Q: What is the biggest difference between Elizabeth Allan Hodge and Ralph Perez?
A: Elizabeth Allan Hodge is a Constitutional Conservative. She is a rare candidate (unfortunately,) who truly understands and respects the Constitution. She subscribes to the vision of a limited government that our Founding Fathers guaranteed to us through the Constitution.
In the words of Patrick Henry:
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people,
it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government
-- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
Mrs. Hodge takes her oath of office to uphold the Constitution very seriously.
Ralph Perez refers to himself as a 'Progressive Moderate'.
He even belittles Mrs. Hodge for her commitment to the Constitution, (which implies that he doesn't intend to take his oath of office seriously). He is a Big Government advocate, which always reduces Liberty and increases taxation.
On his website, he shares his vision for mulitiple new programs, but without any mention of how he plans to pay for them.
"Elizabeth Allan Hodge impresses with her clear conservative principles. While I don’t agree with every answer she provided, I think she has a clearly discernible conservative compass.
"Hodge is opposed to expensive pre-K programs, in support of closed primaries, and strongly pro-life. In a 3-way field, she’s clearly a choice Conservatives can trust.
"In addition, as a former legislator, Hodge knows what it’ll take to get elected this Fall. Thus, if I still lived in District 16, she’d have my vote."
"Ralph Perez is type of Republican that could win [District]16. However, on many issues raised by various voter guides, [he] seems undecided on important issues including State Funding for Pre-K, Local Option Sales Tax, Closed Primaries, Day Care Regulations, No Fault Divorce, etc. ... Perez hasn’t convinced me he’s done the necessary homework yet to belong in the State Legislature and conservatives who back him are taking a gamble that on issues that matter to them he’ll end up on the right side."
"[Ormond] Howell is the easiest candidate to eliminate from a conservative perspective. While he takes many conservative stances ... several red flags stand out in Howell’s material:
1) "Opposition to Education Reform in the most extreme language: Howell tells the Cornerstone Institute of Idaho that "School Choice should be opposed lest parents send their kids to a Nazi-Skinhead school."
[Howell claims the U.S. Constitution "grants the States the power to provide 'free & equal' education to it's citizen's children." Thus, he concludes, the State has a Constitutional obligation to monitor homeschooling. Funny, that is not found in my copy of the U.S. Constitution!]
"I would be interested how he explained his opposition to Merit Pay and ending teacher tenure to the Gem State Voter Guide. He told the Statesman that he had better plan than merit pay though he didn’t specify what it was was.
2) "[Howell's] Support for Otter’s registration fee increase: Increasing the registration fee on all cars to $155 was a non-starter. We need a better plan.
3) "Among people he lists as admired Idaho politicians is Senator Gary Schroeder (R-6) who had a 30% Idaho Conservative Rating. Eek."
