2012 November election dates
Oct. 9: Last day to register to vote | Oct. 22– Nov. 2: Early voting | Nov. 6: Election day
(Source: Texas secretary of state)
John Carter - R
U.S. Rep. John Carter was first elected to represent the 31st congressional district in 2002. Prior to serving in Congress, Carter served as judge of the 277th District Court in Williamson County for 20 years.
Q. Why are you running?
A. I think I have the experience and background that will best represent the people of the 31st district. I've been representing some portion of this district now in some form or fashion 20 years as a judge and at least five terms as a congressman, and I think I am in a well-placed position right now that I can assist my district in this economic crisis that we've got going on in this country.
Q. What are the most important issues for your constituents?
A. The economy, the economy and the economy. The economy we've got right now and the disaster that has been created by the failed policies of the Obama administration have got us in a situation where we owe as much as we make in gross domestic product, and that is an unmanageable situation that we've got to correct. It's going to take strict discipline to get it done.
Q. What actions would you take on these if re-elected?
A. I serve on the appropriations committee in the House of Representatives at this time, and in the last two years—this two-year cycle of Congress—the appropriations committee will have set forward appropriations bills that would reduce our spending levels by half a trillion dollars. However, we have been sandbagged by the Senate, and they will not take up a budget or appropriations bill to complete the process, but we have taken the hard votes to make the cuts necessary to start turning this country in the future. I'm hopeful after the next election we will have a much more manageable Senate and a much more manageable White House with the election of a Republican president—Mr. Romney—and we will be able to see the implementation of these difficult cuts that we've made in the last two years.
Q. What are your thoughts on the immigration system in the U.S. and what has happened recently in regard to immigration policy?
A. There is no doubt—anyone who lives in a border state knows for sure—our immigration policies are broken from top to bottom. There needs to be major reform of our immigration policies. The actions of the president to unilaterally circumvent Congress again with an executive order—which, by the way, he has not signed an executive order, he just announced he was considering one—is not good policy. Good policy is for us to work out solutions across the board with a compassionate view of the people whose lives will be affected by these immigration policies but still let the rule of law of the United States prevail. I would like to treat the people who are already here illegally, give them the opportunity to come out of the shadows, but I would not reward them with any rewards, only the opportunity to admit they have broken our laws and go on a form of probation similar to what we call deferred adjudication in our criminal justice system. We need to have a workforce policy. That's doable, but we want to do it legally, not illegally.
Ethan Garofolo - L
Ethan Garofolo moved to Texas 6 1/2 years ago with his wife. He works as a computer programmer on Web applications. He has been married for almost seven years and has two daughters.
Q. Why are you running?
A. If you'll pardon one political clich—our country faces grave challenges these days. It really does. I just don't see the two old parties doing much to solve those challenges. Their solutions generally involve more government, more control and more of what creates the problems. And I don't feel like the average Joe has a representative. I guess in this race they would: me.
Q. What are the most important issues for your constituents?
A. Certainly, I would say economic matters. I lost my job in 2009. Since then I've found other work, but that was three months after we bought our house. That was kind of scary. It doesn't seem to me to be getting better—economies are stagnant, and the unemployment numbers remain frequently high. I think a lot of people would like some more peace of mind.
Q. What actions would you take on these if elected?
A. I think the core of the problem is that—if you look on the back of my business card, it says it's time to end for-profit politics—it's that Washington and most levels of government, but Washington in particular, it is too tied into the economy. I believe in the separation of economy and state for the benefit of both. So what happens then is economic decisions are made by people who don't have to focus on market forces and don't get the important feedback that the market provides. They have the force of law behind everything they do, and as a result, that ends up hurting everybody. I would start with making it less attractive to be a congressman. The base salary for a congressman is $174,000 a year. I pledge not to take that. I don't think I should be paid more for being a congressman than I do for doing meaningful work now.
I'm not for term limits. I think if you got rid of all the monetary incentives, people would term-limit themselves.
Q. What are your thoughts on the immigration system in the U.S. and what has happened recently in regard to immigration policy?
A. I think it's horribly broken. I had in school a number of friends who married people from other countries, and the lengths they went through to get their spouses here astounded me. I think that as we bring people in who want new jobs—I'm very much for that—it's just so hard to do that. The data bears out that immigrants coming and filling up jobs when it's legal and they pay taxes and so forth benefits economies. They have different skills than we do. I believe in a sane policy where someone could come for a job and pay taxes. The real problem with immigration is that open immigration and the welfare state can't coexist. I think most people's problem with immigration is the freebies that people get when they get here. I think those freebies are bad anyway. So if you got rid of those, there wouldn't be an incentive to come here, unless you were coming for work.
Stephen Wyman - D
Born in New Hampshire and raised in Massachusetts, Stephen Wyman came to Texas in 1981. He has been a data telecommunications technical professional since that time.
Q. Why are you running?
A. Because I was looking for an alternative for who to vote for on my ballot, and for years there wasn't one. And I said, "This is not a good situation." And I looked around and said, "I could ask somebody to run, but if it's not a job I'm willing to do myself, why would I ask somebody?" Politics has always been interesting to me. I've been a generalist for a lot of years, so I got on the ballot starting in 2006. I ran for state Senate in '06 and '10.
Q. What are the most important issues for your constituents?
A. The economy, the economy and the economy. There are multiple aspects that are involved in the economy. Basically, we had an economic recession that was caused by a specific group of people. They rail against socialism up until it comes time to bail them out of the trouble they get themselves and everybody else into. The economy is the biggest issue. But also, realizing that there is a role for government in regulating [the economy].
Q. What actions would you take on these if elected?
A. With the economy, basically re-establishing the fact that you do need a baseline of regulations, and you do need regulators out there making sure that people are staying within the confines of what is legal. Because you do have players out there who—one of the chairmen called it irrational exuberance—every economic uptick that lasts long enough leads to irrational exuberance. There are some people out there who have no moral restraint, and when the government is not holding them to within certain standards, they have nothing to hold them back. We've seen, on numerous occasions, the damage they can cause when it blows up in their face, and we wind up with the bill. There is space for government in regulation, and there is a space for regulators to be into these people's business because of the damage they do when they get carried away with themselves. As I mentioned, every economic uptick that lasts long enough, they get carried away with themselves.
Q. What are your thoughts on the immigration system in the U.S. and what has happened recently in regard to immigration policy?
A. Immigration is bothered terribly, again, by hypocrisy. We are all children of or immigrants ourselves. There was nobody in North America when North America separated from Pangaea way back when. Everybody is an immigrant or a descendent from immigrants. It's been a great thing to have a variety of people motivated by our way of life to come here and do the work and be successful. When the Republicans rail about immigration, they are talking about our frontier with Mexico. They don't seem to be as worried about the frontier with Canada or the fact that we have three extremely long coasts that are also rather porous when it comes to immigration. But they're hypocrites in that they get all sorts of angry with the Obama administration because what they're doing to enforce illegal immigration is they're going to companies that are hiring people and seeing if they did their research to check and see if these people are legally eligible to work in United States. And to a large degree, nobody does. Why not? Because these are very hardworking people who don't understand American wages.
