Green Party, Libertarian candidates speak at LSC-Kingwood forum

James Veasaw, Kathie Glass and Scott Ford answer questions about their Â visions for office if elected this November during a candidate forum held at Lone Star College-Kingwood Oct. 11. James Veasaw, Kathie Glass and Scott Ford answer questions about their Â visions for office if elected this November during a candidate forum held at Lone Star College-Kingwood Oct. 11. Photo: Melanie Feuk Photo: Melanie Feuk Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Green Party, Libertarian candidates speak at LSC-Kingwood forum 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Students gathered in the Student Conference Center at Lone Star College-Kingwood Oct. 11 to listen to four candidates running for various offices discuss their visions if elected Nov. 8.

The candidate forum featured Hal Ridley Jr., Green Party candidate running for U.S. House District 36; Kathie Glass, Libertarian Party candidate running for Texas Supreme Court, Place 3; James Veasaw, Libertarian Party candidate running for U.S. House, District 2; and Scott Ford, Libertarian Party candidate running for Texas State Representative, District 127.

Each candidate was given approximately seven minutes to introduce themselves.

Hal Ridley Jr.

"I'm not a politician," Ridley said. "I don't really have a campaign. I don't ask for donations. Mostly what I'm trying to do is spread ideas because you can lose, but your ideas can still win. A lot of times, your ideas, once they're out, they go on their own. Somebody will pick them up."

Ridley hopes to bring positive change to the U.S. through invention and innovations.

"I am a musician, a songwriter, semi-retired truck driver, but mostly I'm an inventor," Ridley said. "Invention, innovation and entrepreneurial acumen are all we have to pull up from this spiral. A lot of the technologies and innovations are already here."

He conveyed his vision for a personal robotic revolution to localize the economy.

"Bring the economy back: localized," Ridley said. "Everything we need is here. We just need to look around, pick the projects that work and help advance the situation."

Kathie Glass

Having practiced law for more than 30 years, Glass said her reason for running is to fight to mend a legal system she feels is not fulfilling its purpose.

"I want to run for Supreme Court because I think a free people need a functioning legal system and we don't have one currently: not on the civil side; not on the criminal side," Glass said. "I've been a civil trial lawyer for over 30 years and it's what I was born to do.

"Washington is broken and the two-party system is corrupted by cronyism. The well-connected people have controlled and corrupted all of our processes including our legal process.

I saw justice was not being done, but I want to change that."

James Veasaw

Veasaw focused on fighting for constitution rights, specifically the Second Amendment.

"When they go after your Second Amendment rights, you have no other recourse," Veasaw said. "That's the one thing that stands between us and the government. The constitution gives us this right and when they redefine your right to carry weapons and defend your family and property; we've lost it.

"We've become servants of the tyrant."

Scott Ford

Ford said, with approximately 15 years of experience as an educator, he is concentrating on the need for educational reform and his intention to make a difference at the state level.

"Educational policy is handled predominately at the state level," Ford said. "How many of you felt like your public school really prepared you for life? Education is very important to me. Statewide, this is where this is handled."

Questions and answers

Ridley left before the question-and answer-session.

A question was posed to Glass concerning how her political views influenced her interpretation of the law.

"I think you have an inalienable natural right to live your life the way you want to, provided that you're not interfering with the identical rights other people have; interfering by force or fraud, with their right to live their life," Glass said. "I think that is a fundamental bedrock principle that our legal system was enacted to uphold and should be, but often is not."

Ford was asked about his thoughts as a Libertarian and educator on abolishing the Department of Education at the federal level.

"The Department of Education at the federal level is an absolute disaster," Ford said. "Education should be controlled at the local level with some state involvement. This is different than a traditional Libertarian platform and different from even a traditional Republican platform, but I think there is a place for public education, but we need to change it. We need to rip it up from the ground up."

What are the candidates' ultimate goals if elected?

"Ultimately, I would love to see us get back to our constitutional roots," Ford said. "I don't care what you do with your personal life as long as it doesn't hurt me or what I do with my personal life. I want you to keep as much money as you can, but I want to limit government as much as humanly possible."

Glass said she would vote to hear more cases, have more written opinions and dissent. "Discretionary review means that (the Supreme Court) doesn't have to take anything they don't want to and the pattern seems to be that they take cases where the cronies lost so they can fix that," Glass said. "If the cronies won, they don't take the case. They also don't write opinions as much as they should. Sometimes they just issue 'petition granted,' 'petition denied' and you don't know why, so you don't have any confidence that the rule of law is being applied."

Veasaw said he would go after corruption and cronyism.

"If you can't get a government job, one of the reasons is that you're not given a fair chance," Veasaw said. "The fix is already in and most of the money that we're spending in taxes is going to corruption. If we could just clean up the corruption that's in Washington, D.C., we can solve most of our financial problems."

Ford was then asked what government programs he would like to see trimmed down and how he would propose to fix issues with education.

In addition to his career as an educator, Ford spent time working for government agencies including the FBI and CIA. He said he would like to see across-the-board budget cuts at the state and federal levels.

"In regards to education, I would love to at least get rid of STAAR," Ford said. "In testing preparation you are told what to do if a student gets so scared they throw up on their testing booklet. We're taking children who should have a love of learning and we're driving that love out of them. Step one is to get back to making these kids love education."

Importance of Forums

Seth Howard, assistant director for the Center of Civic Engagement at Lone Star College System, explained the importance of hosting political forums like this at the college level.

"Part of my job is to engage students to become more engaged citizens," Howard said. "We try to provide those opportunities to become more engaged, more powerful and more skillful actors so that (students) can make the change (they) want to see within the community today rather than tomorrow."

For more information about Lone Star College-Kingwood visit www.lonestar.edu/kingwood.htm.