Buyer locked in battle with former political staffer
Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Buyer and the Democratic challenger for his 4th District seat, Nels Ackerson, don’t like each other much.
The candidates’ single debate ended in personal pot-shots from both sides, leading Buyer to say he wouldn’t again debate Ackerson.
Ackerson paints Buyer as someone who’s lost touch with his district and frequently misses votes, while Buyer says Ackerson is a Washington insider who’s only moved to the district in which he was raised to run for Congress.
Ackerson said Buyer has spent his career placing partisan politics ahead of what’s best for his constituents.
“He has even told reporters that before looking at legislation, if it’s sponsored by a Democrat, he will vote against it,” Ackerson said. “That’s just wrong, and I will not take that approach.”
Ackerson, whose first job in public life was working for Indiana’s Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, said he’d emphasize a bipartisan approach to key issues like veterans’ care, education and infrastructure.
He charged Buyer with neglecting veterans, saying he took the post as former chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee specifically to slash veterans’ benefits to cut budget costs.
Ackerson said taking care of veterans would be his top priority.
Another of his priorities, he said, is expanding funding for college. He said rising costs of education and the scarcity of good jobs make that a must.
And Ackerson said infrastructure would be another key area of interest. In the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse, he called for a renewed focus on transportation. He also said he’d seek to expand broadband access to public and private schools across the country.
Ackerson said he’d seek to restore civil liberties lost under the Bush administration.
“It’s the power of our example that persuades the world, not the example of our power,” he said. “The greatest national security force we have is a people committed to freedom, to the rule of law and to the dignity of every human being.”
The prolific lawyer worked for the U.S. Senate as the chief counsel for the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. During his tenure, that committee passed the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which expanded the right to vote to those who are 18 years old, rather than the previous limit of 21.
Buyer, the Republican who’s been in office 14 years, was not available for comment.
But the representative has made energy independence a key focus of his re-election campaign.
Buyer has called for an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy – including allowing drilling in the Article National Wildlife Refuge, expanding access to drilling on the offshore Outer Continental Shelf and more support for coal-gasification plants.
The former House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman counts among his accomplishments a bill that required the U.S. Veterans’ Administration to open more centers for research, clinics and education centers. That legislation led to what’s known as the V.A.’s Polytrama System of Care, which is recognized as a worldwide leader in treating multi-trauma injuries.
Buyer said he would vote to make permanent the Bush tax cuts.
A former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Buyer, who studied law at Valparaiso University, served as a military lawyer during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq before running for the U.S. House.
