John Ahern

I would like to thank John Ahern for meeting with me and and answering our questions.  Ahern is a friendly, cheerful and humorous (that's my opinion) candidate running for State Representative.  He willingly answered each question without dodging any answer.  I recorded the session.

Gary asked:  Would you buck your party to support or oppose an issue if you believed it was in the best interest of your constituents?
Ahern:  I go for the constituents first.  That, at least with the Republicans, is extremely rare.  They wouldn’t come up with a bill that I would definitely oppose and my constituents would be for it.  But yes, if push came to shove I’d put constituents first.

Rob asked:  List the two most important issues that you think you can make a difference on if elected and how would you do that.
Ahern:  I have rang doorbells on 13,000 houses so far.  I always ask the question: do you have any questions or concerns?  I tell them who I am and ask for concerns.  Invariably if they want to talk, in a lot of cases they do, they either roll their eyes or ask if I have half a day.  It’s the economy more than anything else:  the fact that the state and federal government is way over spending.  We are 13 trillion dollars in debt.  I think one of the key things I want to do when I get back to Olympia is give some ideas on how to get rid of this huge deficit that we keep coming up with.  That is basically privatize, privatize and the third thing is privatize.  Privatize as much as possible.

The first thing that will be privatized is going to be liquor.  Initiatives 1100 and 1105 get the government out of the liquor business.  Also need to get the government out of the ferry system just like in Vancouver, BC and Alaska and they are starting to do it in Europe.  A lot of people don’t realize that Europeans countries are starting to go from left to right of center and as a result they are starting to realize that socialism just doesn’t work.

There are a couple of bills I’d like to run this next session. One, would be to get rid of statute of limitations for start up businesses in the State of Washington.  We have the third highest startup rates per capita and the second highest failure rate in the nation.  The problem with the State of Washington is that it is very,  very anti business.  The other thing I can mention too, I’ll stray a bit here, is Initiative 1098, tax .  That’s the one that’s going to tax high earners.  They did a survey of businesses just recently.  The survey asked what they would do if Initiative 1098 passes.  Two percent said they would be leaving the state, 30% said they would not be able to hire new people, they just have to keep what they got.  So we have a lot to do in this state.

The other area I’ve been involved in is criminal justice.  As you probably know, I passed the felony DUI Bill in 2006 first year of implementation the state patrol said we saved 24 lives. The other area of criminal justice I’d like to do is to get rid of the statute of limitations to prosecute adults who rape children under 18.  Right now the threshold is if you are raped by an adult you’ve got to the age of 24 to file a criminal charge.  That seldom ever happens.  The victim usually figures they are at fault and don’t really realize who is at fault until they are in their 30’s.  I had that bill a couple of years ago and I finally got the Prosecutor’s Association to go along with that, they said you have a good bill.  That’s a huge one I want to get passed.

Marci asked:  Who is your biggest campaign contributor?
Ahern:  I would say Duane Altman, he backs me 100%, just recently $1600 and half was from his wife.  And the guy who owns the Swinging Doors, he gave me $800 one time and again $800, that was Bob Materne.  Those are the top so far.  I’m not a rich guy.   As a matter of fact if I want to get everything done, which I will, I’m going to need another $1200.  So if you’d like to contribute…(we both laugh).

Anonymous asked:  What is your solution to the high dropout rate in Spokane High Schools?
Ahern:  The solution is and I have talked this over with a lot of teachers while ringing doorbells, almost universally and it’s lack of parental control.  In other words parents really don’t give a darn.  You have a 33% dropout rate.  I don’t blame the teachers, I don’t blame the administrators.  Although we are top heavy with administrators.  We have over 140 administrators in the Spokane area that are drawing $100,000 or more.  I blame it on the legislature for all the mandates they put on schools.  The number one thing is lack of parental help in the schools.  I went to parochial school up to the 6^th grade, my mother was a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher, my dad was a lawyer.  After dinner, at 7:00 you’re in that room studying, no television.  I did the same thing with our kids, they did their homework and they are highly successful.

The reason we have lack of parental control is that today you have so many broken families.  You have drug addiction.  When I was in High School in the 50’s, I lived in Maryland.  I think the average divorce rate was about 5% and gradually moved higher as you moved to the West Coast, 25 % in California.  Today it’s 50 to 55%, less on the East Coast but on average it’s 50%.  Families are breaking up, it’s devastating for the kids, they think it’s their fault.  One thing I’d like to do is get rid of No-fault Divorce that we have in the State of Washington.  It’s too easy to get a divorce.  If we went back to the system we had before it would require 90 days counseling or 6 months counseling and draw it out a little bit, give couples time to think things over.


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