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Each election year, KBIA sits down with local candidates to hear what they have to say on their own terms. Some of these candidates you might see on TV every day. Others might be familiar by name only, if that. But KBIA interviews them all so that you can be informed when you go to the polls in November.

Candidate Conversations: John Martin

Two speech bubbles on a purple background. There is a brown and gold podium in front of the speech bubbles with a spotlight on it. At the top of the image, it says "candidate conversations" in all-caps.
Ellie Lin

Ellie Lin: John Martin is a Republican running against Democrat Adrian Plank for state representative of Missouri's 47th district. In this episode, we'll hear Martin's conversation with KBIA's Reagan Wiles.

Reagan Wiles: So let's just go ahead and get into it. Tell me a bit about your background. Where are you from? What made you interested in this position, so on and so forth.

John Martin: My background is I grew up on a farm in North Boone County. So I'm a Boone County native from Centralia. So that aspect of of, you know, hard work, and then being very involved in organizations like 4H and FFA, got me a lot of you know, experience in leadership. And then that then developed into leadership in church work. And so I'm a former pastor, and so I pastored to help with youth work for a long time. I'm a business owner. And so developing people developing business growing, growing the local economy are all you know, a lot of who I am.

Reagan Wiles: If elected, what are some of the issues you would tackle first?

John Martin: Well, I in my campaign, I really talked about three main things. One is the importance of great education, you know, strong education, we want to hold all of our, you know, our public schools, university, Missouri on to the highest standards, we want to support them, Republicans have done it'd be and have been doing a good job at the state level of funding, but also our trade schools. And so we want to do a good job of teaching our kids the basics in the schools, and then getting them ready for trade, schools, university, Missouri, those type of opportunities. And then a second thing would be community safety. We need to fund the police and not defund them. So we need to stand behind our police. Because if we want college students to feel safe in Columbia, in Boone County, we have to have a you know, a strong, you know, law and order type society. A third thing I would say as far as you talk about priorities is this keep our state a growing business wise, we have our state is known for generally being a lower tax state. So we want to keep our state a tax environment where businesses want to come here to to grow and invest in Missouri, not drive them away with, you know, excessive taxing or excessive regulations. What makes you the best person for this job. This would be your first ever time serving in office.

Reagan Wiles: So why should voters choose you?

John Martin: I think I'm best suited for this job because of my business background. And just being a common sense person, I am someone that would bring to the table, a common sense approach to taxing that we want to make sure our taxing is limited. I think if we grow government so big, then taxing is so high, our basic rights can be taken away. And so I believe in freedom, I believe in the individual.

Reagan Wiles: Is there anything else you would like to highlight that we have not touched on yet?

John Martin: One thing I would say that would that sets me apart as well as that as a as a Republican candidate. The challenges we face right now with the with our Democratic leadership nationally, with President Biden, I disagree with lots of his decisions regarding energy, and how we are now becoming more energy dependent on like enemies and things like that. And so when they cut off our oil drilling, things like that, in our gas prices, and inflation just goes through the roof. Those are things that are hurting our country. And so I would wouldn't be someone in our state that keeps our taxes limited because we're facing so many challenges with high gas prices, with inflation, high food prices, and then also some in the Democratic Party for several years now has been really pushing the theme of, you know, you know, anti police and anti safety, defund the police. And I think no, no, I'm somebody different than that. We need to we need to, you know, fund our police and have safety. And those are those are what I would call the big monkey on the back of a lot of Democrats. They have those challenges with our economy and with safety, that that need to be addressed.

Ellie Lin: That was KBIA's Reagan Wiles and John Martin who's running for state representative of miseries 47th District Stay tuned for more candidate conversations airing on on KBIA leading up to Election Day on November 8.

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