“I wanted to run because this winter, particularly late December, was so incredibly warm, it just penetrated through all my personal defenses and normal everyday thinking about life and what’s important,” said Candidate Nancy Wallace, “I really feel, and I think we all feel how truly massive the shift in the climate is with the extreme heat we’ve had this winter.”
Wallace is running as a candidate for the Maryland Green Party in the election for Chris Van Hollen’s open seat in Maryland’s Eighth District this year, and is proposing a number of programs she feels will be beneficial for the district and the country as a whole.
For Wallace, the most important issues of this campaign are stopping climate change and the defense of women worldwide.
“I’m proposing an emergency, national, industrial transformation, similar to what we did in World War II, where we turn the economy around on a dime,” proposes Wallace, “and we can do that right now for climate change, for renewable energy…we can do it, we’ve got the technology. We need to take the military and put it to work, we need a Civilian Conservation Corps.”
Wallace states that this program would need to continue until the United States was 100% sustainable, and has proposed a plan by which the country would transition completely to renewable energy by 2020.
In regards to women’s issues, she similarly sees a grave danger present.
“There’s a holocaust of murder, death and suffering of women and girls across the planet,” says Wallace, “starting with the termination of pregnancies if it’s a female, selective abortions, female infanticide, deprivation of girl’s food supply, deprivation of education, [and] genital mutilation.”
The solution to these problems, she feels, is to restructure foreign aid in a way that promotes peace and the providing of adequate food and education, as opposed to its current emphasis on military-based model.
Furthermore, she feels that further funding should be allotted to the study of male contraception, as to empower males to decide when to become a father and reduce the prevalence of unplanned pregnancies.
Wallace also supports a free community college plan, along with some form of debt forgiveness that would allow students to better afford college. Furthermore, she proudly states that the Green Party is the only party in the United States that refuses any form of PAC, Corporate or Union money.
“Bernie Sanders is basically presenting the Green Party Platform to the American people,” argues Wallace, “and the people love it. So if you like Bernie Sanders, you will love the Green Party.”
On gerrymandering, Wallace feels that the use of objective standards should be required. This would serve to ensure that districts are geographically fair and are not created in a way that benefits one party or the other.
She also is opposed to the competitive politics of the two major parties, and feels that the political system should open itself up to proposals from other parties, many of which have been successful in Europe and Canada.
Wallace will be participating in the Green Party Primary, which voters can participate in by following the instructions listed here.
