Text and photos by Michael Armstrong of the Homer Independent Press. Read the full story here.

In a visit last Thursday to Homer, Independent candidate for U.S. House Bill Hill said one reason that motivates him to run is “I look at a nation where we daily see attacks on the rule of law, we see naked corruption. We need change. We need big change, and change that requires Alaskans to step up.”

The father of four children and grandfather of seven, he said, “I look around at a state where I think about young people, and I think about the fact that we have a state where their opportunity to work hard, like all of us have done, to build homes, to build families, to have enough money left at the end of the month, to have health care — that is slipping away, and I can’t stand by it.”

That’s part of his motivation to run for Congress, he said.

Hill mentioned a young woman he met in Southeast Alaska with two children whose monthly Affordable Care Act health insurance premiums went from $400 to $3,000.

“She’s going to go without health insurance. Her kids are not going to get preventative. Their only use of the healthcare system will be the emergency room. That’s wrong,” he said.

Hill didn’t spare any criticism of Begich. He noted the impact “of haphazard tariffs and endless wars in the Middle East.” He spoke of rising fuel prices, up to $9 a gallon in Naknek and $15 a gallon in other villages.

“We need people to work on that. We need people to understand what our lives are like, and right now our representative does not understand that,” Hill said of Begich. “He’s voted against health care. He’s voted for war. He’s voted for tariffs, and he’s also voted to get the largest tax cuts in history to billionaires and corporations. That is not what Alaska stands for.”

On other issues, Hill said he supports ending Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed large political contributions. He’s a subsistence hunter, he said, “so Second Amendment rights are really important to me.”

Hill also said he supports a woman’s right to choose. “There are some things I think most Alaskans agree on, which is that government should never interfere between a person and their health care,” he said.

Being an Independent wouldn’t be a disadvantage, Hill said. He said people who’ve worked in Washington, D.C. told him that “you may end up being one of the most powerful people. And if you have a small group of Independents or even a small coalition of people, they could swing every single vote that happens.”

Read the full text of the article here.
Read about Bill here and about his platform here.

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