NH election 2022: Cavalaro, Newton face off in Strafford District 6 (Rochester Ward 2)
In Strafford Country District 6 (Rochester Ward 2), two candidates are competing for one New Hampshire House seat. Republican incumbent Rep. Clifford Newton is being challenged by Democrat Kathleen Cavalaro. Cavalaro responded to a candidate survey sent out by Fosters.com. Her answers are below:
Kathleen Cavalaro
Hometown: Rochester
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade and placed the power to regulate abortion with the states. What should state lawmakers do regarding abortion laws?
State Lawmakers must do everything in their power to protect the right to safe and legal abortions. The "partial" abortion ban already passed at the state level should be repealed to accommodate the nuanced and often heartbreaking private decisions around pregnancy, which should be made exclusively by the pregnant woman and her care team. If a federal ban or limitation should be passed, New Hampshire should enforce it the same way Sununu and Republicans have chosen to enforce federal firearm laws - no state resources should be deployed to aid a federal abortion ban in any way. Ideally a state constitutional amendment should be passed to protect the right to choose, but until then we need to draw a line on creeping restrictions and get to work rolling them back.
The state's residents and businesses face many economic challenges, including high prices for electricity and fuel, a labor shortage, a lack of affordable housing and rising prices due to inflation. How would you address these challenges?
Other than inflation, a global problem which can't be legislated away at the state level, all of these economic challenges are crises of our own making. They are fixable. Regardless of what talking point they've settled on, higher electric rates can be laid squarely at the feet of Republicans. New Hampshire has some of the highest electric rates in the nation, but it is not a national crisis. Look at our neighbors in Maine and Vermont where they have invested in domestic renewable energy. Vermont’s energy cost went up between 2% - 4%. New Hampshire’s increase was between 112% - 125%. We can credit that to an obsession with fossil fuels and lack of investment in renewables. We can't control the price of oil, only our reliance on it. Affordable housing is a supply problem, one that is made worse by our restrictive land use policies. No one party is to blame - NIMBYism is an equal opportunity illness - but it is a problem that needs solving. We're 20,000 units short. Vacancy is non-existent. Landlords can gouge rents in a choiceless environment, home ownership is unaffordable thanks to artificially inflated property values. We must do more, and we can. The labor shortage is tied to affordable housing. Unemployment is low. We need to attract and retain more workers. We won't attract them without housing, high wages and good schools.
What else do you want voters to know about you or your policy positions before the election on Nov. 8?
Education is one of the most pressing issues facing NH. We need to address the failing and bloated voucher program funneling money from our public schools to private schools. It is a wasteful program thoughtlessly added to the state budget at the last hour, and to date has gone 50x over budget. What is worse is the majority of those funds, 90%, were used to subsidize the tuition of students already enrolled in private school. It works now as a subsidy for the wealthy on the backs of the rest of the Granite State, who will feel it in their local property taxes. NH is experiencing a shortage of qualified educators and this should not come as a surprise. Job instability, low pay, encroaching state control, and even being forced to “out” vulnerable students to their parents are all on the table here. They're even prohibited from teaching simple facts of history, sociology, and literature thanks to an experimental agenda that belongs in a trash heap, not in legislation. Let teachers teach. We need to protect our LGBTQ+ community from a newly emergent campaign against their basic humanity. This is the Live Free or Die state, and until certain factions within our State remember that, we must do what we can, including protecting access to gender affirming care, marriage, and protection from discrimination. That is how I will vote in the state house, work in my own community and with allies across the state, and contribute to the safety and success of our home. I hope you join me.
Editor's note: Seacoast Media Group made a good-faith effort to distribute our candidate questionnaire to all candidates. We will add any missing candidate questionnaires when they are received. If any candidates have questions or need information on how to be included, please email news@seacoastonline.com or news@fosters.com with "candidate questionnaire" in the subject line.
This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: NH election 2022: Cavalaro and Newton face off in Strafford District 6
