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| Interview with Paul Mitchell 9-12 Candidate for Illinois General Assembly District 62 |
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problem that Illinoisans aren’t taxed enough, the problem is the state legislature spends too much. And a large part of that goes, I think, to
kickbacks, to sweetheart deals for businesses who are friends of legislators and friends of important people. And so the thing to do there, is to
accountability into the process. And then when people can see how money is being spent, then I think it’ll be a whole lot easier to figure out
where things can be cut.
Host: Well, you know, you have a very good point of course, and I’m originally from Europe, by the way, if you hadn’t detected the accent yet.
But in Europe they have a pretty cynical view about taxation. First of all they taxed through the kazoos and secondly they already know that the
minute a tax goes up, it never goes down because even if the politicians do not need the money for expenditure, they will create expenditure
just to spend that money so that it is not removed down the road. So again, the minute you increase the taxes, very seldom do they go down,
even in this country. Would you agree with that?
Candidate: Oh, it’s certainly true. It’s a law of nature. It’s not just a European thing or an American thing. It’s a law of nature, because taxation
is really power to the government and it’s exceptionally rare that a government will willingly give up power.
Host: Talking about power, President Obama recently addressing school children nationwide has caused some controversy. But controversy
can cause people to think and even create a dialog. Many will argue that education is a matter that needs to be controlled at the local level.
Do you favor a more local approach to education?
Candidate: Oh, absolutely. I favor a more local approach to anything that can be done well at a local level and certainly education is a very
good example of that. I’m a Roman Catholic and the Catholic Church teaches a principal called
“Subsidiarity” which is simply the idea that any function, any public function should be carried out at the lowest level possible. And that’s
something that the church has, you know, various Popes have endorsed since the 19th century. The idea that the Federal Government should
have to get involved in primary education seems to me to be ludicrous. It’s something that the founding fathers would have thought
incredulous that people would expect them to manage local schools. And I don’t think that they were wrong about that and I don’t see that a
need for Federal involvement in public education has really been demonstrated. Nor has the Federal government really been very
successful at demonstrating its competence in managing local education.
Host: Now, no system is ever perfect so there’s always room for improvement. I think we all will agree with that. What steps do you feel are
needed to improve children’s education in your state?
Candidate: First of all I approve school choice. We need to give parents the opportunity to take their children out of schools if they are failing,
and if they are failing in the parent’s judgment. And be able to move those children to either private schools, to parochial schools, to home
schools, to be able to make the best choices for their children’s future. That’s the way to go with education is to put parents back in charge.
And we also need to make sure that in the case of our public schools that we are doing everything we can to encourage and to facilitate
parents’ involvement in the public school process. And I know in some places that’s simply not happening. Parents are actually discouraged
from having involvement in their children’s public school education.
Host: Let’s go to a totally different subject. Your views on abortions and other life-related issues appear quite different from your opponent
and incumbent. I believe you favor eliminating altogether funding for Planned Parenthood. Now this organization, though controversial, does
have the support of many as well and does offer a number of services that a segment of the population feels it needs. For example, HIV
education and women’s health service, patient education in various areas. So eliminating is one thing, but filling a gap that may be needed
is another. Would you support filling that void and if so, how would you go about it?
Candidate: Well, I think that if we’re going to provide services like that with state money, with public money, it needs to be provided to health
care providers that don’t offer abortion services. For a long time overseas, that’s how Federal money was given out under what’s called the
Mexico City policy was that policy forbade giving Federal money, American Federal money, to any organization that offered abortion
services. But that didn’t mean that less money was being given. What it did mean was that organizations that offered pregnancy services, that
offered women’s health, it offered all these other things that you mentioned which did not provide abortions were the beneficiaries of American
foreign aid. It would be the same thing in our country and in our state if we weren’t giving money to Planned Parenthood, we could give that
money to other health care providers who weren’t encouraging people to get abortions, who weren’t covering up for statutory rape, who weren’t
passing out sub-standard condoms, and who, at least in other states, have been demonstrated to be overcharging the state government for
the services that they do provide.
Host: Continuing on Planned Parenthood, for example some people will even go as far as, the critics that is, as accusing Planned
Parenthood of doing some population control through their abortion services.
Candidate: Well, it’s certainly true that Planned Parenthood has a large preponderance of you might say disproportionate number of their
clinics in minority areas. And certainly abortion has hit the minority community much harder than it has any other. I believe in the African-
American community, something like 45% of conceptions end in abortion. And if someone were to point that out and if someone could make
the case that that’s just genocide against African-Americans. That’s appalling to think that in any community that 45% of their next generation
is being lost to abortion every year. Whether that’s a policy intention of Planned Parenthood or not, I’m not competent to address, but it
certainly does seem to be a result of their operation.
Host: Alright, let’s move on to really dirty politics and I mean that kind of literally. Robert Grand said in 2008: “If Illinois is not the most
corrupted state in the United States, it certainly is one hell of a competitor”. Now most of us are familiar with the term Chicago Politics which
is a much-entrenched culture of putting one’s cronies in power out of loyalty and not merit. Now your state has a big history of such political
behavior which does not of course serve its people well. Such practice is not only unfair, it is also unconstitutional. Your own governor,
Patrick Quinn, proposed last April a plan to clean up Chicago politics which includes for example limiting donations to campaigns and
allowing for more transparency and term limits. Now where does that plan stand at this time and how do you feel about it?
Candidate: Well, the legislature looked it over, the government appointed a blue-ribbon panel. The panel came back with
recommendations. The legislature, which is largely controlled by just two men, the Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan, and the President of
the Senate, John Cullerton, the legislature threw out the blue-ribbon panel’s recommendation. They passed another set of proposals instead
that looked to me like incumbent protection bill and then the governor just recently vetoed what they had passed. So really we’re kind of back
to square one, which given the status a month ago, is a big improvement. So, you know, to me the thing we need is transparency. We need to
see where campaign money is coming from. We need to see who’s benefiting from donations, and then who is getting state money. So that
there’re a lot of people out there who if that information is available will take it and make the proper correlations and raise the proper red
flags. There’re just a whole lot of people that are interested and this is a wonderful time in our history, I think, because of the Internet, because
of blogging in the new media, we’re able to disseminate a great deal more information than newspapers were ever able to get out. And so I
really think that the first step towards a more ethical government in Illinois is for us to get some greater degree of transparency. One of our
new gubernatorial candidates has as his slogan “Every dime on line in real time.” That’s his promise that he wants to put every dime of state
spending, all the procurement, all the paychecks, all the contracts, all the spending, every dime of it on line. And then to follow up with what he
calls forensic audits of the state’s accounts. And I think this is a wonderful idea. I would very much like to get to the legislature and support
this sort of idea. Another of our gubernatorial candidates is running on the slogan that our state, that government in Illinois is not broken, it’s
fixed. I think he’s got a really good point too. That, you know, we need to go after the people. We need to stand up to the people, particularly
the Democrats who are at fault for this, who control. It’s just a handful of people who control so very much of the hiring and spending that is
done by our state government.
Host: You know what some will argue that one of the ways of going at it, and I kind of agree with it as well, is by starting the across the board
by giving out term limits. You are a first time candidate, would you support term limits?
Candidate: You know, honestly I’m not a big fan of term limits. I think that people need to take an interest in what’s going on. I think they
should have the right to keep a good legislator if they have a good legislator. I don’t think that legislators should be forced up or out. If
somebody’s good at what they’re doing, I don’t think we need to have term limits to do that. And I realize that puts me in a minority among
conservatives, but I do notice that the term limits call tends to come about more when Democrats are in power than when Republicans are in
power. We heard about term limits a great deal under President Clinton. Not so much under President Bush. Now we’re hearing about them
again under President Obama. I’m not a big proponent of term limits, even though I don’t imagine spending the rest of my life in elective
office if I’m successful in this race. I do think that people should have the right and ability to keep a good legislator when they have one. For
example, my opponent who is, as you’ve mentioned, an incumbent, her predecessor was an excellent, excellent legislator. He was there for
the better part of twenty years, and I greatly regret that he’s not still there. He was a good conservative man. He did good work for the people
of the district and for the people of Illinois. And if he were still in office, I certainly wouldn’t be in this race. So I do think that the people should
have the right to be able to keep a good legislator if they like him.
Host: So the bottom line is that, if I can paraphrase you, you would be saying that all politicians are not created equal and by installing term
limits, we may punish the good ones.
Candidate: Pretty much, yeah.
Host: Alright. Now, again as I said, this is a first time campaign so as a campaign, you need also to do some fundraising. I’m sure that’s
part of your agenda in terms of getting things going. You have a website? How can we direct people to your website if they would like to
support you, at the very least help you and maybe even volunteer in your campaign?
Candidate: I do have a website. It’s PaulFor62.com. That’s P A U L F O R 6 2 dot com. PaulFor62.com. I’m Paul Mitchell. I’m running for
State Representative in the 62nd District of Illinois. So it’s PaulFor62.com. And on that website, you can learn a great deal more about my
positions, how my campaign is going. You can contribute to my campaign. You can volunteer. You can contact me directly, and you can find
out just a whole lot more about me and about our district.
Host: Paul For and the number 62 dot com. Mr. Mitchell, thank you very much for being on the program today.
Candidate: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real great pleasure.
kickbacks, to sweetheart deals for businesses who are friends of legislators and friends of important people. And so the thing to do there, is to
accountability into the process. And then when people can see how money is being spent, then I think it’ll be a whole lot easier to figure out
where things can be cut.
Host: Well, you know, you have a very good point of course, and I’m originally from Europe, by the way, if you hadn’t detected the accent yet.
But in Europe they have a pretty cynical view about taxation. First of all they taxed through the kazoos and secondly they already know that the
minute a tax goes up, it never goes down because even if the politicians do not need the money for expenditure, they will create expenditure
just to spend that money so that it is not removed down the road. So again, the minute you increase the taxes, very seldom do they go down,
even in this country. Would you agree with that?
Candidate: Oh, it’s certainly true. It’s a law of nature. It’s not just a European thing or an American thing. It’s a law of nature, because taxation
is really power to the government and it’s exceptionally rare that a government will willingly give up power.
Host: Talking about power, President Obama recently addressing school children nationwide has caused some controversy. But controversy
can cause people to think and even create a dialog. Many will argue that education is a matter that needs to be controlled at the local level.
Do you favor a more local approach to education?
Candidate: Oh, absolutely. I favor a more local approach to anything that can be done well at a local level and certainly education is a very
good example of that. I’m a Roman Catholic and the Catholic Church teaches a principal called
“Subsidiarity” which is simply the idea that any function, any public function should be carried out at the lowest level possible. And that’s
something that the church has, you know, various Popes have endorsed since the 19th century. The idea that the Federal Government should
have to get involved in primary education seems to me to be ludicrous. It’s something that the founding fathers would have thought
incredulous that people would expect them to manage local schools. And I don’t think that they were wrong about that and I don’t see that a
need for Federal involvement in public education has really been demonstrated. Nor has the Federal government really been very
successful at demonstrating its competence in managing local education.
Host: Now, no system is ever perfect so there’s always room for improvement. I think we all will agree with that. What steps do you feel are
needed to improve children’s education in your state?
Candidate: First of all I approve school choice. We need to give parents the opportunity to take their children out of schools if they are failing,
and if they are failing in the parent’s judgment. And be able to move those children to either private schools, to parochial schools, to home
schools, to be able to make the best choices for their children’s future. That’s the way to go with education is to put parents back in charge.
And we also need to make sure that in the case of our public schools that we are doing everything we can to encourage and to facilitate
parents’ involvement in the public school process. And I know in some places that’s simply not happening. Parents are actually discouraged
from having involvement in their children’s public school education.
Host: Let’s go to a totally different subject. Your views on abortions and other life-related issues appear quite different from your opponent
and incumbent. I believe you favor eliminating altogether funding for Planned Parenthood. Now this organization, though controversial, does
have the support of many as well and does offer a number of services that a segment of the population feels it needs. For example, HIV
education and women’s health service, patient education in various areas. So eliminating is one thing, but filling a gap that may be needed
is another. Would you support filling that void and if so, how would you go about it?
Candidate: Well, I think that if we’re going to provide services like that with state money, with public money, it needs to be provided to health
care providers that don’t offer abortion services. For a long time overseas, that’s how Federal money was given out under what’s called the
Mexico City policy was that policy forbade giving Federal money, American Federal money, to any organization that offered abortion
services. But that didn’t mean that less money was being given. What it did mean was that organizations that offered pregnancy services, that
offered women’s health, it offered all these other things that you mentioned which did not provide abortions were the beneficiaries of American
foreign aid. It would be the same thing in our country and in our state if we weren’t giving money to Planned Parenthood, we could give that
money to other health care providers who weren’t encouraging people to get abortions, who weren’t covering up for statutory rape, who weren’t
passing out sub-standard condoms, and who, at least in other states, have been demonstrated to be overcharging the state government for
the services that they do provide.
Host: Continuing on Planned Parenthood, for example some people will even go as far as, the critics that is, as accusing Planned
Parenthood of doing some population control through their abortion services.
Candidate: Well, it’s certainly true that Planned Parenthood has a large preponderance of you might say disproportionate number of their
clinics in minority areas. And certainly abortion has hit the minority community much harder than it has any other. I believe in the African-
American community, something like 45% of conceptions end in abortion. And if someone were to point that out and if someone could make
the case that that’s just genocide against African-Americans. That’s appalling to think that in any community that 45% of their next generation
is being lost to abortion every year. Whether that’s a policy intention of Planned Parenthood or not, I’m not competent to address, but it
certainly does seem to be a result of their operation.
Host: Alright, let’s move on to really dirty politics and I mean that kind of literally. Robert Grand said in 2008: “If Illinois is not the most
corrupted state in the United States, it certainly is one hell of a competitor”. Now most of us are familiar with the term Chicago Politics which
is a much-entrenched culture of putting one’s cronies in power out of loyalty and not merit. Now your state has a big history of such political
behavior which does not of course serve its people well. Such practice is not only unfair, it is also unconstitutional. Your own governor,
Patrick Quinn, proposed last April a plan to clean up Chicago politics which includes for example limiting donations to campaigns and
allowing for more transparency and term limits. Now where does that plan stand at this time and how do you feel about it?
Candidate: Well, the legislature looked it over, the government appointed a blue-ribbon panel. The panel came back with
recommendations. The legislature, which is largely controlled by just two men, the Speaker of the House, Mike Madigan, and the President of
the Senate, John Cullerton, the legislature threw out the blue-ribbon panel’s recommendation. They passed another set of proposals instead
that looked to me like incumbent protection bill and then the governor just recently vetoed what they had passed. So really we’re kind of back
to square one, which given the status a month ago, is a big improvement. So, you know, to me the thing we need is transparency. We need to
see where campaign money is coming from. We need to see who’s benefiting from donations, and then who is getting state money. So that
there’re a lot of people out there who if that information is available will take it and make the proper correlations and raise the proper red
flags. There’re just a whole lot of people that are interested and this is a wonderful time in our history, I think, because of the Internet, because
of blogging in the new media, we’re able to disseminate a great deal more information than newspapers were ever able to get out. And so I
really think that the first step towards a more ethical government in Illinois is for us to get some greater degree of transparency. One of our
new gubernatorial candidates has as his slogan “Every dime on line in real time.” That’s his promise that he wants to put every dime of state
spending, all the procurement, all the paychecks, all the contracts, all the spending, every dime of it on line. And then to follow up with what he
calls forensic audits of the state’s accounts. And I think this is a wonderful idea. I would very much like to get to the legislature and support
this sort of idea. Another of our gubernatorial candidates is running on the slogan that our state, that government in Illinois is not broken, it’s
fixed. I think he’s got a really good point too. That, you know, we need to go after the people. We need to stand up to the people, particularly
the Democrats who are at fault for this, who control. It’s just a handful of people who control so very much of the hiring and spending that is
done by our state government.
Host: You know what some will argue that one of the ways of going at it, and I kind of agree with it as well, is by starting the across the board
by giving out term limits. You are a first time candidate, would you support term limits?
Candidate: You know, honestly I’m not a big fan of term limits. I think that people need to take an interest in what’s going on. I think they
should have the right to keep a good legislator if they have a good legislator. I don’t think that legislators should be forced up or out. If
somebody’s good at what they’re doing, I don’t think we need to have term limits to do that. And I realize that puts me in a minority among
conservatives, but I do notice that the term limits call tends to come about more when Democrats are in power than when Republicans are in
power. We heard about term limits a great deal under President Clinton. Not so much under President Bush. Now we’re hearing about them
again under President Obama. I’m not a big proponent of term limits, even though I don’t imagine spending the rest of my life in elective
office if I’m successful in this race. I do think that people should have the right and ability to keep a good legislator when they have one. For
example, my opponent who is, as you’ve mentioned, an incumbent, her predecessor was an excellent, excellent legislator. He was there for
the better part of twenty years, and I greatly regret that he’s not still there. He was a good conservative man. He did good work for the people
of the district and for the people of Illinois. And if he were still in office, I certainly wouldn’t be in this race. So I do think that the people should
have the right to be able to keep a good legislator if they like him.
Host: So the bottom line is that, if I can paraphrase you, you would be saying that all politicians are not created equal and by installing term
limits, we may punish the good ones.
Candidate: Pretty much, yeah.
Host: Alright. Now, again as I said, this is a first time campaign so as a campaign, you need also to do some fundraising. I’m sure that’s
part of your agenda in terms of getting things going. You have a website? How can we direct people to your website if they would like to
support you, at the very least help you and maybe even volunteer in your campaign?
Candidate: I do have a website. It’s PaulFor62.com. That’s P A U L F O R 6 2 dot com. PaulFor62.com. I’m Paul Mitchell. I’m running for
State Representative in the 62nd District of Illinois. So it’s PaulFor62.com. And on that website, you can learn a great deal more about my
positions, how my campaign is going. You can contribute to my campaign. You can volunteer. You can contact me directly, and you can find
out just a whole lot more about me and about our district.
Host: Paul For and the number 62 dot com. Mr. Mitchell, thank you very much for being on the program today.
Candidate: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real great pleasure.
Interview Transcript
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