Who is Jeff Jackson, a Democratic candidate for U.S. House District 14?
Political party: Democrat
Age as of Nov. 8, 2022: 39
Campaign website: JeffJacksonNC.com
Email: info@jeffjacksonnc.com
Occupation: State Senator (Mecklenburg), Major (Army National Guard), Attorney
Education: B.A./M.A. - Emory University; J.D. - UNC Chapel Hill
Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought):
I am currently serving my fourth term in the North Carolina Senate. I was a candidate for U.S. Senate last year until I withdrew and endorsed Cheri Beasley.
Please list your highlights of civic involvement:
I enlisted after September 11th and was deployed to Afghanistan, where I ran missions out of a small desert outpost for a year. I’m now a Major in the Army National Guard and drill monthly at Joint Force Headquarters. This will be my 20 year in the military. In addition, I have served as an assistant district attorney in Gaston County and, for the last eight years, it has been my honor to serve as a state Senator for Mecklenburg.
What is your plan for limiting the effects of inflation?
Although the Federal Reserve has the most powerful lever to pull, Congress could help by passing the Chips Act. Roughly 1/3 of inflation is due to the skyrocketing costs of automobiles, and the biggest cause is a dramatic shortage of microchips. The Chips Act would ramp up domestic production of microchips and close the gap of roughly 8m vehicles that our auto-manufacturers wanted to make last year but couldn’t. Additional focus belongs on supply chain bottlenecks, such as inefficient ports.
What is the federal government’s role in controlling or ending the COVID-19 pandemic?
The federal government played a crucial role in vaccine development and distribution, as well as making sure that families and small businesses had the funds to make ends meet during the worst months. Now its role is to help us fix the things the pandemic damaged. We all know that students lost a lot. Our two boys, ages 13 and seven, were clearly impacted. There are academic losses and there are social losses and we have to focus on helping families make up lost ground.
What is the federal government’s role in combating the effects of climate change?
Overwhelmingly, tackling climate change is about decarbonization. We have to rapidly slow our greenhouse emissions, of which carbon dioxide is the leader but methane is also a major problem. There are five big tasks: 1) Decarbonize our sources of electricity, 2) electrify as much of the economy as possible, 3) aggressively reduce methane emissions, 4) enlist the agricultural sector as allies, and 5) scale-up R&D to speed-up the entire process (includes carbon capture and next-generation nuclear)
What is your plan for reducing violent crime?
As a prosecutor in Gaston, here’s what I saw work well in fighting crime: Having really good officers work cases - which means funding and training have to be sufficient - and having a clear sense of who the repeat offenders are. Here’s what worked against us: Not enough substance-abuse treatment options for low-level offenders, partly due to the state’s failure to expand Medicaid. The pandemic threw a lot of people with addiction into crisis mode and the effect on the crime rate has been clear.
What should happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
For years, it’s been clear that the overwhelming majority of Americans - roughly 70% - do not want Roe v. Wade overturned. If it happens - and it very well could, under our deeply conservative Supreme Court - the backlash will be substantial. I believe that this is a matter best left to a woman and her doctor and I will continue to support policies that protect that freedom and oppose attempts to take that freedom away, as I have for the last eight years in the state Senate.
Do you trust the integrity of the election process and what, if any, changes would you make to ensure election integrity?
As dozens of courts found, there was no evidence of widespread fraud in our last election. However, I strongly believe that the effect of gerrymandering is analogous to electoral fraud - only it’s perpetrated by politicians, not voters. The first bill I ever filed was to end gerrymandering - and it was sent to a committee that hasn’t met for 20 years, as a way of sending a message that the corruption would continue. It’s unethical, deeply adverse to democracy, and I will fight to end it.