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 132
I'm Andrew Crocker of Ozarks Technical Community College's Social Sciences Department, one of the nonpartisan organizations that make up the Informed Voter Coalition. And today, we are interviewing candidates for Missouri House District 132. They are Democrat Jeremy Dean and Republican Stephanos Freeman.
Jeremy Dean
Our first candidate is Jeremy Dean. Thank you so much for joining us.
"Yeah, thanks for having me."
Let's begin by having you introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this office.
"Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, thank you for having me. My name is Jeremy Dean. I'm a lifelong Springfieldian. I graduated from Willard High School but actually lived in the city limits of Springfield. That's a little fun part of living on the west side. After that, I attended the University of Central Missouri for a couple of years up in Warrensburg. I studied to be a teacher at first, until I realized that I did not have what it takes to be a teacher in today's times, and then switched to political science because I wanted to be a prosecutor. Shortly after, my mom suffered some medical issues that put some financial burdens and just some extra stuff on the family and so I moved back home. Since then, I've been living a life of advocacy here in Springfield, fighting for marginalized communities, working in healthcare nonprofits. Currently, I serve as a director of operations for a local nonprofit, as well as serving on the board of the Glo Center here. Just trying to make a better community for everyone."
In Missouri, citizens can bring forward important issues through the initiative petition process. What's your view of Missouri's initiative petition process and recently proposed changes?
"So I believe in one person, one vote. I do not support the changes that have been proposed. I believe that the way that it works is completely how we should keep it. Whenever the citizens put in enough work to get something put on their ballot, we should absolutely have the right to have everyone express their viewpoints on that whenever they have the right to go to the ballot box. If that's something that's opposite of what legislators in Jefferson City want, that's too bad. It's what the will of the voter is, and that's how we should keep it. And so I'm going to be pretty staunch on my advocacy for that, to make sure that we continue to have voices for our people here in Missouri."
Amendment 2 will appear on the November ballot, and if passed, it will legalize and regulate sports wagering in Missouri. Do you support this amendment? Why or why not?
"So I would need to read the amendment a little bit more to give a full answer on this. What I will say specifically is that I do support the legalization of sports betting in the state of Missouri. However, I do also believe that municipalities, local government should have the right to regulate them at their discretion for whatever is important to the people that live there. I'm also a pretty staunch advocate for local control, believing that people who are closest to the people there should have the right to make those decisions. So as I learned more about that specific amendment, get through the reading of all of that, I can definitely make a more informed decision. But depending on that criteria specifically, is what's going to lead my vote in that one."
Do you believe Missourians should have a legal right to contraception and/or Plan B? Why or why not?
"Absolutely. I think the more access that we can have to reproductive health care, the better. I previously worked in an OB/GYN clinic as an office coordinator, so I oversaw a lot of day to day operations there. I was there when Roe versus Wade was overturned. So I saw the medical fallout of that. I saw how people were scared of whether they were going to be able to have contraception or IVF or all of these different types of health care that you get with reproductive health care, including abortion, whenever it's medically necessary or for other reasons. So whenever it comes to that. I absolutely support anybody having access to contraception. I think that it should be a right and it should be readily accessible."
Due in part to budget restraints, the percentage of school districts that have been enacting 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?
"I do see a role, and the reason that I specifically see a role is that the schools are overseen by our state. The main thing that I think that we need to do is make sure that we're funding our schools so that they can be sufficient and actually operate the way that they're supposed to. If a local school board has the means that they need to in order to operate a five-day school week, and they still choose to do a four-day school week, then that is that local school board's decision, and they ultimately have to answer to the voters there. But as far as the legislature goes and as far as the state goes, we should absolutely be advocating to fully fund our schools, to give them everything that they need to be supported and absolutely operate on a five-day school week."
What are your budget priorities for the upcoming year? What would you like to see funded for your district?
"Housing. It's one of my number one priorities. We see a massive decline in the housing that we have in Springfield. We have a massive shortage of about 9,000 units was the last figure that we were given. And right now we don't see a lot of infrastructure and stuff like that happening within the 132nd. We need things all the way from no barrier shelters to help get a holistic approach at our unsheltered crisis that we have going on here all the way to middle income housing, low income housing, to high income housing, so we can continue to attract college students and keep them here after they graduate. So the main thing that I want to see is to get a grasp on the the housing crisis that we've got going on here, and that's what I'm going to fight for."
Stephanos Freeman
Our next candidate is Stephanos Freeman (Crocker corrected after accidentally saying Freedom). Thank you very much for joining us. Would you please introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to run for this position?
"Hi, I'm Stephanos Freeman. Oh, by the way, I really appreciate you making my name synonymous with freedom. It's a big plus. Yeah, I'd like to, I appreciate you guys having me here. I actually wish we had more debates, because that way the issues could actually get, like, sprung both ways that way there'd be cross-examination and stuff like that. But, you know, that's okay. We actually have the service of people telling you who they are and what they're about. I'm Stephanos Freeman. I was born in Springfield, Missouri. I've lived in the current residence for 20 years, seen the changes over time in this area and my degree's in Bachelor of Sociology. And I basically decided to run because I seen all the nonsense that was going on and all the talking points and how people were talking at one another instead of talking to one another."
In Missouri, citizens can bring forward important issues through the initiative petition process. What is your view of Missouri's initiative petition process and recently proposed changes?
"Well, I mean, you are talking about the constitution of the state, and if you've ever actually looked at the Constitution of the United States or not the United States, but the Constitution of Missouri, actually looks a little ridiculous in that it's like 200 pages long. So and each and every little word can be manipulated, be manipulated to mean whatever you want it to mean a lot of times, especially if you have a lawyer at stake there. So I think just for brevity's sake and for clarity of what the law of the land should be, it needs to be a more brief document. That being said, I mean, there are times where things are so important they need to be addressed. Unfortunately, between outside interests being an issue and emotional issues being an issue, the things that actually get on there oftentimes aren't things that really are, I would say, the vast majority of people are involved in, and that's where I think the real, if it's going to change our actual fundamental constitution, it really needs to be a higher litmus test rather than 50 plus one."
Amendment 2 will appear on the November ballot. If passed, it will legalize and regulate sports wagering in Missouri. Do you support this amendment? Why or why not?
"Sports betting? I think it's marketed in the wrong way. I don't know if it really needs to be in the constitution, but quite frankly, that's not an issue I particularly care about, and I don't think most of my constituents do either."
Do you believe Missourians should have a legal right to contraception and/or Plan B? Why or why not?
"Well, actually, that's interesting. You said that because I actually did run once before, a couple of years ago, and I got tagged incorrectly as being against abortion or being against, I'm sorry, being against Plan B or being against the contraception. And I actually think that those things are actually pretty well fundamental. If people actually do want abortion to be illegal or not to be used as birth control, because then it has a set where all the things that are typically considered exceptions, like rape, you have up to a week or two, depending on what you think the exact details are. I think it's like seven to 10 days to actually take care of that and make sure that that's not an issue. And so it actually clarifies things a little bit more. Plus, it gives people the right and ability to actually make more decisions about their lives."
Due in part to budget restraints, the percentage of school districts that have enacted four-day school weeks has exploded from 1 in 20 0 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?
"No, that's a really a district — some districts would be make more sense to probably be five days, and other districts would probably make more sense to be four days. I mean, this goes back to something I think everybody needs to think of, and that's how they get kind of manipulated politically and a lot of times how they allow themselves to lose track of their own lives. And that's an acronym called FATE. It represents focus, authority, tribe and emotions. And depending on who we are, we end up being — our focus gets channeled through our emotions and through our affinity to who our tribe is and which authorities we listen to to think something is an important versus which is not important. And a lot of times this is politicians that do it. Sometimes it's big organizations that do it, and sometimes it's big think tanks that we don't even know who they are that come up with this. But ultimately, our dialogues that we have a lot of times are counterproductive to what actually matters to our district. And in my particular district, I don't actually think that would necessarily be beneficial, but I mean, that's up to the people to decide."
What are your budget priorities for the upcoming year? What would you like to see funded for your district?
"Ah, okay. Well, I'm glad you said that. One thing in particular — now, OTC has this skills program that young people can go through the SPS and Missouri State has one through agriculture, the Darr — an organization over there, and one's for agriculture, the other one's for tech skills. The thing is, though, in order for kids to get involved in these programs, which would give them more skills or at least get them to find out what their aptitudes are, they have to win their respective lotteries. And to me, that's ridiculous. That's the kind of thing I think, be it Republican, Democrat, libertarian, whatever, I think anyone would think that's reasonable, that those are the type of things that kids need, and that's actually one of my number one priorities right there is making sure that kids can actually learn something that's useful to themselves and useful to society as a whole, and that is something that's practical and something that's applicable to their everyday lives."
