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January 2009 |
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House race to choose Pickering’s successor |
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Sunday, 02 November 2008 |
By PAUL SIMS
Starkville Daily News
Those casting ballots in Oktibbeha County Tuesday will help decide who will take the place of retiring U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering in the nation’s House of Representatives.
Democrat Joel Gill of Pickens and Gregg Harper of Pearl, the GOP nominee, are vying for the post in the Third Congressional District.
Pickering announced his decision to retire last year after serving 12 years as the district’s representative in Washington. Gill won the Democratic nod March 11 over Starkville resident Randy Eads. Harper took the Republican nomination after a runoff with former State Sen. Charlie Ross April 1. Ross and Harper made the runoff after garnering the most votes from among a seven-candidate field in the earlier GOP primary.
The Third Congressional District runs diagonally across Mississippi and is bordered by Louisiana to the west and Alabama to the east. Starkville is in the district’s northeast corner and northernmost reach. Most of the district lies to the east of Interstate 55 and northwest of Interstate 59, but a large section on the southwestern end extends to the Mississippi River. The district includes portions of the Jackson metropolitan area, along with Meridian and Natchez.
Pickering currently maintains five offices in the district. These are in Brookhaven, Meridian, Natchez, Rankin County and Starkville.
Gill says that he plans a minimum of five different offices around the district “to make it easy for people to get to.” The plan is to have two main offices – one in Philadelphia and one in Brookhaven, with branch offices in Starkville, Meridian, Raleigh, Rankin County and Natchez. If elected, Gill intends to finalize his plans for the district offices after an orientation session in Washington D.C. for new members the third week in November.
Harper says “We’ll review every location but we would at this point anticipate Starkville, Meridian Brookhaven and district headquarters in Pearl (Rankin County).” Regarding a decision on the offices, Harper said, “As soon as we’ve been elected, we’ll start finalizing those decisions.”
Joel Gill
Gill says he has “a strong desire to serve the people and the opportunity developed when Mr. Pickering said he was not going to run. My background is business experience. Our company is Mississippi Order Buyers and we’re livestock dealers. We’ve been helping the agriculture community of Mississippi for 45 years. I’ve been with them for 38 years.”
On the civic side of it, Gill serves as the Administrative Council chairman for Pickens United Methodist Church, where he is also the choir director. He serves on the board of directors of the Holmes County Cattlemen’s Association, the board of directors of the Holmes County Chamber of Commerce and as a director on the Holmes County Arts Council.
At the state level, Gill serves on the Mississippi Beef Council and he’s president of the Mississippi Livestock Markets Association. At the national level, he serves as the Beef Checkoff chairman with R-CALF USA, an independent national cattlemen’s association.
He has served as an alderman in the Town of Pickens first in 1989-1993 and then from 2005 to the present.
In 2005, Gill was part of the CAFTA fact-finding team with R-CALF traveled to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras to investigate the effects of the CAFTA treaty on the beef industry, the labor front and the general economic trade.
In 2006, he went to Kansas City and participated in a task force designed to promote changes the National Beef Checkoff program as an R-CALF representative. In 2007, he went to Australia to address the Australian Beef Association
Also, Gill chaired the 2003 project to determine the cost of supplying information regarding the origin of beef from the producer to the consumer. The USDA has finally adopted virtually the exact same program the panel recommended called Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL), Gill said.
“As of the first of this month, you can now ask for 100 percent USA beef, pork and lamb and peanuts through your grocer,” Gill said.
“In working in Congress, my business experience would help me evaluate bills from a common-sense standpoint, my political experience would help me know what would pass and what would not pass and my lobbying experience has helped me get to know a number of Congressmen so I won’t be starting from a flat zero.”
Regarding the economy, Gill said: “I’d like to see small businesses stimulated. We can do this by creation of a micro-loan program to help entrepreneurs who might not be able to secure financing through traditional means and have the seed money to put their ideas into practice, especially in east central Mississippi and southwestern Mississippi. Both areas need quite a bit of economic development.”
On energy policy, Gill said: “In the long term, we must develop hydrogen as a primary fuel source along with increased nuclear electrical generation. In the next 10 years, we need to continue oil exploration and oil shale development in the United States, but we must make certain that these new supplies stay in the United States and not simply enter the world market and we further need to expand refinery capacity.
We need to also need to continue the clean coal development.”
On the subject of Iraq, Gill said: “I would like to see the Iraqi oil revenues used to fund the rebuilding of Iraq rather than have the U.S. taxpayer foot the bill. I would like to see the military develop a comprehensive withdrawal plan that would ensure the stability of Iraq and not waste the sacrifices of our brave men and women in the military but I do not favor a rigid timetable. The comprehensive withdrawal plan should be developed by military leaders, not politicians.”
Regarding Mississippi State University, Gill said: “I think Mississippi State is very important as are the other land grant universities. I would like to help students with increasing the dollar amount of Pell Grants because they have not kept pace with tuition. I would like to ensure continued funding of research projects because I’m confident the hydrogen technology I spoke of probably will be developed at the university level.”
In sharing additional thoughts, Gill said: “I hope the people would have the confidence in me to send a conservative Democrat like (the late G.V.) ‘Sonny’ Montgomery to make sure our promises are kept to our veterans, to fix social security and revise free trade agreements that put people out of work in Mississippi and make our immigration problem worse.”
Gregg Harper
Harper says: “This is the only office I’ve ever really wanted to run for. It’s a real position of service. You have a chance to actually help people. It’s certainly a critical time in our country. I can’t imagine a more important time to be up there than now.”
He says he believes it’s time “to try to get back to some very conservative principles and do something to try to reduce the size and cost of government.”
Having been self-employed most of his adult life, Harper says he thinks he understands “very well what small businesses go through. I have to make a payroll every two weeks and run a small law office. Those things help you understand what folks are going through.”
Harper has been in the political arena and “as a highly unpaid volunteer for 30 years. The first campaign I worked on was for Judge Charles Pickering, Chip’s father, when he lost to Thad Cochran in the 1978 primary and I’ve been involved in campaigns and grassroots politics ever since.”
In 2000, Harper spent almost two weeks in Florida in the Bush-Gore recount. In 2004, he was a legal volunteer for the Bush campaign in Ohio. In 2006, he was a legal volunteer for Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri. “I’m also city prosecutor for Richland and Brandon and the board attorney for the Mississippi Baptist Children’s Village.”
Harper’s been married for 29 years. “I have two children – one with special needs –and we live in the real world. We believe that we’re prepared to try to help some folks.”
Regarding the economy, Harper said: “Many of the problems in the economy go back to the fact that we have a failed energy policy in this country. The economy seemed fine until about May when we started a lot of pain at the pumps. That rise in gas prices hurt every business in this country, particularly small businesses. Then we followed up with the consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis and it has the appearance that wheels were coming off. I cannot see why we would be giving taxpayer money to pay for CEO and employee bonuses for companies that have failed. That’s just wrong. I would have voted against the bailout.
The problem we have is we still haven’t solved the energy problem.”
In further explaining his thoughts on energy, Harper said: “We have to drill for oil in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) and off shore, develop clean coal technology, expand safe nuclear power and do whatever we have to do as a country to become energy independent. We cannot continue to send America’s wealth to the Middle East and it starts by drilling now.
It is a lie that it takes 10 years to get it from the ground to the pump.”
On Iraq, Harper said: “The reason you’re not hearing a lot about Iraq in the liberal media is because the surge has worked and we’re having great successes and I guarantee if things were not going good, they’d be talking about it. The goal is for the Iraqi people to continue to learn how to stand on their own two feet and protect their own country and that will happen, but you should never set an arbitrary timetable for our troops to leave.
We have the best military in the world and I fully support what they’re doing. My late father, Doug Harper, was a gunner on a B-17 in World War II. My brother, Steve Harper, served 30 years in the Air Force as a B-52 pilot and I will always be a friend of our brave men and women who serve our country.”
Regarding MSU, Harper said: “Mississippi State is the leading research and development university in America. It’s incredible what State has accomplished. We will continue the great congressional representation they’ve had from Sonny Montgomery and Chip Pickering. I’ve been very impressed with the faculty and administration I’ve met. They’re the only university with a presence in all 82 counties in the state along with the strongest group of alumni anywhere, so I am looking forward to many years of working closely with Mississippi State.
In sharing additional thoughts, Harper said regarding MSU students who won the Challenge X competition two years in a row: “I say put them in charge of our energy policy in America.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 03 November 2008 )
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