(10/5/2006)

Exclusive Interview with U.S. House of Representatives Candidate Bruce Whalen

Republican candidate for South Dakota's lone seat

BY GREG JOHNSON

DAKOTA VOICE

This was intended to be the first of a two-part series featuring issues-oriented interviews with the candidates for South Dakota’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, after several attempts to schedule an interview with Rep. Stephanie Herseth, Herseth’s press secretary Russ Levsen declined the opportunity on her behalf.  The first interview was with Bruce Whalen of Pine Ridge.

Do you support or oppose embryonic stem cell research? I don’t like the idea of harvesting eggs and sperm for research. Once those two pieces of information meet, they start a brand new human being and I’d rather not see that we use those new human beings for anything other than birth. I appreciate that President Bush took the opportunity…through his veto to stop the act of taking another human life.

Do you support or oppose offshore drilling and opening ANWR to oil drilling? I do support offshore drilling; I do support ANWR drilling. I also support the American-Made Energy & Good Jobs Act that the congressmen in Alaska proposed. My opponent voted against that. I think it’s a great opportunity to add a million barrels of oil a day through that Act and also create a million jobs. We need to decrease our dependency on oil from other countries. The other thing we should do is also recognize that we haven’t had a refinery built in the past 30 years. I think that has a lot to do with oil prices and we need to start building refineries. Finally I think that we need to look toward diversity of our energy and make sure that we help further promote individual businesses and the science for biofuels here with ethanol and soybean fuels, also looking toward the switchgrass and see what we can produce from there. If we can diversify into that area of ethanol that would be great. We also have the opportunity to make sure that we have the transmission lines so we can get to the business of wind farming. Also we need to work with the United States auto manufacturers so we that can move in the direction of diversification. Anything that will keep American dollars from going into the banks of the sheiks of Iran and Iraq, then lets do that and lets start creating jobs here and involve our universities and economists in seeing how we can move that forward.

Do you support or oppose South Dakota's abortion ban (HB 1215)? What I like to call it is Referred Law 6 because that’s what we are going to see on the ballot and I don’t want to confuse people about that. I vehemently support the ban of abortion and I’d like to go a step further since Planned Parenthood enjoys receiving 265 million dollars in taxes to support their efforts and they’re a nonprofit group. I’d like to defund Planned Parenthood. This whole situation could be solved if we stop spilling innocent blood. I had a powerful experience when the Justice House of Prayer was at Sioux Falls this past week and they lined up on both sides of the street against Planned Parenthood. I think the sign on Planned Parenthood said something to the effect of “These Doors Will Never Close”, and when I saw that sign I put that red tape on my mouth and sat there and prayed for the closure of Planned Parenthood. Yes I am pro-life and I will vote for Referred Law 6.

Do you believe America has a Christian heritage? That’s a difficult question to answer, from what I understand and from some of the polls in the past, maybe not in the most recent years, but in the past, is that 90% of the American people believe in God, I don’t know how many of those people believe in Jesus Christ as Lord. From what I understand that’s closer to 35%. Most definitely, the Bible tells us to go forth and make disciples and I think that making disciples includes walking into the public square to do so. I don’t appreciate that Christians are being kicked out of the public square, they’re being kicked out of the schools, and they’re being kicked out of everywhere that we turn. It doesn’t surprise me one bit the reason why our crime rates are going up is because people don’t get to offer the diversity that Christianity brings to the table, and most definitely, the decisions I make are based on principles. Those principles were ingrained in me in 1995 when I became born again as a Christian. I’m just eleven years old but I’m moving toward the direction of trying to reflect Christ to the best of my ability and it’s an ongoing process for me and for everybody. The thing that I recognize is that I was a sinner in need of Christ.

Do you believe America is becoming increasingly secularized? Well, I think that there’s a movement to bring the secular entity into our school systems; they’re teaching things that I don’t approve of …basically, if we’re teaching our children how to use a condom rather than how to abstain. You know, the connection to our success is between the heart and the mind and that connection brings (out the) principles where we respect the women in our society, we respect the children, and the men in our society. The way I understand the Bible is that husbands are supposed to love their women (wives); the wives are supposed to honor their husbands and in that perfect relationship we can raise our children to our values so that we don’t have to recruit them to our values after they turn 18.  

Do you support or oppose homosexual “marriage?” I am supportive of the Defense of Marriage Act; I think that a healthy family is better raised through a husband and a wife. We already have the diversity between the two genders right there; I think it’s a good balance. I am not going to bash homosexuality, but the Bible does say that it’s an abomination, but at the same time we need to love the sinner, but approve of not the sin. Before I was saved I met and approved of people who were lesbian and homosexual, but I observed that within their system and their lifestyles, they are not very happy people. They didn’t have the hope and joy of Christ in them. I would rather be reaching out to them rather than taking my faith and hitting them over the head with it. It doesn’t work that way, it’s a personal relationship with Christ. I was saved later on in life, and I remember my former life style – when we hear about Paul’s thorn in his side, I keep reflecting back that I persecuted Christ through my actions prior to my salvation. I still have the memory of my former lifestyle with the smells and the sights that trigger off those memories and that becomes a thorn in my side. It doesn’t diminish my hope in Christ, what it does is bring a result to me where I know I am saved and I know where I’m down to. I know that when I stand before God in the Kingdom of Heaven I will be standing with Him in eternity forever. The only other alternative to this is to be standing away from God forever, and that’s not a very good alternative.

What is the most important difference between you and your opponent, Representative Herseth? I believe there a lot of significant difference. First of all I’m a husband, I have a loving wife, and I’m also a father of three children. Another thing that really touches me and that’s probably a large difference between me and my opponent is that she supports abortion. She’s voted to allow a minor child to be transported across the state line to have an abortion from a stranger, and all of this without parental consent. I believe that this damages the family. It’s a mandated secrecy act against the family as far as I’m concerned to withhold information from the parent about their child. We can’t even prescribe aspirin to our children in the classroom or allow them to wear pierced earrings, but they can go out and have a person rummage around this minor child’s uterus with an instrument of death. I don’t appreciate that. Probably another glaring aspect is I believe that taxpayers should be able to spend their money according to their desires. I’m standing firm with tax reform. I’d like to see certain tax cuts remain in place. My opponent voted against the permanent repeal of inheritance tax or the death tax. This year in the political season she has to look more like she’s a Republican than a Democrat. She’s flip-flopping like Kerry, but I don’t intend to do that. I intend to cast my vote. She has name recognition that she’s carried from her political ancestry and I’ve got the common roots name of a person that’s struggled himself out of the poorest area in the United States, was nominated by the Republican Party as its candidate for U.S. House. The Republican Party was the only party to have sent a Native American, and that was Ben Reifel, and now they are sending another Native American to Washington, D.C. this fall. She’s governed by special interest groups; the money that’s contributed to me has in contributed to me has been contributed by individual people

As a Native American, what do you think can be done to improve the sometimes strained relations between Native Americans and whites in South Dakota? I can’t find one single answer to that question because it’s such a broad issue. Primarily, I believe the solution lies in the creation of opportunities for different peoples of different backgrounds to come together under one roof. Ninety percent of the employment opportunities on the reservation are created by the state government. Ninety percent of the employment opportunities are government or tribal positions with people just worrying about losing their government jobs. Nothing new is gained by the people.

If we can open up economic opportunities on the reservation, we can peel people off of the unemployment rolls. One of the stereotypes that I hear out here is that all the people on the reservations get free checks; they get free services. That’s not entirely true. What’s happened is that the people on the reservations have been heavily, heavily governed by bureaucracy created through congressional acts, through judicial case laws, through the department policies and basically they have learned how to farm the government for services and the fruits of their labor are devastation to the community. We definitely need a reform of our welfare system. I’d like to appeal some of that bureaucracy so that tribes can make decisions. They need to have the opportunity to fail based on their own ideas. One way to learn about government is to fail at it.

[At the reservation schools], the lower level grades are not preparing the students for college. I personally understand the need for affordable health care, prescription drug plans, and the need for quality education. These things are gripping me as I look toward the future. I want to make sure that my children have a good head start in life and a solid foundation. We currently are home schooling our five year old; we’re struggling with our decision to send him to a public school. My wife is an early childhood educator and she is out for the department chair of the Ogallala Lakota College.

I want to make sure that we can take our family values which reflect a lot of South Dakota family values from our ranchers, to our farmers, and our business owners - in and out of the rural areas – to take those to Washington, D.C. and reflect that attitude and fight for that attitude.  

*This article is reprinted from the September print issue of Dakota Voice.