Source: El Paso Times
Rick Perry, Debra Medina, Kay Baily Hutchison
By Adriana Gómez Licón / El Paso Times
EL PASO – Debra Medina, a GOP gubernatorial candidate running a difficult primary race against two incumbent Republicans, visits El Paso for the first time today to learn the views of business leaders and residents on topics such as property taxes and illegal immigration.
The former Wharton County Republican Party chairwoman will host a town hall meeting at the West Side Regional Command Center, at 4801 Osborne.
Medina said she was eager to interact with locals to do an assessment of the border issues, interstate commerce, military and education problems troubling El Paso.
“Before I start throwing things out, I’m going to … engage with the community involved,” she said.
Born and raised in Beeville, Texas, on a farm between Corpus Christi and San Antonio, Medina is a registered nurse and business owner running a campaign promoting limited intervention by the government.
Her Republican opponents are Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Larry Kilgore of Mansfield, Texas.
Medina said that, if elected, she planned to focus on three areas — elimination of property taxes, comprehensive immigration reform and the protection of Texas sovereignty.
“The legal immigration process is the key to the wealth of a nation,” she said. “We have to promote a legal immigration process.”
Medina has strongly criticized her opponents on issues such as government spending and illegal immigration. She opposed Hutchison’s vote last year for the $700 billion bailout used to rescue the financial industry and has criticized Perry for not pushing harder for immigration overhaul.
As a nurse and owner of Prudentia Inc., a medical consulting company, Medina is critical of Obama’s health-care overhaul, saying the plan would increase costs and lower quality.
“I believe that federal government has no business in health care,” she said. “I believe the role of the state should be really, really limited, perhaps a role in regulation of the quality of service.”
Running against two high-profile Republicans is not an easy task, but Medina said the polls were showing that among Perry, Hutchison or “somebody else,” people were choosing somebody else for the governor’s seat.
“That somebody else is me,” she said.
