This is the eighth in an occasional series of articles based on conversations with the Second Congressional District candidates. Articles on each candidate who agrees to an interview will run before the parties’ preprimary nominating conventions on March 15.
Terry Marquardt is quick to point out that he has more legislative experience than any other candidate in the race to replace Steve Pearce in Congress.
The Republican was a state legislator from
“Southern New Mexico has the opportunity to elect a congressman with 12 years of training and experience,” Marquardt said, adding that he has voted against giving drivers licenses and lottery scholarships to undocumented immigrants and sponsored tax-cut and pro-life legislation.
“It’s not just that I have experience. I’ve done things for the district,” he said.
Marquardt was narrowly defeated in 2006 by current state Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces. That came four years after redistricting shifted most of Marquardt’s conservative,
Marquardt said House District 53 is now 35 percent Republican. Because of that, he said, criticism that’s based on his 2006 loss is unfair. He points out that he won re-election twice after redistricting, in 2002 and 2004, before losing in 2006.
“The real question is, how did I manage to win for two cycles in such a liberal district?” Marquardt said. “My record is a record of very conservative values, very conservative principles, and I never wavered from those even when I was redistricted into only a 35-percent Republican district.”
The other Republicans in the race are rancher and retired banker Aubrey L. Dunn Jr., former Sierra County GOP chair C. Earl Greer, Hobbs Mayor Monty Newman, Las Cruces daycare-center owner Greg Sowards and rancher and restaurant-chain owner Ed Tinsley.
The issues Marquardt is focusing on during his campaign are immigration, government spending and health care.
Immigration
Marquardt said immigration is a national security issue.
“We absolutely have an obligation to control our borders,” he said.
Marquardt supports building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, but said better use of technology and increasing the number of Border Patrol agents is also necessary.
“I think we need to use all the tools available to us,” he said.
Marquardt said he wants to foster a new attitude about the Border Patrol.
“It’s not just illegal immigrants crossing the border. It’s also terrorists – people who would kill Americans on our own soil,” he said. “I think we need to treat the Border Patrol as another branch of our military.”
Marquardt opposes amnesty, saying it would encourage more illegal immigration and send a message that
Government spending
Marquardt said he favors a law that requires the federal government to balance its budget. He notes that, as a state lawmaker, he helped balance the budget in
“I think the federal government is bloated and undisciplined, with open-ended spending,” Marquardt said. “I have a plan. I have a solution, and that would be a balanced-budget act.”
Wasteful government spending, Marquardt said, necessitates high taxes and harms the economy. He said in addition to a balanced budget, his plan to grow the economy includes limiting government spending and lowering taxes. He said that would lead to stable inflation. He also favors reducing taxes on capital gains and dividends to make it easier for people to invest.
Marquardt said he has a proven record as a tax cutter. When state research and development taxes were causing programs to leave Holloman Air Force Base and
Health care
Marquardt, an
“I know health-care from the standpoint of the patient and I know health care from the standpoint of the provider. I assure you we do not want socialized health care in this country,” he said.
Americans may buy Canadian drugs, but Marquardt said Canadians come to the
He also said the
“I don’t think that working Americans want to have a health plan administered by the same people that take care of our returning veterans in our VA hospitals and the horror stories that we’ve heard and the poor care they’re receiving in our government-run hospitals,” he said.
Marquardt favors tax incentives for employers and employees to establish health-saving accounts for day-to-day medical expenses. He said he would couple that with catastrophic insurance to take care of major incidents.
A record of ‘conservative values’
Marquardt said the most important thing about his candidacy is his 12-year record of “conservative values, of family values, of Christian values.”
“People know how Terry Marquardt will vote, because it’s the same way he’s voted for 12 years, representing their conservative values and principles,” he said. “And when I go to Congress, I’ll stay with their values.”
Marquardt said if he’s elected he will place his optometry practice in the care of associate doctors. When asked how much time he would spend in
Marquardt said some “national groups” asked him to run for Congress because he was able to keep his state House seat through two election cycles after redistricting without compromising his conservative values.
“What their research showed is that I didn’t go soft,” Marquardt said. “I stayed firm with conservative values.”
Marquardt said some of the groups will endorse him, but he declined to name them.
The current battle is to secure the votes of 20 percent of delegates at the state GOP preprimary nominating convention on March 15. Many other candidates don’t consider Marquardt a serious competitor in that race, but he said they should. When asked if he’ll have 20 percent by March 15, he said he had that much support by Feb. 26 – the day of the interview for this article.
“The people in
“The other candidates, all they can tell you is how they feel or what they want or what they think should happen,” he said. “I have a proven record of performance, of working hard for the district, hard for the constituents that live in the district and of staying firm on conservative values and issues.”
Prior interviews with Second Congressional District candidates:
• Monty Newman, published Feb. 27, 2008
• Bill McCamley, published Feb. 20, 2008
• Ed Tinsley, published Feb. 18, 2008
• C. Earl Greer, published Feb. 14, 2008
• Al Kissling, published Jan. 28, 2008
• Aubrey L. Dunn Jr., published Jan. 14, 2008
• Harry Teague, published Dec. 20, 2007