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Meet Paul Sadler and Sean Hubbard, Democrats for Senate

Paul Sadler/Sean Hubbard Campaigns

In the race for U.S. Senate, almost all of the attention has been on the Republicans.  Four Democrats are also vying for their party’s nomination. 

In a recent televised forum, the two Democrats with the most active campaigns shared their views.

Paul Sadler of Henderson, 56, was in the Texas House of Representatives for 12 years.  He recently served as Executive Director of The Wind Coalition.  He says he has a record of bipartisan leadership.

Sadler: I have a record of leadership, a record of accomplishment in a bi-partisan manner. I’ve passed some of the largest bills substantive-wise in our state. From the entire education code to three teacher pay raises to the largest property tax cut in the history of our state at the time and at the same time increased funding for schools. I did that at a time when we had a Republican Senate and a Democratic House that was almost equally divided. I’ve worked with Democratic governors and Republican governors and Lieutenant governors and so I think people are looking for problem solvers.  In the Bush administration, we doubled our national debt and we did it because we passed the Bust tax cuts which was the single largest contributor to our national debt. If you want to be honest with the people of Texas, and I intend to be, you cannot cut your way out of that national debt, you can’t grow the economy out of the national debt, it’s going to take those two things plus one, and it’s going to take additional revenue. And anyone that tells you otherwise is not being truthful to you. Yet we know that if we simply let the Bush taxes expire, we can reduce that national debt in half over the next five to nine years.

The other Democrat actively campaigning for the US Senate is 31-year old Sean Hubbard.  He graduated from the University of Texas just 10 years ago and has worked in several political campaigns.

Hubbard:I’m 31 years old, I’m older than Joe Biden was when he was sworn in as a Senator he was actually 29 when he got elected, not old enough to be sworn in. you know, by the time the election comes around, I will be the exact average age of a Texan which is just over 32 years old.

Our representatives in Washington, in particular in the Senate don’t understand how their legislation and the cuts they make affect the lives of an average person. I think it’s time we get out the career politicians, get out the super wealthy and put some people in there that know how that’s going to affect the average American, average Texan, and I am the only candidate in this race that’s not so far removed from that to understand what that’s like. I’m a big believer in term limits, so I think the amount of time they’ve been there affects their judgment.

Moderator: What should we do about the Bush tax cuts, extend or not?

Hubbard: You know it’s a tricky question right now with our precarious economic recovery. I think we should let them expire for those making more than $250,000 per year. At this point, I wouldn’t favor going any lower than that, going to income brackets below that. If we are going to do that in the future, any tax increase must be tied to economic growth indicators such as GDP or drop in the unemployment rate.

See our Guide to the U.S. Senate Race for information on candidates and video interviews.

 

Courtney Collins has been working as a broadcast journalist since graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 2004. Before coming to KERA in 2011, Courtney worked as a reporter for NPR member station WAMU in Washington D.C. While there she covered daily news and reported for the station’s weekly news magazine, Metro Connection.