Burnt Orange Report

40/40: An Interview With Valinda Bolton

By Phillip Martin

Ed. note: Below is an interview I had with Valinda Bolton. Interviews will normally appear on Wednesday, but because of the HD 48 special election, everything for the 40/40 was moved back a day. Later this afternoon, I'll post my interview with Jason Earle, and then tonight I'll take a look at how the two candidates compare on the issues. Stay tuned for more coverage on the HD 47 race.

How have you been active in the community over the years?

My whole career has been spent buildings stronger and safer communities. I’ve spent 20 years working on domestic violence and sexual assault issues. I’ve been very involved with PTA at my kid’s school. I’ve worked to prevent child abuse. I’ve worked as an affordable housing advocate. I’ve worked with groups like the TFN and Habitat for Humanity. I’ve seen and worked on a wide range of issues that affect our families, and I want to bring that level of experience to the Legislature and continue finding solutions to protect our families.

Why are you running for State Representative?

I’m passionate about the issues in this race – education, health care, standing up and taking care of families. One of the things that I’ve been talking about is that we hear so much talk about family values, and it just seems to me that we need to do more than just keep talking about values and start actually valuing families.

What separates you from Jason Earle? Why are you the better choice for Democrats?

I believe experience and electability are the two main factors you need to look at, and that’s what we’re trying to highlight. Democrats have to have swing voters to win this race in November. We have to have those independent and disaffected voters come out to the polls, and a candidate with a targeted name will only polarize those folks and keep them from swinging our way. The absolute key here – the bottom line of everything – is that we need to get a Democrat from this district back in the House. That’s what it’s all about, and I believe I have the best chance to do that.

What do you think needs to be done about school finance and property tax reform?

We have to get money flowing into education, and it seems like we’re not going to be able to implement any kind of improvements for education until we figure out the tax question. I’m hopeful that the tax question will be adequately addressed this spring, but improving education is something we’ll be working on forever. There are certain kinds of education reforms we should look at first, and others I’m not sure we should be examining at all. For example, I’m concerned about one proposal that everyone seems to be talking about – the requirement that 65% of a school’s budget must be spent in the classroom. Well, how do you define what counts as classroom spending? Would you include librarians, nurses, and bus drivers? The librarian at my child’s school is a huge factor in my child’s education. How do you define what counts?

You talked about the importance of raising teacher salaries? Do you think we should look at merit pay as an option for raising teacher salaries, or focus on broad-based salary increases?

The very first thing we need to do is give teachers an across-the-board salary increase. What are you going to base merit pay on? There are so many factors about student performance that have nothing to do with the teacher. What kind of breakfast the student had, what the home life is for the student, how far they have to travel to get to school, what their past grades and past education experience they have. A single teacher can’t be accountable for all of that. If you raised all teacher salaries to a competitive level, and there were programs on top of that that were meritorious based on a teacher’s actual performance – mentoring, a student reading program, things like that – then that might be something worth looking at. But you’ve got to raise all teacher salaries first.

Beyond education, what do you think is a huge issue for HD 47?

Water and development are going to be huge issues for our areas. I’ve spent time in western Travis County, and that area is dealing with a number of development and growth issues. There’s a huge potential for sprawl, and especially with the drought we’re in now, water is an incredibly important issue. If you’re going to put homes out there, they need to be able to have the capacity and resources to support the communities. Along with that is the whole question of traffic and congestion, and how that affects our environment in that part of the county. Education is always going to be the number one concern, but how we plan for successful growth and development in our community is incredibly important as w ell.

I saw on your website that you specifically mention the need for mental health care reforms, which is interesting because that’s not an issue a lot of people focus on while they campaign. Why is that an important issue to you?

I read recently that Travis County has the highest suicide rate in Texas, so there are lots of folks that are struggling. Texas spends less money on mental health care than almost any other state in the country. There are not enough public hospital beds, and private centers are always full. Because of funding cuts, public hospitals have to restrict exactly what kind of services they can provide and how many people can receive them, and I believe it’s a huge burden to some of those families that have to drive 250 miles just to provide mental health care for their loved ones.

During the 79’th Regular Session, there were a few budget amendment votes that would have redirected funds earmarked for the Texas Enterprise Fund to areas of health care such as CHIP or improvement of nursing home facilities. Do you think we should redirect those funds, or keep investing in the Enterprise Fund?

I think our top priority next session is to fully fund CHIP. We have the highest rate of uninsured children in the country. Most of the children who aren’t insured live in Texas, so at the same time we have the fastest growing child population in the country, we have the fewest amount of children who are insured. CHIP is designed to protect kids of working families, who just aren’t able to be covered by any other program. For every dollar the state puts on the table, the federal government will send us $2.81 for CHIP. If you can get a 287% return on your investment, why wouldn’t you? That federal money is going to other states. It’s not sitting in some fund waiting for us – the state of Texas is losing federal money because we won’t put enough CHIP dollars into our state budget. In the absence of a healthy, educated workforce, who are the people that businesses the Enterprise Fund are supposedly attracting going to hire?

I saw that you and Jason Earle were both endorsed by the Central Labor Council. What kind of changes do you think need to be done for workers in the state of Texas?

With teachers and school employees, we definitely need to do everything we can to pull their salaries up to a competitive and reasonable level. Texas is ranked 37th in the country in terms of teacher pay, so one of our first priorities should be to recruit and retain quality teachers, and we need to raise teacher salaries in order to do that. One of the big issues with the Texas State Employees Union issues is the huge push towards outsourcing and privatizing state functions. I’ve worked in rural communities for years, and I worry about the economic impact that privatization and closing offices will have in areas where the most stable sector in a rural economy is government-based jobs.

What first got you interested in politics?

My very first political action was when I was about five years old and I tore up my parent’s Goldwater sign. I’ve been a Democrat for as long as I can remember, and I grew up in a family full of Republicans. Out of college, when Ann Richards was running for Governor, I was active in that campaign as a volunteer.

How do you plan to win the primary? What are you doing to make your campaign stand out among the other candidates?

In the primary, it’s all about getting the message out and getting to know as many people as you can, and letting them get to know you. We’re talking to people about the depth and breadth of my experience, and my involvement in the community and working on issues. And we’re working on all the normal get out the vote measures – block walking, mailers, running a website and sending out e-mails. We’re trying to show everyone how winnable this district is for a Democrat, and why I’m the best Democrat for the job.