Absentee and mail-in voting for the November 3 general election are underway in Missouri. At the top of the ticket under the choices for U.S. presidential ticket is the contest for Missouri governor between unelected Republican incumbent Gov. Mike Parson and Nicole Galloway, currently the elected Democratic state auditor.
Last week, The American endorsed Galloway, arguing, “Unlike previous gubernatorial campaigns we have witnessed in Missouri, Galloway not only says that ‘Black lives matter,’ but has committed to a policy agenda that affirms it.”
Last week, in this space, Galloway spoke with news reporter Dana Rieck about her ideas for police reform. This week, the conversation continues with Galloway’s thoughts on public education, COVID-19, women’s issues, the 100,000 kids the Parson administration kicked off of their health insurance and Medicaid expansion, which Parson opposes and Galloway endorses.
St. Louis American: What would you do as governor to strengthen public education and access to quality public education?
Nicole Galloway: First of all, I think we can’t talk about this without talking about COVID a little bit.
Because public education has been hit hard by persistent budget challenges but particularly in COVID because of the economic impacts of COVID have hurt our state and local budgets. And so, in order to undo the cuts Gov. Parson has made to public education, we have to get COVID under control so we can get our economy back going again.
But then, let’s also recognize that prior to this crisis there have been persistent budget challenges in our public education budgets and it always seems to be on the chopping block when revenue is strained. And so, when the Legislature and the governor give away millions and millions of dollars in loopholes, to special interests, then it hurts our ability to invest in education. And taxpayers are not getting any value out of the money they put into those loopholes, right? Or to those giveaways, it’s not making our public education system any better. And so, I would close those loopholes so we can properly fund K through 12 education.
I’m also interested in, as part of this agenda, providing resources for early childhood education. I have three kids, and I know that their education does not start in kindergarten, right? It starts much earlier than that, and a child’s path to success starts much sooner than our traditional kindergarten start, and it really starts even before preschool. And so, it’s not just about providing resources for pre-K, but as a broader sense of early childhood education.
St. Louis American: As Missouri’s governor, what would you do differently regarding the COVID-19 crisis?
Nicole Galloway: Missouri needs a total reset on our COVID strategy because Gov. Parson’s plan is trending us in the wrong direction. He talks a lot about the four pillars of his plan, but these pillars are collapsing in on themselves. You know, our schools are not open fully for in-person learning, first-time jobless claims were up again last week, hospitalizations are surging everywhere. We cannot continue down this path and recover economically.
And so, my plan is based on data, on mitigation, on science, on containment, on testing, on having a statewide mask order. A statewide mask rule is important because it’s a science-backed data-proven way to contain the spread of the virus. We know the virus does not respect county lines, and I believe in taking these approaches to protect the public health.
We also need to get our CARES Act money unstuck. There are hundreds of millions of dollars that are sitting at the state level not being deployed effectively for testing, for PPE, for contact tracing, to help small businesses get through this.
We have some of the most restrictive unemployment benefits in the country here in Missouri. We cannot let people fall through the cracks in this crisis, because it’s going to be so hard to pull them back up. And so, people are hurting, they need help right now.
And Gov. Parson has just declared mission accomplished over COVID in May. It is not over. And we need a real plan with real engagement from our governor to get this virus under control.
St. Louis American: What issues affecting Missouri women do you think Gov. Parson is ignoring or mishandling?
Nicole Galloway: It’s hard enough to be a parent; I think any parent can relate to that. You know, it’s hard to be a parent, but in Missouri it’s so much harder than it needs to be. And when it comes to parenting, often the burden is on mothers, is on women.
And right now we’re seeing that women are leaving the workforce at a higher rate than men, and that’s because schools remained closed to in-person learning. And that’s because the governor has failed to get COVID under control and has not developed a plan to get all of our schools opened safely under COVID. So, I think that’s number one.
Additionally, the chronic lack of access to health care was a problem even before this public health crisis, but even more so now. And Parson opposes Medicaid expansion, which Medicaid expansion provides working people access to health care. And so, his opposition to Medicaid expansion for years and years hurts working people, specifically working women, who fall into the coverage gap, even though they’re sometimes working one job, two jobs, three jobs for their families. They just don’t have access to health care through their employer. And so, he has no plan and vision to help working people, particularly women, have access to health care.
And we have seen health outcomes for Black Missourians that are far worse than those for white Missourians, especially pregnant women. As our maternal mortality rate for Black moms is significantly higher in Missouri, even then in some lesser-developed countries. And so, these issues of health care, while it’s imperative during COVID, but these cracks in our systems have existed for a long time, and he doesn’t have a plan to address it.
And I think the final thing here is something that really matters to me. Before this pandemic, Gov. Parson kicked 100,000 kids off of their health insurance, and many of them are low-income and living in single-parent households. I met some of these kids. I have met their mothers. They didn’t do anything wrong. And when they showed up at routine doctor’s appointments, they were turned away because Parson had kicked them off their health care.
And for these mothers, they told me they feel like somehow they failed their kids, that they did something wrong. And these again are moms. They’re working one job, two jobs — they’re doing everything right, everything that they were supposed to do, and yet somehow they show up at a doctor’s appointment and they’re turned away. And the truth is, these mothers didn’t do anything wrong — they didn’t fail their kids — Gov. Parson failed them.
I have a plan to lower the cost of health care to implement Medicaid expansion, to create good jobs with the implementation of Medicaid expansion, because it brings billions of dollars into our state in health care investment – but also to stop the purges of these children from their health insurance at the state level.
St. Louis American: Any final thoughts?
Nicole Galloway: What I see from Gov. Parson, is in his mind, if we went back to January of 2020, that would be a successful end game. I don’t think that’s good enough. We know that the status quo in January 2020 wasn’t good enough, right? And we can’t just go back to where we were before this crisis and say that’s good enough. And as state auditor, I’ve never settled for things just being the way that they are. I’ve always fought for things to be better for folks in this state, and as governor I’m not going to settle, either.
– Reported by Dana Rieck