Corbett Kroehler

Former Candidate for Congress

Florida's 8^th District 

A tireless advocate for the environment and working families, Corbett Kroehler is throwing his hat in the ring for the upcoming 2008 elections. He recently signed the America In Solidarity pledge to support working families and would be a welcomed addition to Congress. Here are Corbett's answers to our questionaire:

Why are you seeking office? Global warming will damage Florida’s coastline in just a few short years and wreck the economy of congressional district 8 shortly thereafter if we don’t elect progressive environmentalists to Congress who will fight relentlessly until true reform occurs. Likewise, Central Florida’s spiraling violent crime wave will rage out of control until we have enough progressives on Capitol Hill to restore the nation’s social safety net.

What qualifies you to represent working families? My parents are retired public school teachers who worked two and three jobs each during their career in order to support my sister and me while continuing to do what they love, teaching others the joy of making music. Indeed, measured in aggregate, my entire extended family consists mostly of working-class folk, preachers, teachers and soldiers. I understand the value of a dollar and how much harder it is today to live on a single income. Additionally, during my time as a leader in the Sierra Club of Central Florida, I learned the importance of making do with the resources at one’s disposal and how not to become demoralized when fighting an uphill campaign. The prize, victory, must remain the focus at all times, just as it is with working families.

I know beyond a doubt that unions are the reason we have a middle class in this country. It is no coincidence, then, that the shrinking of union influence during the last 30 years has seen a concurrent loss of living standards and the size of America’s middle class.

What are the main issues affecting the people you would represent? Violent crime/juvenile delinquency, stagnant wages, homelessness/affordable housing, inadequate public transportation, energy prices and global climate change.

What is your position on the “Right to Work” issue? Every American worker who wishes to join a union should be able to do so. Furthermore, companies currently have far too much power to intimidate people and threaten them with loss of employment if they seek to form a union. Florida’s status as a right-to-work state is one of the reasons we have stagnant wages and roads clogged with traffic.
The Employee Free Choice Act is a potential law which should have been on the books for years.

Do you feel government entities should change zoning laws to accommodate big block retailers like Wal-Mart? No, the opposite should be true. Without a living wage requirement such as the City of Chicago recently enacted to deal with big box issues, stores like Wal-Mart often do more harm than good. They have the potential to be good corporate citizens but seldom fulfill that potential willingly.

Florida’s eighth congressional district has broad problems related to overdevelopment and urban sprawl. Local governments’ willingness to grant zoning waivers to big box chains is one contributing factor in those problems.

How would you use your position to address America's health care crisis? Until we have a single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, the United States will continue to trail much of the industrialized world in such challenging areas as cancer, diabetes, infant mortality and personal bankruptcy due to medical expenses. The fastest way of extending health care to cover all Americans irrespective of economic means contains two key elements:

a)         Provide every citizen with Medicare coverage if needed; and

b)         Allow every citizen to buy into the same medley of coverage offered to members of Congress.

Progressive Democrats of America, a national organization which already has given me its support, summarizes the matter very well, “It is immoral for a country as wealthy as ours to have 45 million people with no health coverage and tens of millions more with inadequate or overly expensive coverage.”

What is your position on living wage ordinances? In 2004, I collected petitions and knocked on doors with ACORN in favor of Florida’s proposed constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage. Happily, it passed. If local governments can decide how high a homeowner’s grass may grow before it must be mowed or how far a family must live from a school before free bus service is provided,
then surely they can establish a basic wage rate so that everyone who works full-time is capable of providing the basic necessities of life. The City of Chicago has proved its leadership on this matter and if elected, I will fight to convince local government bodies in Central Florida to do likewise.

What is your position on trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO? America must be the world’s leader in fair trade, based on the progressive principles of economic justice, human rights, worker rights and environmental sustainability. NAFTA and CAFTA had the potential to be fair but multinational corporations were allowed to exert too much power and the results were business-friendly agreements which drive up profits while driving down wages, employee living conditions and the environmental quality such as potable water. Our largest trade arrangements can be fixed but a great deal of hard work will be involved. If elected to Congress, I will oppose presidential fast-track trading authority and a comprehensive overhaul of our trading posture. If it becomes apparent that NAFTA, CAFTA and our participation in the WTO cannot be reformed, I will advocate for our withdrawal from them, abrogating our ability to dump cheap corn on Mexico and Canada’s and China’s ability to dump cheap, clear-cut lumber on us.

Corbett Kroehler's website