United Methodist Women lift up questions that voters are raising in the 2016 election year.

Over the past few months, we have invited United Methodist Women members to share critical questions that are essential to voters’ abilities to make informed electoral choices. With the launch of the Republican and Democratic Party conventions, the election now enters its final phase. Therefore, throughout the next three months, until Election Day, we ask you to ACT to ensure we get the candidates to respond to the questions we ask, because United Methodist Women members have a right “to know” their answers.

United Methodist Women’s Questions, by Jurisdiction

North Central Jurisdiction

1. How can we expect to transform the world if we still use plastic? And do not answer that we recycle, because who knows where that stuff is taken, maybe to Lake Michigan and dumped.
2. Will you support the Fair Sentencing and Corrections Act of 2015?
3. Will you support Medicare for all? The U.S.A. is the only wealthy democracy without universal health care, which is why we have a relatively high birth death rate.
4. What will you do to ensure that women and children are treated with equality and respect in this nation, where incoming refugee cultures sometimes dictate otherwise?
5. What will you do to support campaign finance limits and time limits for campaigns?
6. Donald Trump’s rise as a presidential candidate is evidence of a great deal of anger, fear and separatist feelings of people throughout our country. How do you plan to connect with this segment? How will you help build unity and civic engagement with those convinced that you and other prominent leaders are against their interests?
7. How can we show compassion toward those that seek refuge in our county while still discouraging illegal entry and ensuring the safety of our citizens?
8. How would you address the racial disparities in the U.S. in family incomes, education and incarceration rates?
9. How would you support education for people in poverty?
10. What is your stance on human trafficking?
11. Do you support and encourage the growth and advancement of renewable energy?
12. Do you support or oppose the Drinking Water Safety and Infrastructure Act, which would provide funding to places such as Flint, Michigan, and ensure that all Americans have access to safe drinking water?
13. What is the candidate’s position on climate change? This question is appropriate at all levels of office, local, state and federal. Denial of the scientific evidence is perilous to all of humanity.
14. Did you support Ohio bill S58 regarding renewable energy progress and would you resume work and progress in that area?
15. Are there any plans to raise the minimum wage nationally and in the state of Ohio?
16. How will our immigration problems be solved? How will this country fight terrorism in the future to be more effective?
17. Do you support the Move to Amend movement regarding the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision?

Northeastern Jurisdiction

1. What can we do to achieve a just and humane immigration policy?
2. How can we support children and women fleeing violence in Central America and elsewhere, who come to the United States seeking protection and safety?
3. How can we provide access to quality healthcare for all?
4. How can we end the death penalty?
5. What actions can we take to stem climate change?
6. Which gubernatorial candidates are pro-choice?

South Central Jurisdiction

1. How do you justify not funding healthcare for those in need?
2. How do you plan to ensure that the right of women to receive comprehensive health and reproductive care is protected?
3. Would you support keeping Obamacare?
4. Do you support having a hearing on the Supreme Court nominee?
5. Will you work for the good of the people, not yourselves?
6. Why do you think the number of children living in poverty is increasing in Kansas?
7. Are you in favor of Medicare expansion in Kansas? Are you in favor of a woman’s right to choose?
8. Do you support an independent Judiciary? Do you support the KS tax cuts for LLC’s? How will you support funding for KanCare so doctors and hospitals can continue to provide health care to Medicare/Medicaid patients?
9. Why is it government’s job to do all of these “social justice” projects? In my Bible, Jesus calls on individual believers — not government — to walk alongside those in need. Government handing out help keeps people down. Individuals and local churches should be doing these things.
10. How do we deal with a presidential candidate that is derogatory when speaking of women or talks about the “woman card”?
11. What can we expect in the future to be done with Social Security?
12. What is being done about human trafficking?
13. What will you do to make sure the LGBT community is treated equal in these next four years?
14. What means (i.e. psychiatric debriefing, mandatory support groups, whole family re-entry training/counseling) can we provide our returning military to “turn off” their fighting capacity and “turn on” their civilian trusting capacity?

Southeastern Jurisdiction

1. What is being done about human trafficking?
2. How can we expect the rest of the world to change their view on women when one of our leading presidential candidates uses such derogatory terms about them?
3. What plans can we make to ensure equal and fair participation in our global economy for those in the most marginalized and economically vulnerable population segment within the U.S. and for the most impoverished nations as a whole?
4. Far from reducing the practice of abortion worldwide, our government currently promotes it both here and abroad. In our nation, a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, do the unborn count as members of the human family?
5. How are we planning to help the poor get away from government assistance … giving them a hand up instead of a hand out?
6. What are the plans to address the growing homeless population in the more rural areas of Hillsborough County, Florida, where there is a severe lack of overnight shelters?
7. How can our government address the growing problem of human trafficking and protecting the innocent from this horrific crime?
8. How do we as both individuals and an organization address the short- and long-term issues of global warming?
9. Are you in agreement with using government funds to help groups such as Wellspring Living and Circle of Friends: Living Water here in Atlanta, Georgia, that help victims of human trafficking?
10. What are you doing to help homeless and unemployed veterans in metro Atlanta, Georgia?
11. What can be done to make the cost of college more affordable for young people?
12. What are you doing to get equal pay for women?
13. What are you doing to equalize criminal punishment for all races?
14. Is HB2, the anti-LGBT law restricting who can use certain public restrooms, just and why?
15. What is your position on teachers’ salaries?
16. What does each candidate plan to do in support of agriculture? Some of the candidates have indicated that they will do away with, or drastically change, trade deals with foreign countries. North Carolina is a huge exporter of agriculture products and has worked hard to get the trade deals that we currently have. Making drastic changes could, and probably would, create havoc.
17. Do you support or oppose the president’s $500 million budget proposal to help states improve and expand preschool access, starting with the most disadvantaged children?
18. Do the candidates know the concerns we, the older adults in the population, have about health care and the rising cost of medicine?
19. Why will the North Carolina senator no longer will meet with and talk to the people he represents?
20. What is the true purpose of SB873, which would make public higher education free, and do you support or oppose it?
21. Will you expand Medicaid in 2017?
22. Will we remove the box on an application concerning criminal backgrounds?
23. Do you support the newly established national Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Coalition and would you advocate to pass the ERA?
24. What are the candidates’ thoughts on what to do for the law-abiding, hard-working immigrants already in this country?
25. How do you justify not funding healthcare for those in need?
26. Why do county supervisors continue to allow more than two car title loan businesses in a half mile of each other? Is it true that banks owe the car title industry?
27. How can we show compassion toward those that seek refuge in our county while still discouraging illegal entry and ensuring the safety of our citizens?
28. Where do you stand concerning Roe v. Wade?
29. What is being done to prepare for energy transitions that will affect workers adversely? This is not a question about handouts or programs developed after the changes. It is a question about whether these transitions and development of new, accessible (not five states away) living wage employment opportunities will be parallel at a minimum. We all want clean energy. But we have all benefited from the labor of miners.

Western Jurisdiction

1. What will you do about enforcement of labor laws for our farm workers?
2. How will you increase transparency regarding the food we buy?
3. How will you address the related issues of jobs and infrastructure and fully fund the programs?
4. What will you do to support campaign finance limits and time limits for campaigns?
5. Our schools lack proper and adequate buildings, placing our children in dangerous situations daily. What will you do to insure the safety of our children?
6. What steps will you take to prevent recidivism (i.e. repeat offenses) as part of a criminal justice reform measure that is humane and less costly?
7. What steps will you take to ensure that women get equal pay for equal work?
8. How can we reach income equality, especially for women?
9. What measures will you take regarding global warming?
10. Donald Trump’s rise as a presidential candidate is evidence of a great deal of anger, fear and separatist feelings of people throughout our country. How do you plan to connect with this segment? How will you help build unity and civic engagement with those convinced that you and other prominent leaders are against their interests?
11. Fracking is not harmless to our air and water and soil. What can we expect you to do to stop or slow its use, and turn toward renewable fuels?
12. Do you support proposals and government budget recommendations to provide more vetting and personnel to ensure that persons with intent to use military-type guns and handguns to do mass shootings of U.S. citizens have less immediate access to them?
13. Jobs are being lost in the coal industry because of the decreased need for coal and also awareness of its environmental damage. How would you go about creating and replacing those jobs lost for families and communities? The economic drain on families, communities and states could be devastating.
14. What do you consider a living wage in Idaho?
15. How high a priority is reforming the immigration system for you and how would you do it?
16. What changes do you want for the Affordable Care Act?
17. Do you recommend raising the minimum wage, at the state and/or federal level? If so, how much?
18. Do you support raising funding to secure college expenses for every student?
19. Food banks are serving more citizens than ever in this country. What will you do to feed our hungry and put the food banks out of business?
20. How can we protect our natural resources — water in particular — from exploitation by private companies/corporations?
21. Why does government desire to control women’s bodies through legislation that eliminates our right to choose?

 

Last Updated on January 11, 2023