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October 3, 2008

Talking points

Morales, candidate representatives speak at TVCC political forum

By Rich Flowers News Editor

Trinity Valley Community College students quizzed Texas House candidate Victor Morales and representatives of other candidates about the issues Thursday at a political forum held in the student union building.

The TVCC Student Senate and the TVCC Social Science Division sponsored the forum.

The panel included Mike Head, speaking on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Amy Gould standing in for District 4 State Representative Betty Brown and Richard Sanders appearing for both Congressmen Jeb Hensarling and Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. Each member of the panel was given eight minutes to speak and after all four had finished, questions were taken from the floor.

Gould said Brown is serving for the good of the people in her district and the state.

“She is not using her office as a stepping stone for any higher office,” Gould said.

One of Brown’s priorities in the next session will be passage of a voter identification bill, Gould said.

Gould asked for a show of hands of people in the audience who do not have a picture ID to show the election judges when they go to the polls. Only a few hands were raised. Gould said that statewide about 90 percent of eligible voters have a photo ID.

“Some people think the voter ID bill is not very important,” Gould said, “but just a few years ago a Kaufman County justice of the peace race was decided by two votes.”

During his allotted time, Morales said very few illegal immigrants have tried to vote in the state.

“The attorney general said it was not a problem,” Morales said.

Morales said the bill was aimed at keeping the poor Democrat voters from the polls.

“If you want to talk about voting problems — please,” Morales said. “We’ve got voting machine problems and other problems.”

Head presented the case for Obama as someone who can bring about change. Head said if elected, McCain will continue the same policies that President George W. Bush has followed for the past eight years. He said Obama has been consistent in his opposition to the war in Iraq.

“We need a change of direction from the last eight years,” Head said. “We have two wars that are not any closer to being over today than when they started.”

Sanders praised McCain’s military service and support of U.S. efforts to fight terrorism in the world.

Sanders said McCain will also battle government waste.

“We don’t have a taxing problem in Washington. We have a spending problem,” Sanders said.

Sanders said he is concerned about a recent poll that states 40 percent of voters believe the Republicans are still in control of Congress.

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