This election, focus on issues, not ads

The stakes in this election are too important to accept at face value the slick and often alarmist advertising that candidates put forward as Election Day nears. Before you go to the polls, do some research and find out where they actually stand on issues that are important to you.

Many candidates’ websites contain detailed information on their positions. Attending a candidates forum can give you the opportunity to address candidates directly and get your questions answered — or evaded — by the source.

As we continue our coverage of both federal and state legislative races, here are some important questions we’d like to hear straight answers to — and you should, too.

On the state level, politicians love to say how they’re going to “fix Albany.” And Albany, without a doubt, needs fixing. But it’s easy for a candidate to offer that vague pledge without giving specifics.

Where does the candidate stand on forming a nonpartisan commission to redraw legislative and congressional district lines based on the results of the 2010 Census?

In the past, the State Assembly and Senate have been in charge of redistricting, gerrymandering district lines to protect incumbents. Nonpartisan redistricting could make elections more competitive.

What is the candidate’s stance on member items, the practice of giving individual legislators a pot of money to dole out to projects in their districts? Right now, the size of that pot depends on whether the legislator’s party is in control of his house of the Legislature and how much seniority he has — not on the needs of the district or the worth of any particular project.

The idea is that your assemblyman or senator knows best which projects in the district are worthwhile. In practice, these funds are often used to reward political allies and donors. Do your legislators want to rein in this kind of pork-barrel spending, or are they in favor of being able to give money to their districts?

All politicians pontificate about reducing government spending. It’s an issue on both the state and federal levels. But pledging to reduce spending is a broad, vague promise. What spending, specifically, would they cut? What programs would they take money from or cut altogether?

On the federal level, the economy and jobs are still foremost in people’s minds. Everyone wants to create new jobs and bring the unemployment rate down, but how do they plan to do it?

Are they in favor of repealing the recently passed health care legislation? What are their opinions on immigration reform? How do they feel about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell”?

These are important questions that will be at the forefront of our local and national debates in the coming months, and you, as voters and citizens, deserve real answers.

The Herald will be interviewing all of the candidates in the coming weeks leading up to the election, and we won’t be afraid to ask these and other tough questions. The candidates’ responses will be reflected in the stories we write and in our editorial endorsements.

We also want to know what you would ask the candidates if you were sitting across the table from them. Let us know. E-mail your questions to elections@liherald.com, and we’ll take them all into consideration.

This election season seems to have produced a bumper crop of vague promises and slogans designed to inflame voter anger and discontent with the status quo in Albany and Washington. We’re all for meaningful change. But we urge voters to look behind the rhetoric and make choices based on a candidate’s ability to articulate achievable solutions to the tough problems facing our state and nation.