AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Two years after failing to unseat incumbent Representative Roger Williams in a closer-than-expected election, Democrat Julie Oliver is back on the campaign trail running for Congress in House District 25.
Reflecting on the 2018 election, Oliver says, “We did the work. We moved something that was supposed to be a 20 point margin in Roger Williams’ favor and we shaved 12 percentage points off of that, putting it within striking distance.”
However, Oliver says, “there’s still work to be done.”
Oliver, who has gained an endorsement from End Citizens United for her campaign finance reform platform and pledge not to accept any PAC contributions, said that while she has many legislative priorities, it was issues with healthcare that initially got her in the race.
“The major problem that we have now is that 5 million of our fellow Texans are uninsured. That means that they don’t have health care. So when I hear the arguments of, well, we could never afford universal health care, we could never afford single payer… we’re already paying for it and we’re paying far more for it because we do not have single payer in America.”
According to Oliver, who has a background in healthcare finance, “if we really want to mitigate the exorbitant cost of health care and we want to improve our health care outcomes, we really need to move to a single payer system. I am in favor of Medicare for all because it has the lowest administrative cost and it covers the most people.”
In addition to healthcare, Oliver also has plans to address climate change. She believes we have the technology to be carbon neutral by 2030 and 100 percent renewable by 2035, and says it’s time to reallocate “the billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies over to renewable energy,” especially in Texas.
“We’ve been an energy leader for 100 years. We will continue to be an energy leader. But our energy will come from the solar energy, and the wind energy in our district.”
The shift to renewable energy sources will also create a variety of high paying jobs, says Oliver. “You’re talking about jobs of installation, maintenance jobs and also retrofitting. So we can… lead the country, lead the world in renewable energy.”
Oliver is set to run against Democratic-Socialist Heidi Sloan in the March Primary, and when asked what distinguishes her from Sloan, Oliver says,”I think one of the things that is the most impactful in running our campaign is going out and meeting people where they are… and that is something I committed to when I ran last time, I’m fully committed to that again this time.”
If she wins, Oliver will most likely find herself in a re-match with Roger Williams in November.
