Three Republican state representatives vying for a state Senate seat do agree on some issues, but the race has been anything but friendly.
Reps. Gary Dusenberg, Will Kraus and Bryan Pratt are waging what they all admit to be their toughest campaigns yet as they head into next week.
At stake is a seat in the 8th Senate District. The candidate who wins Tuesday in the primary is all but assured a victory in November because no Democrats have filed for the race and only one third-party candidate, Libertarian Kevin Parr, has filed.
Dusenberg, a Blue Springs resident who has served eight years in the House, said he would, if elected, focus on state unemployment and jobs, education and veterans and senior citizens. He said his life and political experiences far exceed his opponents.
To help with unemployment and job creation, Dusenberg said the General Assembly needs to focus on small business by cutting taxes 10-15 percent.
“We need to do that across the board,” he said. “The current unemployment rate is simply too much.”
A member of the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, Dusenberg also said he would work closely with state and school officials to preserve and/or restore proper funding levels.
“In the eight years I’ve served, I’ve been very active in this area,” he said.
For seniors and veterans, Dusenberg said he wants to continue working to make medical costs for both as low as possible.
“Many of them are on fixed incomes,” he said.
Kraus, a Lee’s Summit representative for the past six years, said he would focus on the state budget, jobs and education.
The only candidate in the election to vote “no” on the state budget, Kraus said prior statements by Pratt that he offered no amendments to the bill are misleading.
“I didn’t have the privilege to sit in the budget committee, and when it did come out, the rest of us had about a half an hour to offer an amendment,” Kraus said, adding that legislators did not have enough time to cut $500 million.
“It wasn’t a balanced budget,” he said.
Kraus took issue with the $900 million of one-time federal stimulus money, accusing Pratt on Thursday and during a forum on Monday night of “buying an election.”
To help with job creation and high unemployment, Kraus said he is in favor of tax incentives to jumpstart job creation, but he wants to be cautious.
“We just need to look at each proposal and make sure that (it does) what it was designed to do,” he said.
Regarding income tax reduction, Kraus said Pratt has accused him of wanting to raise taxes.
“I sponsored House Bill 82, which changed laws regarding income tax exemptions for retirement benefits,” he said. “It’s just another statement from Bryan misrepresenting the facts.”
A strong supporter of education, Kraus said funding needs to be kept at appropriate levels. To do that, he said tax credit and welfare reform should have been done to help education and other state revenue issues.
“Those reforms should be one of our first priorities,” he said.
Pratt has served four years as the House Speaker Pro Tem, a position he feels sets him apart from his opponents. If elected, he said he would focus on job creation, education and cutting taxes.
For schools, Pratt said he wants to help school funding by cutting welfare and requiring all those who receive welfare to be drug tested.
“That would help in funding districts,” he said.
For job creation, Pratt wants to see a tax cut for all businesses and create a tax incentive for employers who increase their workforce by 10 percent.
As for the state budget, Pratt took issue with his opponents’ feelings.
“We passed a balanced budget this year with 200 amendments,” he said, referring to Kraus’s criticism. “I would have offered an amendment if I didn’t think we could pass it.”
Pratt received much criticism Monday night after Dusenberg and Kraus condemned Pratt’s acceptance of $70,000 from the Missouri Club for Growth, a political action committee based in St. Louis.
“We’re all working hard to raise money for our races,” Pratt said in defense, adding that both Dusenberg and Kraus voted in 2007 to remove caps on campaign donations.
It was a vote Dusenberg said he regrets – and a statement Kraus said is wrong.
“I voted for an ethics bill and I fought the removal of limits,” Kraus said.
Dusenberg said the recent ethics bill was one of the worst bills he’s seen in Jefferson City, one that allows a group or person to donate as much as $70,000.
Kraus said in a previous article that he accepted his largest contribution – $10,000 – from himself and his wife, while Dusenberg said his largest contributions were no more than $1,000.
The three candidates do agree on some issues, including the proposed Missouri Innovation Park, immigration (all support a law similar to that of a recent Arizona law), and Proposition C, a statewide measure aiming to block the federal government from requiring people to buy health insurance and bans punishment for those without it.
Blue Springs, MO —
