Dana Balter, the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives for New York’s 24th District, spoke on campus at Oswego State at a town hall meeting on Oct. 29.

Speaking to a nearly full auditorium, Balter took the opportunity to explain some of her policy positions, hear from the community on some of the issues important to them and discuss her thoughts on her challenger, Republican incumbent Rep. John Katko, as well as President Donald Trump.

The town hall opened with a moment of silence in honor of those killed in the recent Pittsburg synagogue shooting before Balter opened by briefly explaining her positions on campaign finance reform, and Medicare-for-all.

The first question posed to Balter by an audience member regarded the topic of the president. Balter was asked if there were any policies the president supported that she agreed with. Balter said she agreed with his infrastructure plans.

“What I was really hoping to see from him was that, when he got into office, his first choice of issues to work on was going to be infrastructure,” Balter said. “That’s something he talked about in the campaign that I think we could make a lot of progress on together.”

The topic soon moved on to gun violence and how Balter proposed to end the problems of school shootings. Balter replied by saying the issue of gun violence in the United States is much larger than just school shootings.

“Tens of thousands of people a year commit suicide by gun. It’s about the fact that we can’t send our kids out to play in the yard after school because there are bullets flying through the neighborhood,” Balter said.

She referred to the recent string of shootings in Syracuse, where 37 children and teenagers have been shot or stabbed since January. This series of violent attacks recently prompted Gov. Andrew Cuomo to deploy extra state troopers to the city to curb the violence.

Balter was asked about the state of political discourse in the country. An audience member said she was tired of the lies and division in politics today and asked what Balter was going to do to change how political issues are debated.

Balter used the question to bring up the series of attack ads released by Katko in recent months.

“My opponent is running ads against me that are smearing me as a person, that are attacking me personally, and you want to talk about ‘false and misleading?’” Balter said. “Take a page out of the president’s book. The worst of the ads have been fact-checked by our local newspapers and found to be false and misleading, yet he insists on continuing to run them.”

Balter said she believed that style of campaigning was detrimental to the democratic process. She said voters deserve better and are sick and tired of “that kind of nasty campaign.”

Balter also spoke on the topic of sexual assault in colleges, the workplace and people’s personal lives. She pilloried Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for rolling back the requirements on Title IX for higher educational institutions. She spoke on how the conversation cannot just be focused on what happens after an assault, but how to stop sexual assault from happening in the first place.

Balter also answered questions on mass incarceration, drug issues, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or the DREAM Act, and police brutality and the disproportionate levels of police hostility toward African Americans.

On mass incarceration, Balter said she wants to address the levels of arrests being seen in American communities, making sure that jails and prisons become actual agents of reform and help inmates develop real life skills. Balter said she would ensure that those struggling with drug addiction who are often sent into the criminal justice system, receive appropriate care under her healthcare plans.

On the topic of DACA, Balter said she would like to see “a clean DREAM Act bill,” as both parties agree the issue should be resolved and agree on a solution, yet previous bills on the subject have had other political issues inserted into the bill in an attempt to pass issues that the legislature has no consensus on.

Balter proposed the implementation of “true community policing” on the issue of police brutality and racial profiling, where police are members of the community with relationships with the individuals they serve.

“Real community policing is not something you do overnight,” Balter said. “It’s changing the way we look at the job of law enforcement and taking it back to a time when members of the law enforcement community were members of the community at large.”

The race between Balter and Katko will end on Nov. 6, when citizens will vote for candidates for the entire House of Representatives, half of the Senate, various New York state legislative positions and the governorship. Polls in Oswego will open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m.

Photo by Alexander Gault-Plate | The Oswegonian