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Ninth District U.S. Rep. Todd Young and his election opponent, Democrat Shelli Yoder, offer clear differences to voters considering whom to support Nov. 6, and not just in gender and hair color. This is not an endorsement, in which we would suggest which one we believe would be the best choice; but rather, some reflections from editorial board interviews with each candidate in the last couple of weeks. Specific differences and one point of agreement emerged.
Consider how they framed the top issues they’ve been hearing from constituents.
Young said he’s hearing about the economy and jobs, “and what do you intend to do to add them?” Yoder said she’s hearing about wages more than jobs, and how people who are working — often more than one job — are worried about paying their bills.
Young also stressed health care inflation as a top concern.
Yoder also said the deficit is very much on people’s minds.
Young has voted nearly three dozen times to repeal the Affordable Care Act — “Obamacare,” if you prefer. He said Republicans have not been specific enough with “a replace option,” and he came armed with a list of ideas that he believes would better help the nation lower health care costs and expand accessibility to care.
Among his points were allowing health insurance to be purchased across state lines, reforming medical malpractice insurance, expanding the availability of medical savings accounts to push preventive care and supporting ways to make Medicare and Medicaid sustainable, including the Ryan Plan for Medicare reform that would include a system of premium-support payments — vouchers, if you prefer.
Yoder supports almost all of the health care act, and named several people she has met who have benefited from it. She offered contact information for further verification. Many elements of the plan “stick up for families,” and she strongly supports and believes it should be left virtually intact to see what it does for the American people before dismantling it would ever be considered. She believes it will benefit a vast majority of them in caring for themselves and their families.
She did say she agrees with those, including Young, who would repeal the 2.3 percent tax on medical devices. She said that tax would have too heavy an impact on the medical device industry that is so important to her district. She added her support for the $1 million grant, announced this week, to expand training for medical device manufacturing.
On the deficit, Yoder said she would favor both spending cuts (in entitlement programs and other programs that are no longer vital, she said) and raising revenues through, among other things, eliminating Bush tax cuts on incomes over $250,000 and adding a tax bracket for those making more than $1 million.
As a member of the House Budget Committee, Young has stressed setting spending priorities and making reductions when possible. He favors tax reform as well to do away with “too many narrowly defined deductions.”
There are many more clear differences between the two, and voters should inform themselves before they vote. Reader chats with each of them can be found on HeraldTimesOnline.com, and their campaign websites also have extensive position statements on a full range of issues.
Teachers vs. NFL refs
Yoder pointed out how two labor-related issues over the last few weeks have suggested some misplaced priorities.
In offering her support for teachers, she said she was struck that striking teachers in Chicago were generally blasted and told to get back to work, while in the NFL referee labor issue, league officials were generally seen as the bad guys and were told to get the referees back to work.
While one was a strike and the other a lock-out, the point is worth noting — the sanctity of NFL football was laid at the steps of management, while teachers were on the receiving end of much anger, and their managers were given a pass. ]]>
Democrat Shelli Yoder is running a grassroots campaign for Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District seat against freshman Republican incumbent Todd Young.
The former Miss Indiana is a first-time candidate who won a competitive five-way Democratic primary earlier this year. Since then she has been traveling across the broad souther Indiana district meeting as many constituents as possible. ]]>
LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) — It’s the debate over debates.
Ninth Congressional District incumbent Todd Young (R-IN) has agreed to two debates with Democrat challenger Shelli Yoder, but Yoder wants at least five more, if not her original proposal for 13 debates.
“We should be able to have a very positive town hall discussion in every single county,” Yoder explained, “so the constituents can hear their options.”
By DANIEL SUDDEATH
SOUTHERN INDIANA — Ninth District Congressional candidate Shelli Yoder criticized incumbent Rep. Todd Young this week for his House mailings regarding issues such as Medicare that she regarded as an abuse of policy.
Yoder’s campaign stated that according to House disbursement records from April 1 of 2011 to March 31 of this year, Young sent out 651,072 pieces of mail at a cost of more than $293,000 to taxpayers.
“Todd Young ran for Congress back in 2010 promising voters that he would reduce spending in Washington,” said Yoder, a Democrat from Bloomington. “This kind of political hypocrisy represents what I think Hoosiers know is going on with Congress today, and I want to change that.”
Congressional mailings aren’t illegal, and a committee consisting of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans is assigned to review each mailing and approve it.
But Yoder said Young has used the mailings in a political manner instead of for informational purposes. She suggested Young was attempting to deceive people into believing he supports Medicare, though Yoder said he has voted to do away with the traditional nature of the program.
She said Young is among the top senders of mailings in the House, and that he should pay back the money spent on the literature.
“He can’t legitimately claim to be a fiscal conservative while charging taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars for politically deceptive mail,” Yoder said.
Young Campaign Manager Trevor Foughty didn’t specifically quote the amount spent on mailings, but said “we plan to continue focusing on the issues that matter to Hoosiers, and not political distractions.”
And this week, one of the biggest issues has been health care after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s controversial Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Young, a Republican who voted 30 times in the House to overturn all or portions of the act, said the plan will have a “negative effect on our economy and job creation” in reference to the individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase health insurance.
He said a large majority of Hoosiers oppose the law, and that “Obamacare” fails to control health care costs.
“Moving forward, I will continue to support implementing policies to allow health insurance to be purchased across state lines; to improve our costly medical malpractice system; to make health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts more prevalent; and a number of other proposals that will lower costs and increase access to care without adding to the federal bureaucracy,” Young said.
Yoder said she was pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling, as she added it will close the so called “donut hole” in Medicare prescription drug coverage, keep insurance companies from discriminating against individuals with pre-existing health conditions and allow dependent children to stay on their parents’ plan up to age 26.
“These are all critical parts of the health care reform law that protect hard working families and provide them the security they need,” she said.
Click here to read Shelli’s complete press release on this issue.
Click here and here to read the reports on Todd Young’s spending published in USA Today and Roll Call.
Click here to read this original story as published online in the News and Tribune. ]]>
Ex-Miss Indiana hopes to unseat incumbent in 9th
Brian Francisco | Washington editor
FORT WAYNE – Shelli Yoder felt right at home at her first Democratic Party state convention.
Yoder, the party’s candidate for Congress in southern Indiana’s 9th District, is a graduate of IPFW. While in Fort Wayne, the Bloomington resident drove by a house where she lived while working on her bachelor’s degree in interpersonal and public communications.
“What a great education I got from IPFW,” Yoder said Saturday in an interview at Grand Wayne Center, site of the convention. “I have such fond memories of living here. It’s such a great city.”
During her undergraduate years, the Shipshewana native worked at what was then the Hudson’s department store in Glenbrook Square.
“A lot of people from this area have recognized her,” said Katie Carlson, Yoder’s campaign manager. “They were excited to see her.”
Yoder, 43, is used to turning heads. She was Miss Indiana in 1992 and placed third in that year’s Miss America pageant.
“I wasn’t attracted to the pageantry. I was attracted to the Miss America program because it talks about the importance of being a well-rounded, well-informed citizen,” she said.
She later earned a master’s degree in counseling from Indiana University South Bend and a master’s in divinity from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Yoder has been associate director of professional development at IU’s Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, but she left the job to campaign for Congress.
The mother of three faces first-term Republican Rep. Todd Young of Bloomington in the Nov. 6 general election. While her parents are Republicans, “my dad always talked about voting for the individual,” Yoder said.
She said she is a proponent for improving roads, bridges, railways and broadband communications in the 9th District, and she supports President Obama’s health care law.
Click here to read the original Journal Gazette article and additional coverage of the Indiana Democratic Party State Convention, held in Ft. Wayne, June 15-16.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WHAS11) — A former Miss Indiana emerged from a pack of five democrats in the Ninth Congressional District Primary.
Indiana University Business School Administrator Shelli Yoder will face Republican Todd Young in November.
In a one-on-one interview with WHAS11 Political Editor Joe Arnold in Bloomington, Yoder says she’s running because she believes that government can, should and does make a difference in people’s lives. Click on the video player above for more.
See video at WHAS11.com ->
Democratic primary voters in Southern Indiana’s 9th Congressional District swung their support behind Shelli Yoder, a first-time candidate who works as a professional development director at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Yoder, a 43-year-old mother of three young children, won the five-way race to set up a general election battle against GOP freshman Rep. Todd Young of Bloomington, who defeated incumbent Baron Hill in 2010.
“What this proved is that money isn’t everything,” Yoder said in a phone interview from Monroe County Democratic headquarters in Bloomington.
Yoder, a former Miss Indiana who grew up in a Mennonite family, defeated Robert Winningham, a former aide to longtime U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, who had worked in economic development recently in Texas.
Also in the race were Heltonville farmer Jonathan George, a retired brigadier general and adviser in President Barack Obama’s administration, Corydon’s John Griffin Miller and John Tilford of Bloomington.
Yoder had focused her campaign message on the struggles of working families and her experience managing nonprofit organizations. She criticized Young during the campaign for ignoring working people and voting with fellow Republicans to ensure major corporations and other “haves” remain in control.
“Shelli brought a level of enthusiasm and authenticity that really connected with voters. I think our team did a pretty good job,” Yoder’s husband and campaign adviser Josh Perry, an IU professor, said as the results rolled in.
Winningham, 50, who waged the most organized campaign and raised the most of the five contenders with more than $100,000, praised Yoder for running a clean race.
“I will give her my full support, and I’m proud to back her,” he said.
Yoder will need that support — and lots more, according to most political handicappers who track the House races. Young is sitting on a $1 million campaign war chest in a district where Republicans redrew lines to give their candidates a considerable edge.
With the unpopularity of Obama in Southern Indiana and an expected strong showing by GOP gubernatorial primary winner Mike Pence, Young isn’t predicted to face much of a threat to win a second term.
Yoder said she understands the playing field, but she credited grass-roots support for pushing her over the top Tuesday and projected it would be her ally in November.
“We do see raising money is going to be part of the challenge,” Yoder said, “(but) we’re ready for that.”
Read the original story at Courier-Journal.com -> ]]>
Political newcomer and former Miss Indiana Shelli Yoder beat four opponents, two with political experience in Washington, to become the Democratic challenger to Republican 9th District U.S. Rep. Todd Young in November.
Yoder, a Bloomington resident and associate director of professional development at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, entered the congressional race on the final day, saying she had grown weary of Washington politicians’ inability to collaborate and compromise on issues affecting Americans.
After a victory speech at the Monroe County Democratic Party headquarters Tuesday night, Yoder said she is poised to challenge Young, prepared to find common ground to effect change in Washington. She said the interests of 9th District residents have been neglected.
Yoder said her commitment is authentic, and that voters recognized that. “This was a grassroots campaign of one person speaking out about voices not being heard and needs not being met and families feeling forgotten,” she said. “I am tired of the lack of progress Congress is making. I intend to take a seat at the table and break that gridlock.”
Yoder said it’s time for big change in Washington. “When enough people come together and say, ‘Enough is enough and we are not going to bow to special interest and big money,’ then you can move forward.”
Coming in second in the five-way Democratic primary was Robert Winningham, a former aide to longtime 9th District Rep. Lee Hamilton. When it became clear Yoder was the victor, Winningham called her to offer his congratulations and support. “I am committed to retaking the 9th District for the middle class,” Winningham said in a concession statement.
In Monroe County, Yoder received 62 percent of the vote, Winningham got 8.5 percent, Jonathan George got 11.5 percent, John Griffin Miller got 3.7 percent and Monroe County resident John Tilford received 14.3 percent.
Yoder received 47 percent of the votes overall. Winningham had 20 percent, George had 17 percent, and Tilford and Miller each had 8 percent.
A Republican-heavy Indiana Legislature last year changed the 9th District boundaries, taking away areas along the Ohio River in the far southeastern part of the state where Democrats were more likely to win. Now, the district is more conservative.
Read the original story at HeraldTimesOnline.com (requires subscription) ->
Contact: Alexa Lopez, Communications Director for Shelli Yoder for Congress
Email: [email protected]
(Bloomington, IN) Shelli Yoder, candidate for Congress from the 9th Congressional District, today denounced the lack of services for veterans who are suffering from homelessness, mental, and substance use disorders. “It is a source of shame that we would allow those who served us so nobly to return home to a paucity of services,” she stated.
According to the Veteran’s Administration, there are about 75,000 veterans who are homeless on any given night, with about 5.5% of those having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Veterans must first have shelter before treatment for mental or substance use disorders is effective,” said Yoder. “We cannot abandon those who have served us, just as they return home to resume their lives.”
“Suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression are more commonplace than ever,” Yoder noted. “All those who serve in public office profess to care about our military men and women – but where are the services? We must search, both in our hearts and in our wallets, to find funding for those who have protected us. As your Congresswoman, I pledge to fight for services to ensure that our heroes are given the treatment they deserve,” Yoder concluded.
May is Mental Health Month in the United States; Shelli Yoder holds Master’s Degrees in both Counseling and Divinity and has worked with those afflicted by mental and addictive disorders for many years.
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