Susan Friedman is running for Congress. She is seeking the Democratic nomination in Congressional District 1 to square off with incumbent Republican Dick Renzi in November. The following biography was provided by the Friedman campaign. I interviewed Susan via email with a questionaire than included 20 key questions. No follow up questions were asked. If you have additional questions or follow up questions, I encourage you to write a comment or email Susan’s campaign:
Susan Elaine Friedman was born in New York, raised on Long Island. She earned a B.A. in government and Russian studies from New York University and studied four languages, economics, science, and international politics. She went on to earn an M.A. in history and economic development from New York University. Continued at NYU, completing courses for Ph.D. in history, specializing in
economic development of Russia, and history of East Asia.
program. I worked in international commodities trading then in marketing research on
commodities. I worked in marketing and public relations for business associations. I founded, edited and published Senior Almanac, a newspaper for
older adults on Long Island. Currently I do marketing for Marty’s Men’s Fashion,
a small clothing retailer.
Assistant U.S. Attorney. I adopted three babies, Gabriel, Benjamin and Zachary, in
Peru.
Yavapai County Democratic Party in 1997. I worked on both executive boards
creating outreach opportunities, managed publicity, published monthly newsletter
(in non-election years), sent out monthly meeting notices, worked on
campaigns. I also managed databases, mailing lists, etc. I still serve as Precinct
Committee Person.
late May, with no name recognition, and after two men had started and dropped
out, I did well under the circumstances. I ran under Clean Elections. Democrats
were 25% of voters and I earned 40% of the votes.
school is especially difficult for them and developing independence will take
longer than for most of their peers. We are fans of the series "24," which
leaves me feeling I must stay on my toes.
politics, and the background of each.
in touch with many people who have interests and experience different from
mine, people who bring to light important issues that Congress should be trying
to solve, like the land dispute between the Navajos and Hopis; problems
accessing veterans’ benefits; and the abysmal lack of control and conservation
of water resources. People in cities care but are remote from environmental
issues. In CD 1’s rural counties, we feel and see the dry brush and the brown pine
trees, and the pronghorn herds growing smaller each year. People here believe we
can solve environmental problems, develop jobs, improve education, play a
positive role in the world without making war and provide health care
and pensions–if only Congress would listen to them and respond to them instead
of to the big lobbyists.
1) Why are you a Democrat?
In addition to Federal Deposit Insurance (1933), securities market regulation (1934), Social Security (1935), the Works Progress/Projects Administration (1935), the National Labor Relations Act (1936), rural electrification (1936), the Economic Opportunity Act (“the War on Poverty”) (1964), the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Voting Rights Act (1965), the Older Americans Act (1965), and the Family and Medical Leave Act (1993), fighting continually fighting for higher minimum wages, stopping the madness of the Holocaust and all of World War II, creating the Marshall Plan, bringing the United Nations into being, creating the Peace Corps and VISTA, and subsidized loans for college students, the Democratic Party has worked tirelessly to make America realize its destiny as the best example in modern times of personal freedom and human rights, and of constitutional government. Unquestioned as the advocate for ordinary people, especially low-income and vulnerable people, it has been, usually, the chief advocate for economic security as well as intelligent military preparedness. Despite failures and flaws, since 1933 the Democratic Party has stood for progress and prosperity, defeating one by one historical constraints on personal liberty and achievement.
I am a Democrat because I believe in the ability of human beings to succeed and thrive when able to access basic necessities and opportunity. I believe generosity of attitude begets generous achievement.
2) Are there Democratic policies or values you want to see changed?
Democrats sometimes carry principle to unreasonable extremes.
3) What committees would you prefer to serve on if (re)elected to Congress, and why?
Appropriations Committee: It’s the most powerful committee for benefiting the district. Our biggest need from Congress is getting funding for our essential needs, especially education, jobs, economic development, infrastructure, environmental protection and alternative energy development.
Armed Services Committee: The Pentagon needs watchdogs and because many Arizona families are also military families who have spouses, daughters and sons on active duty, as well as veterans among them. Over-all decisions about their responsibilities and risks, their training, terms of service, pay scales, benefits, insurance, medical care should be grounded in communication with them and their loved ones as well as with professional military strategists.
I’d like to serve on the Veterans Committee because the current Congress has brutally cut their benefits and over decades has neglected rural Arizona veterans. Veterans in CD 1 need another VA full-service center, help with housing, jobs, schooling and counseling. No one is fully acknowledging these needs.
Budget Committee—isn’t it obvious? The budget is put together depending on the loudest lobbyists and not on the needs and revenues of the nation. Our biggest problem is the overspending and the record debt. It makes the nation weak in terms of providing for the everyday needs of Americans, for maintaining and improving roads, transportation, communication, security, disaster prevention and recovery, education, etc. If we don’t take in hand the uncontrolled spending and start making recipients accountable, our children and grandchildren will be working to pay off this debt instead of providing good lives and education for their own children.
Education and the Workforce Committee: Education and workforce development are urgent needs, to improve education and job opportunities, reasonable and secure benefits and livable wages throughout the nation but especially in Arizona.
House Administration Committee: It oversees hiring and salaries, and Election of the President, Vice President, Members, Senators, Delegates, or the Resident Commissioner; corrupt practices; contested elections; credentials and qualifications; and Federal elections generally. These are potentially very powerful decisions that get almost no public scrutiny but should be brought to light.
International Relations Committee: It oversees Homeland Security. International relations is the most important area of consideration for us after the federal budget. Trade, climate change, energy policy, economic growth, peace and war are all international issues….
Standards of Official Conduct is the ethics committee, and recent history tells us this committee needs members strong and determined enough to advocate for cleaning up the House and keeping it clean.
Intelligence: Clearly this area is critical but is one of the leading failures in recent and past administrations. Interagency communication and cooperation, professional operatives rather than ideologues, clear missions, and strong Congressional oversight will make this nation stronger and safer.
4) Are you in favor of immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and why?
I favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq coupled with commitments from international organizations and governments to work together to bring consensus government and cooperation within Iraq.
We should leave promptly because our presence is not improving American foreign policy, is not improving conditions for Iraqis, and it is, instead, increasing Iranian influence in Iraq.
We owe the civilian populations as much security and rapid restoration of infrastructure as possible because we raised havoc and created new threats to life and limb in Iraq.
The current violence is due more to long-term cultural-political-religious-historical factors than to our presence. Iraq’s problems go deeper than our occupation, and whether we remain or leave, those problems will grow until the three major factions are willing to negotiate and commit to working peacefully together. We gain nothing by sacrificing our young soldiers and civilian workers to IEDs, kidnapping and other terrorist tactics.
Education in math, science, technology, social sciences, humanities, arts and health/physical well-being should replace indoctrination and propaganda. Safe streets and homes, long-term job opportunities, health care, and economic as well as military security will do more to bring peace than any military force, no matter the size.
5) Are you in favor of immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, and why?
Afghanistan also needs self-determination. Basic services, including running water, plumbing, electricity, telephone and Internet communications—no longer a luxury—roads and transportation, schools, health care, safe housing and job development must be developed. This takes international efforts. If we don’t make sure they follow through, the conflict will start up again and become worse and worse, drawing in Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and others who see an opening.
Timing is not the issue. Accountability for providing the base for economic development is the issue.
6) Would you support the unilateral use of force against Iran to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons?
I would not support the unilateral use of force against Iran. Iran’s access to nuclear weapons is a threat to the world and the world should work together to prevent it.
7) How do we deal with North Korea now that they have nuclear weapons and are developing the means to strike United State’s territory?
In addition to covert operations, which I can only assume are going on, we have to work with other nations to contain and disarm North Korea. Force should only be a last resort, especially when we know how economically deprived the Korean nation is.
8) How can we help end the conflict between Israel, the Palestinians, and Israel’s neighbors?
We have to eliminate madrassas, schools that teach ideology and hatred, and replace them with schools that teach math and science, humanities and social sciences, and critical thinking. We have to keep all outside powers from funding suicide bombings, namely Iran.
Hezbollah has to be disarmed and dismantled.
The U.S. can facilitate negotiations without dictating terms, and it can assist in getting agreement from members of the international community to perform concrete actions to promote and maintain peace agreements.
9) How can we afford to provide healthcare coverage to every American?
Firstly, collect taxes from the richest Americans and corporations currently protected from paying them. Secondly, raise the Medicare payroll tax slightly. Actually, no matter how we collect the money, universal health care coverage is cheaper than the hodgepodge of private-employer-government-self- and no insurance currently in effect, which means that medical care costs become catastrophic because they put the whole burden for everyone on the families with money in the bank.
10) How can we fix the coming deficits in the Medicare program?
Raise the salary cap for taxes, develop a universal-coverage plan to replace Medicare, accept the value of regularizing immigrant workers to do productive work as Americans retire but to help pay for that retirement with taxes.
11) How do we fix the coming deficits in the Social Security program?
To prevent the anticipated deficits in the Social Security and Medicare programs we should be regularizing the foreign workers here, identifying them and making them and their employers accountable for wage and labor regulation and paying taxes.
Secondly, we should raise the cap on taxable wages. Large employers, who have to pay matching taxes, obviously object to this. For a company like GE, with thousands of employees, that would be a sizable cost but less than paying higher health care and retirement benefits directly.
Thirdly, over time, we should raise eligibility ages. We should make later retirement voluntary, at least in the beginning, to give young people time to plan and adjust. We know that because of business cycles, changes in technology, and health issues some workers feel they cannot work beyond age 60 or 65, while other people feel strong and vibrant and eager to continue. And others still need to keep working because Social Security benefits aren’t enough to meet their needs.
In the long run, we have to provide better systems of retirement benefits, both pensions and health care. We need to get Americans planning, saving and investing from the beginning of their working lives. We have failed badly in educating Americans about personal money management and this is reflected in the hodgepodge of money management by government. Health care should not be age-related but provided for all. We have to treat health care as a basic necessity, not a privilege, that contributes to the security of the nation.
12) Would you support increasing any taxes to close the budget deficit?
I don’t consider restoring revenues cut by the current Congress to be a tax increase. The tax schedule was working well until Bush–and his wannabes like Renzi– took power. There are always adjustments that can help improve the economy and individuals’ lives, and there are always loopholes that should be closed for the sake of effectiveness and fairness. Whether restoring the Bush cuts and inheritance taxes will be enough depends on how fast Democratic management in Washington positively impacts the economy, and how easily the country can withdraw from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
If we start new military operations related to Lebanon, Syria and/or Iran, we will need to raise taxes steeply. Iraq proves, except to the most pigheaded Bush devotees like Renzi, that paying for troops, materiel, medical care, reconstruction and propaganda takes more than imaginary budget surpluses and borrowing, borrowing, borrowing with no repayment plan. All those conservatives who think taxes are the bane of productivity are wrong.
Because Republicans assert that wealthy individuals and corporations spend money in better ways than Congress and better benefit the country, today we have growing numbers of unemployed and underemployed, stagnant real wages that don’t meet the needs of working families for shelter, food, health care, education, transportation and other basics.
Income for top executives keeps rising in real numbers and in comparison to the majority of employees. The national debt is at least $8 trillion, and some critics, like Peter Galbraith, say it really is double that amount. The most visible evidence of the failure of “trickle-down economics” is the failure to mitigate and recover from Katrina, Rita and Wilma. According to administration spokespersons, every kind of proposed effort “costs too much.”
Another example of the failure of Republican economic doubletalk in Arizona CD 1, which is the size of the state of Illinois, is that we have one and only one full-service Veterans Affairs Center. We don’t provide housing assistance, especially to Native American veterans, and we don’t do enough to help get them employed. Veterans today are three times more likely to be unemployed than non-veterans.
When people have good shelter, food, education, health care and transportation, they can work productively, earn money beyond subsistence levels, pay taxes and contribute to the nation’s welfare. Cutting taxes is cutting revenues. Cutting revenues denies Congress the opportunity to provide infrastructure and economic security that can, and should, lead to prosperity.
13) Can we cut military spending outside of war-related expenditures, and where?
In any big budget there is room for corrections. We know the government overspends on services and materiel. We know that contracts go to lobbyists who make large donations to re-election campaigns, and lobbyists with other kinds of influence, such as Man-Tech International and its connection to Renzi, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Isn’t that convenient! And then there are Halliburton-Cheney-Rumsfeld and the Carlyle Group-H.W. Bush-Frank Carlucci-James Baker with their direct ties to George Bush and Congressional decision makers.
Can we cut military spending? Definitely.
14) How can the federal government help to improve our education system?
Congress has to provide the funding it promised decades ago to general public education and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Congress has at most only 18% of IDEA funding even though it promised to provide 40%, even knowing that disabilities education costs more than general education.
Government funding should not go to test preparation, test giving and test analysis but to teacher training, upgrading of teacher skills, motivating quality candidates to become and continue being teachers. It should go to encouraging education research, and it should support cross-communication of ideas throughout the country.
Funding should promote critical and creative thinking in the classroom, programs to open the experience and minds of students through exchanges and travel, challenges and opportunities to use the improved educational skills in college, graduate school and good jobs.
Congress should encourage involvement by business, nonprofit organizations and government at all levels in providing materials and equipment to schools, and mentoring, teaching, internships and introductory jobs.
Congress should prioritize through advocacy and startup funding the teaching and physical equipment for math, science and technology, as well as foreign language study and cultural exchanges, social sciences and humanities, arts and physical education. This idea goes back to Plato, at least, and has never been proved wrong, but the first place it should be applied is in AZ CD 1.
15) How can America redress our structural trade deficits with the rest of the world?
Congress should recognize that America’s economy is out of sync with our real needs. We are importing lower-wage technology specialists. We are allowing—even encouraging—manufacturing companies to relocate in other countries because labor and rent and environmental constraints are much less than ours and lower the costs of doing business. We are borrowing excessively from other countries. Currently we owe about $3 trillion to other countries, a bigger debt than any other country. Environmental issues, especially global climate change, are a major part of the trade issue. And, while trade deficits are not always bad, ours is very bad because it is based on flawed policies and lack of accountability.
Republican administrations let trade take its own course, but this really means letting other countries determine our trade patterns and problems. One example is the flow of Mexicans into the United States.
Congress must sit up and take control of this juggernaut. It should write a concrete trade policy. It should evaluate the current state of American trade and where we want to go from here. The appropriate policies should follow.
Companies that want to move overseas should justify their plans in terms of benefits to this country. Employers bringing in foreign workers at all skill levels should pay the same rates and benefits they pay Americans and justify their recruitment not in terms of lack of American workers but advantages to American progress. This would lessen the downward trend in wages. In addition, there are, after all, foreign specialists who can contribute significantly to American development. At the same time, Congress should be prioritizing American education efforts to develop needed skills and expertise.
We should not engage in free trade. We have a right and an obligation to negotiate terms that protect and benefit us without hurting the other parties. We should require increasingly better labor and environmental provisions from our trading partners. We should proactively participate in international efforts to improve working conditions and environmental conditions. We should be leading by example and encouraging other nations to step up the pace. If we were doing this well, terrorism as we know it would start to diminish. While there are several elements involved, the main cause and the main reason for the growth of Islamic terrorism is lack of economic opportunity, despite their rhetoric. The main cause of the Oklahoma City bombing was discouragement over personal economic factors. We have long known that people need hope and opportunity, and that desperation from lack of hope and opportunity motivates people to do desperate acts.
To improve the balance of trade and also our physical security, we should be encouraging the development of needed industries within the United States. The intended sale of management contracts for US ports to Dubai called our attention to numerous incursions by foreign management of US infrastructure, especially railroads and energy resources.
The destruction of the port of New Orleans brought to our attention the importance to our economy of not only oil and gas production and refining but also transportation of agricultural products. While in general it’s beneficial to do business with other countries, some critical businesses need to be in American hands for the sake of national and regional security.
16) How can Congress help create a clean, independent, and renewable energy infrastructure?
Congress needs the political will to prioritize energy independence through rational means. Digging up ANWR is not rational. Selling our national soul to Saudi Arabia is not rational.
But, improving conservation of the resources we currently use is rational.
Encouraging or requiring, if necessary, that vehicle manufacturers drastically improve fuel efficiency of vehicles, that builders drastically improve power plant and building fuel efficiency are rational means.
Providing grants and tax incentives for development of clean, affordable, renewable alternative energy systems, and increasing research and educational opportunities in alternative energy development are rational means.
And campaigns of public information on ways to improve conservation and efficiency in energy use work wonders.
17) Do you support the Conyers Resolution to form a select committee to investigate impeachable offenses by President Bush and his Administration?
The public recognizes that Bush-Cheney cronies have broken laws and disregarded Constitutional provisions. It will be our job to demonstrate that Bush and Cheney themselves not only permitted but encouraged these people.
We will be demonstrating how Bush and Cheney themselves committed high crimes and misdemeanors by ordering the invasion of privacy through electronic and financial spying without court approval; committing aggression by attacking a sovereign nation without cause or provocation and without the explicit approval of Congress; attempted to dismantle the Constitutional provision for separation of powers through a doctrine of “unity executive,” otherwise known as “authoritarian”; attempted to evade Constitutional provisions for due process and for open and speedy trial; and broke numerous treaty agreements, including the Geneva Conventions and the Kyoto Protocols.
Bush and Cheney should be held accountable for failure to heed warnings of the 9-11 attack, failure to prepare for Katrina and Rita and Wilma and to manage recovery competently and humanely.
18) How should we combat terrorism in an age of globalization?
Of course we have to show terrorists that we won’t accept their acts of violence or even their accusations of our wrongdoing. And we have to anticipate and prevent their actions with stronger intelligence, technology, inter-agency and intra-agency communication, and streamlining of agency and court procedures, in accord with the Constitution.
We need to eliminate madrassas and establish real schools that prepare young people for productive lives and careers.
Long term, the U.S. has to be less hypocritical and more of a good example. Instead of dictating how many women must be elected to Iraq’s legislature, we should be improving representation in our own Congress through a Clean Elections program. Instead of guarding Iraq’s polls, we should be cleaning up our own voting and tallying procedures. Instead of pouring money down the drain in Iraq through unsupervised contracts with Halliburton and Carlyle subsidiaries, we should be creating infrastructure on our tribal reservations and restoring infrastructure to New Orleans. Instead of draining billions from the U.S. Treasury for oil production and infrastructure in Iraq that keeps getting destroyed by its own people, we should be providing water, electricity, fuel, housing, schools, roads, transportation and job opportunities to our own Native Americans and other rural residents.
Doing right by our own people gives us less opportunity to damage other nations, and puts us in a better position to provide any help that they do want.
19) How can we get control of economic immigration from Mexico?
Congress should have a study made of the effects of immigration from Mexico, determining the number of non-citizens in the U.S. and their contributions. It should determine how many immigrants we can absorb, considering the aging of the U.S. population, the birth rates and needs for additional services.
Congress should modernize immigration laws with recognition of the advantages and disadvantages of globalization, and then commit to enforce those laws.
Congress should work with Mexico to mitigate the conditions that drive Mexicans across the border. Trade treaties should require upgrading working conditions. American businesses in Mexico should do more to upgrade working conditions.
Congress should work with states to enforce employment laws and prosecute those employers who pay off the books and who deny legal rights to foreign workers and otherwise break labor laws.
20) Do you support clean, publicly financed campaigns for federal offices along the lines of Arizona’s Clean Elections?
I absolutely support publicly financed campaigns for federal offices along the lines of Arizona’s Clean Elections and I was the first to say that in this campaign. I voted for the ballot proposition that created Clean Elections; I wrote many letters to editors explaining and supporting Clean Elections; and I ran for Arizona state senator in 2004 under Clean Elections. It is not easy to qualify for public funding, and there should be some modifications to the program, but essentially it is a great innovation.
Public funding increases scrutiny of candidates by the public as well as by the Commission. It makes candidates aware of sources of income as well as expenditures, because both have to be justified.
Public funding involves more citizens in the campaign process, an excellent exercise in democracy.
Soliciting qualifying contributions puts candidates in touch with ordinary voters as opposed to big-money donors and special interests.
Clean Elections provides a way for ordinary citizens to campaign and serve in public office.
Arizona Clean Elections is funded by fines, penalties and surcharges, and not by taxes, except for voluntary allocations by tax payers.
Clean Elections in the long run should diminish the influence of lobbyists in creating and killing specific legislation, and in keeping incumbents in office beyond their useful terms. This is my primary reason for advocating public funding in federal elections.
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