In November's midterm election, Michigan voters will choose a U.S. Senator to represent the state in Congress. This is an open election to fill the seat being vacated by Democratic U.S. Senator Gary Peters.
Here at Michigan Public, we’re bringing you interviews with the candidates. You can find our interview with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed here. We reached out numerous times to Republican Mike Rogers' campaign and haven’t heard back.
Lydia Christensen is the Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senate. She is from Ironwood in the Upper Peninsula.
Christensen spoke with Stateside host April Baer.
April Baer: Will you tell us a little bit about why you decided to run for Senate?
Lydia Christensen: There's a lot of reasons for why I decided to run for Senate, but what I've noticed a lot was that we are violating the tribal obligations that we made to the Native American tribes all across our country in many different ways. And as a Kiowa Sioux native myself, I felt that that was detrimental to the ideals of cooperation between sovereign nations.
But on top of that, I believe that Americans need to have a digital bill of rights that would enumerate our personal identifying information, digital data, as our personal property. This would essentially set the framework to stop the mass surveillance state and ensure that Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights are not violated through loopholes. And ultimately, that is one of the most important reasons that I'm running.
Another very significant reason that I'm running is that I feel very inclined to stand up and to protect our water for future generations. Michigan is one of those states that, many years down the road our clean, accessible, fresh water will be one of the most valuable assets to any state. We serve 40 million Americans through our watersheds, and we have a very important job to ensure that that water does not get polluted, that water does not get poisoned, and that Americans can continue to live no matter what happens, we would still have that fresh, natural resource available to us.
AB: Is there a piece of legislation, if you're elected, that you would propose or that you would support in the Senate, that that you think might bring down costs for Michiganders?
LC: Absolutely. I support making it so that energy alternatives are equally accessible by eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and allowing to raise the electric choice cap and to move towards allowing for nuclear energy to be licensed and built here in the United States.
We have a very important time to move towards a space where we are actually allowing ourselves the ability to stop relying on outdated fossil fuels and move towards a system that is clean and works regeneratively for all people. Up here in the U.P., you know, we are sitting on this land in a place where other countries control portions of our electricity grid, and we need to pull it back and then make it more dependent on American companies. Self-sovereignty, essentially.
AB: Another issue that a lot of people have talked to us about is being a concern for them this election year is the cost of their health care. Certainly among people who are paying for their own health care plans out of pocket, but also some people who have health care through their employers, but are seeing costs going up. What do you think should be Congress's first priority toward making health care more affordable?
LC: My health care plan would be Medicaid for all. It is a public option available to every American that would not be based on mandatory taxation of all Americans. So a very, very important part of that is consent. And consent is something that needs to be much more prominent in our conversations when it comes to how we're governing for Americans. And so I've introduced a medical health care plan that would essentially allow for any American interested in being a part of a universal health care to be able to opt in to that program. And that would mean that no American that doesn't want to be involved in that program ever has to be or will ever be put onto a plan. And so it's, it's a very first Libertarian health care proposal. It's a very complicated process to which we went through and built this plan, but it's very much in line with what I feel as freedom dictates of us to make these kinds of plans.
AB: Lydia, in closing, I have a question about the race overall. The contest between your opponents, Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed, we believe, is a pretty tight race. There may be some people who feel reluctant to vote this year for a third party candidate who might feel that the stakes are high and they might prefer to use their vote on a candidate who has a better chance of winning. What would you say to someone who has concerns about throwing their voting power to someone who's not a particularly close third in this race?
LC: I would say that putting your vote towards a third party in this specific time where we're at now allows us to hold both parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, to a higher standard of what it means to be American. This election is very important, and a lot of people are afraid that they would be wasting their vote. But I'd like to make them know that it is not a wasted vote to vote for the third party candidate when this race has such significant responsibility on the voters of Michigan. We not only are talking about preventing the mass surveillance state, which one of the candidates would promote, we're talking about consent and taxation, which another one of the candidates is not about. So this time, I would say vote third party and show the duopoly that they don't control us.
