As part of our 2020 election coverage, WUGA is airing the first of two special editions of Athens News Matters this week. Voters will have the chance to hear from candidates running for the State House. In the District 119 race, former representative and Democratic challenger Jonathan Wallace is taking on incumbent Republican Marcus Weidower. Both discussed issues they’re likely to address. Here’s Rep. Weidower.
“House Bill 1015 that I introduced last year is actually a carbon sequestration bill, a Georgia centric bill, where it would incentivize companies to infuse carbon into their building products so that we sequester that out of the air, and we move closer to a neutral carbon footprint.”
Medicaid was on the agenda for Wallace.
“I advocated in 2017 for an expansion to Medicaid: Can we close the Medicaid gap? It's something that would bring healthcare access to around a half a million Georgians, it's something that would bring around 30,000, 40,000 jobs to Georgia which would be great from an economic standpoint as well. We're already paying for this functionality anyway, this service, we’re paying these tax dollars go up to the Federal Government and they're being shared with other states. These other states expanded Medicaid and we've had time to see what the impact has been on their state numbers.”
We’ll hear from District 117 candidates Rep. Houston Gaines and challenger Mokah Jasmine Johnson tomorrow. Next week it’s the candidates for the District Attorney and sheriff’s races.
