demur on these issues to those who know the nuances of these regulations better than I. I like the concept of local autonomy in education, but not if it marginalizes certain groups. This is why I oppose charter schools funded with public money. d) "Dreamers" are here often through no action of their own. To think a "No" answer to this question might deny the world a Nobel Laureate is monstrous to me. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support state funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support government regulations of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support increasing state funding for clean drinking water initiatives? | ||
| I am proposing pollution credits, issued annually, to each permannet household with a registered voter by WV. These must be acquired by the entity discharging pollution from the householdsfor the best price agreeable. A 15% surcharge to the polluting entity willbe assessed by WV to administer the program and fund conservation. This is a pure capitalist mechnism to provide a solution to the pollution problem while providing an income supplement to WV citizens similar to Alaska's oil revenue rebates. | |||
| Yes | 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 after passing gun safety training? | ||
| Yes | d) Should a license be required for gun ownership? | ||
| What would Wyatt Earp say about WV's concealed carry law? the shootout at OK Corral was over the Clanton gang coming into Tombstone carrying guns. People who think they can protect themselves with projectile discharging weapons are fantasizing. The military has weapons which will render projectile dischrging weapons completely useless. | |||
| Yes | a) Should the state government increase funding for treatment facilities to combat opioid abuse? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support Medicaid expansion through West Virginia'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? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support eliminating religious exemptions for vaccinations? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| From the federal level, the 1% transactions tax on traded financial instruments will provide money to provide health care for every American. There will be no need for Medicaid, as everyone will be under a program similar to Medicare. There will be no need to buy health insurance. I favor allowing people to determine what is best for their own lives within their own bodies, so long as they do not affect others adversely. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support the inclusion of sexual orientation in West Virginia's anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the inclusion of gender identity in West Virginia's anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support greater efforts by West Virginia state government in closing the pay gap between men and women? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support expanding anti-discrimination laws to include hair textures and protective hairstyles? | ||
| a&b)What consenting adults do within their own 4 walls, between their kneecaps and the foreheads is no concern to the state. c) It can be demoinstrted that "pay gaps" cause wages and salaries received by everyone to be lower. d) This refers to the CROWN LAW, which governs natural hair structure. No one should be penalized for her/his DNA. | |||
| State funded extraction/recovery of RARE EARTH ELEMENTS from coal, the shales above and below the seams and the wastes from combustion of coal. Some of these elements are worth $70,000 per Kg. Southern WV recoverable deposits of these elements. WV must address the pending issiue of "FOOD INSECURITY," i.e. "food deserts." WV must expand funding for development of transparent wood products,i.e. NANOCELLULOSE. TOP PRIORITY BROADBAND ACCESS | |||
| I have worked with INTELSAT/SPACEX, who inform me that we for the same $150,000,000 to be wasted on ROCKWOOL (Ranson facility), we can have a turnkey broadband system available to every person, school, business organization, etc. that wants such access. This cn be within 6 months of agreeing to a contract.This is being done in Croatis, which has similar problems to WV's.Last month INTELSAT/SPACEX launched 597 communications satellites into low earth orbit and plans four more launches this year. We proposed this to the current administration in January and were brushed off. We must bring WV into the 21st Century. |
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