POLITICS

Rep. Doug Collins concentrating on local issues as congressional election approaches

Jim Thompson
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga, faces four challengers in the 9th District Congressional race.

With much of Washington struggling to get anything done in the midst of partisan political gridlock, Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., whose northeast Georgia district includes a northern corner of Athens-Clarke County, says he is concentrating on addressing his constituent's close-to-home issues.

"We've hit things that matter to people locally," said Collins, a Gainesville attorney facing an electoral challenge from four other Republicans in the upcoming May 24 election for the 9th Congressional District seat, which stretches north and east from the Athens area to the Georgia state line.

Collins and his four challengers - former Georgia 10th District congressman Dr. Paul Broun, who moved from Watkinsville to Clarkesville to run in the 9th District race; Cumming retiree Mike Scupin; retired Cleveland educator Roger Fitzpatrick, and Bernie Fontaine of Suches, a retired Army veteran and volunteer firefighter - are set to meet in their first debate Saturday in Gainesville.

Among the local issues that Collins has worked on, he said in a Friday visit to the Athens Banner-Herald, are rural broadband access, helping community pharmacies stay in business, and assisting the so-called "orphan counties" that can't get in-state TV stations through their cable or satellite TV providers.

The decision to concentrate on those sorts of local issues is supported by the differences between his experiences on the campaign trail and in his Washington office, Collins said Friday. While his campaign visits to local Republican Party organizations and other conservative groups across the 9th District often do include considerable talk about major issues such as terrorism, health care and other subjects that dominate the national headlines, Collins said, the calls that come into his Washington office are overwhelmingly focused on the smaller, more specific issues upon which he's been concentrating as gridlock continues to grip the nation's capital.

And it's not just the partisan gridlock in Washington that's hampering the ability of incumbent members of Congress to get things done, Collins added, noting Friday their work is now being done against the backdrop of presidential political campaigns where sound-bite solutions are being peddled as serious solutions to America's problems.

A prime example is the war on terror, where the political wisdom on the campaign trail is to call for bombing the Islamic State organization out of existence, and to institute draconian provisions to keep immigrants out of the United States.

Bombing will be a component of taking the fight against terror to ISIS, but those efforts will have to be strategic, rather than the indiscriminate "carpet bombing" being called for in some quarters of the presidential campaign, Collins said.

Similarly, restricting immigration is a far more nuanced issue, according to Collins, although he does advocate a somewhat more rigorous process than he believes is in place for admitting people to the country. That screening should, Collins believes, include some delving into the social media presence of people wanting to come into the United States, as a means of ferreting out potentially problematic situations. The federal government, Collins said, must do more than "just ask, 'Are you a terrorist?'"

Looking forward into the current election cycle, Collins sees a possibility that the Senate will lose its Republican majority in this year's balloting, but is confident that the House will remain a GOP stronghold. Given that, Collins said Friday he is hoping that, if the presidency goes to a Republican, that administration will engage in a serious effort on tax reform and will also open up a serious debate on health care reform, far beyond the repeated, and ill-fated, Republican votes to dismantle Obamacare.

In other comments Friday, Collins said there is "a federal component" in addressing infrastructure needs across the country, but he suggested that those infrastructure repair and replacement projects could be handled best at the state level, with federal funding supplied without any particular strings attached.

And while he recognizes a general malaise among his 9th District constituents - across the political spectrum, people are "basically saying,'We're tired," Collins said Friday - he's also encouraged by an increase in high-quality manufacturing activity across the district.

"It's not the old, sweaty factories," he said. "We're needing [skilled] workers, who can earn $20 an hour."

The last day to register to vote in the May 24 election in which the 9th District race is included is April 26. Early voting in that day's contests will begin on May 2.