The Informed Voter Coalition is made up of these nonprofit organizations: Be Civil, Be Heard ; Drury University’s L.E. Meador Center for Politics & Citizenship; Junior League of Springfield; KSMU Ozarks Public Radio; Leadership Springfield; League of Women Voters of Southwest Missouri; Missouri State University’s Office of Public Affairs; NAACP Springfield; Rosie; Show Me Christian County; Springfield Business Journal; Springfield-Greene County Library District; and the Springfield News-Leader.
You can hear the interviews recorded at KSMU by clicking on the "listen" button above or watch videos of the interviews recorded by Nathan Papes and Greta Cross of the Springfield News-Leader.
Candidates were interviewed individually and asked the same questions. They had one minute to introduce themselves and two minutes to respond to each question. Questions were submitted by Informed Voter Coalition partner organizations and were not provided to the candidates in advance. The order of the candidate interviews was determined by a random drawing.
Missouri House District 131
I'm Lisa Langley with the League of Women Voters of southwest Missouri. One of the nonpartisan organizations that make up the Informed Voter Coalition. Today, we are interviewing candidates for Missouri House District 131. They are Ashley Cossins and Bill Owen.
Ashley Cossins
Our first candidate is Ashley Cossins. Thank you so much for joining us today.
"Thank you for having me."
Let's begin by having you introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this office.
"Thank you. My name is Ashley Cossins, and I'm running for Missouri's House of Representatives to represent the 131st. And, a little background information, I was born in Kansas, but I graduated from Parkview and I have spent a majority of my adult working years here. After a short stint traveling the country, I moved back to Missouri. I met my husband in 2012, and we immediately began building our family or trying to. Throughout the process, I had spent many times just working for different organizations, frontline jobs and chasing fertility insurance as an IVF patient so when Dobbs came down and after a couple of other things, I decided this is a really good opportunity for me to step up and make sure Missouri knows that there are options out there this year."
Due in part to budget restraints, the percentage of school districts that have enacted four-day school weeks has exploded from 1 in 2010 to 160 today, representing more than 30% of all Missouri public schools. Do you see a role for the General Assembly in addressing this dynamic? Why or why not?
"Okay. I do think that the General Assembly has a significant role to play in this issue of four-day school weeks, because from what I understand, those decisions are made with budget in mind, but also do take some of the community interests at heart. Knowing what we do about school funding and about some of the changes that the legislature has made over the last year in allocating those funds, I think that it is very important that we have allies to public school in our legislature to ensure that we do get that funding. When it comes down to it, public school is a form of child care, and it enables and empowers parents to be able to get to the workforce and do what they need to do to stay afloat and survive and flourish. So because the legislature is responsible for allocating funds towards public schooling, I think that they should also take a good role in helping communities determine, 'why do you feel the need to make such a significant shift from what a lot of people are used to, and is there something that needs to be addressed that would allow us to continue to have those five-day school weeks so that we have that social interaction with kids?' They get the opportunity for the best education possible and so parents have that time to work."
In 2023, Missouri withdrew from an organization that allowed local election authorities to update voter rolls using multi-state data that improved and ensured the accuracy of the voter rolls. Would you be in favor of Missouri rejoining that organization, or a similar organization, as a part of the ongoing effort to improve election security and voter roll accuracy? Why or why not?
"I believe it is important for us to recognize where voters are being disenfranchised from participating, and if there are steps that need to be taken to resolve that, I believe the legislature should be at the forefront. And if that means that we need to join or rejoin organizations that are interested in making sure we're using the data to the best, in the best avenues, to make things easiest for voters, great. If it's an organization that is intent on finding out what can be done to disconnect voters from their eligibility one way or another, that's not something that I would support. So I would have to look into that organization specifically. But I do believe that we need to make significant efforts to improve the ease of access to voter registration, improve the ease of access to learning about legislators and the policies and use the resources that we have already in the state of Missouri to alleviate some of the hurdles that people encounter when they're going to try to vote. As a small example, I had an idea. Why don't we, you know, when people come up and they tell their names to the election officials, why isn't there some type of connection to where the image that the Department of Motor Vehicles has for driver's license? Why don't we have a way for election officials to see that and be able to verify identity? I think it's a matter of using what we have available and streamlining cross-referencing that data as a duty that we owe to voters to improve their ability to vote."
Amendment 3 will appear on the November ballot. If passed, it will amend the Missouri Constitution to provide the right for reproductive freedom. Do you support this amendment? Why or why not?
"I'm a very strong advocate for Amendment 3. I definitely believe we should be voting yes to enshrine reproductive freedoms into our constitution here in Missouri. And the main reason I feel that way is because there is no part of any health decision between a physician, a patient, and their families that warrants the invasion of privacy that we're seeing with these abortion bans. Just a short story. You know, I have been trying to have babies. I've had several miscarriages, and there was one opportunity for us to collect the tissue of a miscarriage to determine the cause, whether it was something with my body or something with the embryo. Abortion access allowed me to find out that my pregnancy was not viable with life. There was a trisomy that would have made a very miserable existence, or none at all. So having access is very important for a number of reasons for me personally. But as a society and socially, we recognize in Missouri that it is government overreach to be coming into our private lives like that. The number of signatures shows that Missouri has a very strong opinion on Amendment 3, and I am looking forward to when the ban is overturned and we become the first state to do that."
Proposition A, that will appear on the November ballot, establishes a $13.75 per hour minimum wage by 2025, which would be increased by $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage would be $15 per hour. It also requires employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Do you support Proposition A? Why or why not?
"I do support Proposition A, because, not only do we need to make sure that the wages being earned by workers are competitive for our area, we also need to ensure that people are able to strike a healthy work/life balance. I think it couples with the school issue on the number of days. Like, how much do we have to commit to our families versus how much we need to commit to education or the employment? So many situations could be resolved by having paid sick leave. So many families would not have to worry so heavily on if they're going to be able to continue to pay bills because someone in the family has a chronic pain condition or an illness or there's just some type of mishap. Having Proposition A go into effect is going to create so many opportunities for people, and it's going to elevate the — it's going to relieve a lot of the frustrations, not all of them, but it's just going to be a small thing that we can do to get us more towards where families can flourish. They don't have to worry about losing their employment and losing their income."
What do you believe to be the most pressing issue in your district, and how do you plan to address this issue?
"As I've been knocking doors and talking to people and making calls, the economy is at the forefront. People are wondering what we can do to help save them in their day to day expenses. And of course, they worry about making sure that their tax dollars are being used appropriately. A lot of what the legislature can do is linked to taxes. That's the immediate thing that I can see if we're able, as a state, to follow suit with some other states and eliminate taxes on groceries, luxury taxes on products like that. We can really help to address that major issue that people are bringing forth as far as the economy. Daily living costs, reducing what they're having to pay and even building up more savings. So I find that being able to make sure we are hearing the people and addressing their needs is important. Now, we do see instances in which there are commitments to cut taxes, and it sounds nice, but when we examine the legislature being proposed, it is income tax elimination for corporations. So I think it's important to be clear that more can be done in the state legislature, motivated to make things better for individuals instead of, you know, well paid organizations."
Well, Ashley, that concludes our interview. Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us today.
"Thank you for having me again."
Bill Owen
Our next candidate is Bill Owen. Thank you very much for joining us today.
"Thank you for the invitation."
Would you please introduce yourself, and tell us why you decided to run for this position?
"My name is Bill Owen. I'm the Republican candidate and the incumbent in the 131st District. I was born in Springfield, raised in Springfield. I actually first served in the legislature back in the 1980s. And as I got towards the end of my banking career, I started thinking that I needed something else to do. I wasn't — 40 years was enough in that industry, but I just had too much energy just to go cold turkey with retirement and therefore I decided to run again. And that's that's why I'm serving. Currently I serve on a budget — I chair the Budget Subcommittee for transportation, public safety and some others. I'm on financial services and fiscal review."
Due in part to budget restraints, the percentage of school districts that have enacted four-day school weeks has exploded from 1 in 2010 to 160 today, representing more than 30% of all Missouri public schools. Do you see a role for the General Assembly in addressing this dynamic? Why or why not?
"Well, first of all, some of those are school districts that have followed suit because some others have started doing four-day weeks. And so they didn't lose teachers, they went to four-day weeks. It's not strictly a financial issue. Quite frankly, in the four years now that I've been in the General Assembly, we've greatly increased funding for public education. We weren't fully funding transportation. Now we're fully funding transportation. We just in Senate Bill 727 just made another huge investment to — and plus raise the salary minimums to $40,000 for teachers. So really I would say over the last, particularly during Governor Parson's time there, which was a little longer than mine, but during the four years he and I have both been up there, my observation is, is that the legislature and he have focused on education and infrastructure as the, the main, focuses of his administration plus with the Fast Track and the other programs that that we continue to increase funding on that, that we're trying to get more people into to the blue collar area. So I think really in all aspects of education, whether you're talking a four-year college degree or or going on into the trades or what have you, our funding for education is really at a record high right now."
In 2023, Missouri withdrew from an organization that allowed local election authorities to update voter rolls using multi-state data that improved and ensured the accuracy of the voter rolls. Would you be in favor of Missouri rejoining that organization, or a similar organization as a part of the ongoing effort to improve election security and voter roll accuracy? Why or why not?
"Well, first of all, I'm not even aware of what you're talking about. It really hasn't gotten much discussion that I'm aware of. I'd have to look into it, but this is the first time I've even heard this issue raised."
Amendment 3 will appear on the November ballot. If passed, it will amend the Missouri Constitution to provide the right for reproductive freedom. Do you support this amendment? Why or why not?
"No, I don't support it. I really believe that a life begins at inception and that taking a embryo or fetus, really, it's a child, and terminating it is a crime, actually."
Proposition A, that will appear on the November ballot establishes a $13.75 per hour minimum wage by 2025, which would be increased by $1.25 per hour each year until 2026, when the minimum wage is $15 per hour. It also requires employers to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Do you support Proposition A? Why or why not?
"No, I don't support it. We have to allow employers to make those type of decisions. What you're going to end up doing is like, what's starting to happen now in California, where where a lot of people are losing their jobs because the business cannot justify the labor cost, because it's increased to the point where it just doesn't work. And so we've got to leave that up to the individual companies to make those type of decisions. We have raised it through different processes in recent years, and we can't just keep doing that arbitrarily. We can't do a one-size-fits-all. Maybe some can handle it. A lot of them can't, especially in your fast food and industries like that. They will end up closing these businesses and we'll lose the revenue."
What do you believe is the most pressing issue in your district, and how do you plan to address this issue?
"Well, I mean, it depends on who you're talking to. I've got a broad based constituency. I mean, I've got farmers. I've got small business people. I don't know that I can really just bring it down to one issue. I mean, I could get into all kinds of things. I could get into the issues that our farmers are having right now as far as the problem with Environmental Protection Agency and some of the overregulation, some of them being labeled as CAFOs, concentrated agricultural entities, which they're not, many of them are still family farms. They're sizable, but not that large. You know then you've got the issue of what inflation has, has caused to a lot of my constituents. And, you know, we've, we have reduced the state income tax multiple times since I've come back in, over a full percent. We got to continue to look at at doing more of those type of things. So, I can't really again, just limit it to just one."
