HELENA — The Democrat Candidate for HD81 is Mary Caferro, who currently represents House District 80.
Her reason for running is to bring experience and civility to the legislature and work in a bipartisan way to support Montanans.
Key issues Caferro wants addressed by the legislature are housing costs and property taxes, access to training and education for Montanans, and bringing back jobs to the state
House District 81 stretches from downtown, through central Helena and then out to Lake Helena. The Republican candidate is Dustin, and you can learn more about him here.
Watch our full interview with Caferro
Q: Why are you running for the legislature?
"This year, I decided to run for the legislature because it's important to me with my experience to, one, bring civility back to the legislature and decorum and respect for decorum and tradition. It's really important to understand that when you've been around as long as I have, I understand the meaning of collaboration, and it hasn't been too long ago that the legislature was not dominated by extremism, and Republicans and Democrats rolled up their sleeves, remembered why we were there, and worked together to bring the best results for the people we represent.
So that's important to me to bring that civility. That is a long tradition in Montana. But more recently, we have not had it thanks to the extreme Republicans. And second, to try to support Montanans in a number of ways, reduce taxes, increase jobs, and provide access to health care among and among other things."
Q: What are three key issues you believe need to be addressed by the next Montana legislature?
"Well, first off, housing bring down the cost of housing. And how do we do that? We can't I don't think we can control the market. However, what we can do is cut property taxes and that should be one of the first things that we do when we get there. And that's property taxes on homeowners and small businesses. As you know, Governor Gianforte was warned by the Department of Revenue about property tax, I mean, property valuations going up and that property taxes would go up significantly, too. And he did nothing. But what has happened in the past and that's another reason that I think I would be helpful if the legislature have been around and actually voted on a bill in the past that reduced the the factor and brought down the cost of property. Property taxes. Property taxes need to be brought down to the point they were before this hyperinflation happened in housing.
That's number one. It will impact senior citizens, people with disabilities, veterans, and help them to stay in their own homes. But also equally as important is access to the American dream has been cut off by young people, especially young people. And if we need to get the property taxes down, and that will bring down overall costs of housing.
So that's one. The other one, of course, is for me, jobs. Jobs, jobs. The best anti-poverty program is a good job. And so I've worked in the past and will continue to work for access to training and education so that people may move up the economic ladder and create upward mobility for themselves and their families. What we have seen recently is jobs have left Montana.
Small businesses have been shuttered, small, local businesses. And I'll give you an example. The current governor likes to send Montana jobs out of state. Well, I very much respect our workforce, our Montana workforce, and I believe in them. We have the talent to do the work here. We don't need to ship Montana tax dollars over to the East Coast and many of the workforce development sites have completely shut down, as have some child care support businesses.
So one access to training and education to support bringing back jobs and bringing back small businesses and businesses across the state that have been severely impacted by this administration. And three, invest in union apprenticeship programs, good paying jobs, the best anti-poverty program. And then the third. Third thing, of course, is to continue Montana's Medicaid program. Medicaid expansion."
Q: Housing and property taxes are a key issue for many Montanans, what actions if any do you think the legislature should take?
"So as far as property tax goes, last session, Democrats brought numerous bills that were solutions to increased property taxes. And they all they all died on party lines. So that we need to bring back some of those policies, like increase the homestead exemption, increase the valuation of houses for housing for veterans with disabilities. There's a circuit breaker, those types of things.
So there are more specific policies. But the first, first and foremost, we need to change that rate and bring down property taxes. Cut property taxes for Montana's homeowners and small businesses. There's one thing to consider when you have your housing payment. You have your property taxes embedded oftentimes in that that payment for young families and working Montanans, those payments are going to be out of reach. Therefore, they can't even get into housing in the first place."
Q: This fall Montanans will be voting on access to abortion. What do you think the legislature’s role regarding abortion should be following that vote?
"The role of the legislature should be to mind their own business. Stay out of people's private lives. Okay. Can we go back to Medicaid expansion real quick? Is that okay?
Yeah. I'd like to elaborate a little bit on Medicaid expansion, because again, it's about supporting working families and caregivers and people who are in college. Over 75% of people who have Medicaid expansion are working and many of those are working in jobs that are the folks that pour our coffee, that take care of our children, that grow the food we eat, very essential jobs for our economy.
And so Medicaid expansion supports the economy, businesses and the workers. And over 75% are working. And six in ten businesses have somebody who has Medicaid as health care coverage. The other thing is Medicaid helps those businesses who can't afford to pay for health insurance for their workers and helps them to stay, to expand hopefully and in some cases just stay afloat.
You can't go anywhere without seeing help. Wanted. We have a workforce shortage and Medicaid expansion is a good work support for families. The other group beyond the people who are working, the majority of them are either a caregiver caring for a child with a disability, potentially the middle aged woman taking care of her husband who has Alzheimer's. And oftentimes they are people themselves who have disabilities.
I hear about this all the time on the doors. I go on the doors a lot to campaign because I want to hear from voters. I want to know what they care about so I can better represent them. And I hear, you know, behind every door is a story. And I've heard so many stories and so much gratitude about how Medicaid expansion has been a game changer."
Q: Another issue impacting Montana families is childcare, are there actions you think the legislature could take to address the issue?
"Well, there's again, child care's workforce shortage. And the Department of Labor conducted a study of the economy and businesses as it relates to child care and the number of businesses who cited child care as being an impediment to having a stable workforce was it was just in a dramatic amount. And so what I would say is we need to tackle child care, shore up the workforce again, and support the workforce so that they can be stable.
Nobody who cares for our children, nobody who cares for our children. A precious resource should be making poverty wages. And at this point they are. I look at, for example, the contract, the child care contract that was sent out of state and the contract for some of the consultants that have been hired by Gianforte for hundreds of dollars an hour.
And then we pay, in some cases, child care providers ten bucks an hour. So we need to shift our priorities and invest heavily in child care. Child care runs the economy, whether it's nurses, doctors, teachers, as I said, the people who make our beds, it's very, very important care for our elderly. We just have to shore up child care, stabilize it and invest."
Q: Is there anything else you want to say that we haven't covered so far, or that you think voters should know?
"I want voters to know that I'm so, so grateful that and honored that they have continued to put their trust in me and send me back to the legislature for nearly 20 years. And their voice is my voice is actually their voice. It's really important to me that people understand. I value how you do the work as much as what gets done.
And how I do the work is do my very best to represent people. I want to thank them for opening their doors. Like I said, there's a story behind every door. I'd like to thank them for inviting me in for coffee on cold days and cold drinks on hot days and opening up their hearts. And I so appreciate it. Thank you."
