Vol. 75/No. 31      September 5, 2011

The TV station interviewed the three candidates on the ballot in the September 13 special election for 9th Congressional District in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. Hoeppner, who works at an electronics factory, is calling on working people to break with the capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, and help build a mass social movement to organize a revolutionary fight for workers power.

The Republican and Democratic candidates are Robert Turner, a retired cable TV executive, and David Weprin, an attorney and member of the New York State Assembly.

Among the questions asked by Vishal Persaud, a Queens Courier reporter who conducted the interviews, was what the candidates would do to create jobs in face of 9.1 percent unemployment.

Weprin called for an “infrastructure bank,” echoing a proposal by President Barack Obama to create a bank to loan money to finance road and railway building and repairs. Weprin said training programs should be set up to “make sure jobs are in the 9th C.D.” Turner called for “creating jobs with private nickels,” not government funds, including giving “corporations long-term tax relief.”

“Government statistics way undercount unemployment,” said Hoeppner. These figures don’t include millions working part-time against their will, he said, or those out of work for so long they’ve stopped looking for now.

Hoeppner called for a massive national jobs program “to build schools, hospitals, rail lines for public transportation, to put us to work on really useful things people need. Working people need solidarity not cutbacks,” he said.

“I joined the Verizon strikers on the picket line. I’ve joined marches for rights of immigrant workers, for legalization now,” Hoeppner added.

Persaud asked the candidates their views on gay marriage now that it’s been legalized in New York. Weprin said while he backed the New York law, “It should be done on a state-by-state basis.” Turner said he backs federal legislation to only recognize marriage between a man and a woman.

Hoeppner replied that he opposes any laws that deny to gays rights that are available to others and that perpetuate bigotry and unequal treatment of any kind.
 
 
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