On Thursday morning, Jeanette Cass stopped by the Mid-Missouri Livestock Barn in Philipsburg to chat with farmers as they ate breakfast in the café before the sale started.
Cass runs a small farm with about 25 head of cattle in Niangua in Webster County.. She said her experience as a farmer has prepared her to fill the 4th Congressional District seat if she’s elected on Tuesday.
"I think — my understanding is — that in my district you're either put on a, one or both, the agriculture and the military because both facilities are in my district on the military," she said. "So I think I would probably be roped into those two areas, but I have no problem with either one of them. I have a small farm myself. It's only 50 acres. I only have about 25, 26 cows, but, in the military, I have a large military family so I'm very adamant about working with the military, making sure they're taken care of well."
She explained what her top agenda items would be if she’s elected.
"Women's healthcare, obviously, but like some of the things, one of the reasons we came here today was to try to talk to some of the farmers," she said, "because Mark Alford pushed the A-PLUS Act and put it in the farm bill, and it's to shut down the 1921 Packers and Stockyard Act, and the Packers and Stockyard Act was put in place in 1921 to prevent the processors from monopolizing the price of food, so it would help, the Packers and Stockyard Act, helped the farmers get a fair price, and it helped consumers pay a fair price. But when they allow stockyards to invest in their own processing centers, then we lose any competition. Women's health, though, I think is number one important to me as far as any American should have the right to go to any physician and get any kind of medical care that they need, end of story. That's just — cutting certain things out, it's just un-American to me."
When it comes to what’s important at the national level, Cass said the U.S. needs to fight to get the Israeli hostages back.
"We need to get them out if they're still alive, hopefully they are, and I would like to see a cease fire and just sit down and let's get to the bottom of this, and it's kind of the same, it's not the same with Ukraine and Russia," she said. "He (Putin) just went in and said, 'I want my land back.' But there has to be a point where grown adults sit down and discuss it and get to the end of it. Too many innocent lives are just being ruined if not lost."
Cass was asked her thoughts on the divisiveness in the U.S. over the last few years and what needs to happen to overcome that.
"You know, I've thought a lot about that," she said. "It seems like a select group of people have spent a considerable amount of time dividing us, and it's just, how do you get people to come back and say, 'we're all Americans here.' You know, it's not like a football game, and I think it's just going to take a lot more communication, positive communication, to get people to just stop and think, 'we're all Americans. We're not — we stand up and fight in wars for our country. It doesn't matter who you are, you stand up side by side and fight for your country, so why would you let some of these things that are going on right now tear you apart?"
She also made her case for why people should choose her for the 4th Congressional District seat.
"In addition to being raised on a small farm, I was raised on a larger dairy farm, and we all worked together, you know, as farm kids you all work together to get the job done," she said. "But I also worked for the Postal Service for 30 years so I've kind of been in service my whole life, you know, whether I'm feeding Americans or delivering products to them so I can relate. I think my Postal Service gives me more in-depth information of what's going on in the cities, in the larger towns, and my farming, the way I was raised as a farmer helps me with the more rural areas, but the main thing is I've worked my whole entire life, and I know what it's like to be somebody who has to get up every morning and put your shoes on no matter what the weather is or what's going on in the world and get out there and do your job and don't stop until your job's done, and I want to fight for those people."
Find an interview Cass's Republican opponent Mark Alford here.
