Joe Radinovich visited the Cook County News-Herald and explained why he is the best candidate to lead the DFL to victory in the race to win the 8th District congressional seat that will be open when current 8th District Congressman Rick Nolan (DFL) retires.
Joe Radinovich sat down to answer some questions from the News-Herald this past Monday.
Rick Nolan’s 2016 campaign manager is making a run to claim the seat that Nolan will be retiring from at the end of this term.
Joe Radinovich, (DFL), a Crosby, Minnesota native and a fourth-generation Iron Ranger, comes from humble roots. His parents and relatives worked as electricians, plumbers, nurses and iron miners. Joe believes his blue-collar upbringing and his approach to working across the aisle on issues like education, healthcare, the economy and the environment are what is needed in an 8th District congressional representative.
He would also like to see the way campaigns are financed changed.
In 2016, he said that both Rick Nolan and Stewart Mills raised about $3 million for their campaigns. But in all, $30 million was spent to reelect Nolan by the faintest of margins. At that time, it was an all-time U.S. spending record for a congressional seat.
“Fours times more money came from outside the District than raised in the District to impact the outcome of the race,” said Radinovich. “That’s wrong. We need to change this.” He is also the first candidate to announce that he won’t be taking contributions from corporate PACs in this campaign.
Describing himself as a big fan of Governor Mark Dayton, Joe said he was alarmed when Dayton’s Penny-A-Pill Opioid Stewardship Program, which would require opioid manufacturers to pay a stewardship fee to fund treatment, prevention, and recovery programs for opioid abusers, was defeated. In 2016 Minnesota lost 395 people to opioid overdose deaths.
Initially, Dayton’s proposal received broad bi-partisan support, said Radinovich, but after three dozen lobbyists hired by the big pharmaceutical companies descended on Congress, the bill was killed, he said.
In 2012 Radinovich was elected to a two-year term to represent District 10B in north central Minnesota. His vote to legalize gay marriage cost him heavily in his bid for reelection in 2014, but he stands by the vote. He managed U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan’s 2016 re-election bid, and in 2017, he led Jacob Frey’s mayoral campaign, once again to victory. Following Frey’s win, Joe became Frey’s chief of staff.
If elected, working on education reform, said Radinovich, would be a key component to his efforts in Congress.
“I’m against unfunded mandates the federal government puts on schools. Those mandates then fall unfairly on local communities to pay for. Special education is also one area the government needs to fund better to properly take care of these kids enrolled in these programs.
“I’m a firm believer in investing in early childhood. We know that for every one dollar spent on early childhood 16 dollars is returned on that investment,” he said.
Rapid changes in technology are changing the entire job market, said Radinovich, who has pushed for high-speed Internet to be placed in rural communities. High speed Internet allows people to work from home, which allows those people freedom to live in a remote or rural area like Cook County, added Radinovich.
He is a big believer in technical schools and two-year colleges, which he said should be free to attend for those training to get into the job market or those who need retraining to get back into the job market.
He decried companies who raid their pension funds or don’t contribute to them as promised while the workers have paid fully into them. One company, he said, recently informed its retirees that their pension would have to be cut in half because it was underfunded. The former employees were left holding half a ball with no help in sight.
“We can bail out Wall Street and car companies, but we can’t bail out pension funds?” Radinovich asks rhetorically.
On healthcare, he said he would like to see universal healthcare, a one-payer system implemented, and until then, believes your health care insurance should move with you when you move. Too many health care dollars are spent on lobbyists, TV advertisements, middlemen and special interest groups rather than on the people who need it, he added.
On the issue of childcare, Joe pointed out that Minnesota has some of the highest child-care costs in the country. Those high costs preclude where people can live, he said, especially if the people involved are staying near family so they can get help with daycare. Those high costs can also hinder both parents from working, especially if daycare isn’t available. He advocates for scholarships to be made available to working-class families, as well as putting a cap on childcare costs and having school districts open to making childcare more accessible.
Mining has been a hot button topic in the 8th District, and Joe said as long as best practices and state and federal regulation are followed and all of the permits have been obtained, and as long as companies can prove they have the necessary funds put away to take care of any longterm cleanup that might occur long after they have left the area, he believes mining can take place on the Iron Range. “As long as these mining companies run their operations in accordance to the plans, and as long as they can prove they have the resources proving they are bankruptcy proof, they can mine.”
Wind and solar energy production should be increased, and other types of non-polluting renewable energies explored and promoted, added Radinovich.
With all of the changes coming to rural America, Radinovich said he wants to be on the forefront of those changes, working as a strong advocate for the people in the 8th District from his seat in Congress. But, of course, he needs your vote to do that.
Leave a Reply