KIFI/KIDK Voter Guide: Miranda Marquit

• Party:
  • Democratic Party
• Website: mirandamarquitforidaho.com
• Facebook: Miranda Marquit
• Twitter: @ForMarquit
• Background:
  • Marquit received her M.A. in Journalism in 2005. Her resume show a decade of experience as a freelane financial blogger and journalist. Marquit also is a freelance writer for magazines, newspapers, online articles, ebook content, and web content. Her career stated as an Underwriting Director for a utah radio station.

Why are you running for Idaho House of Representatives District 33A?

Yeah. So one of the main reasons I'm running is because over the last few years, I have noticed that the people that we are legislators here in district 33 haven't necessarily represented us and our values here in district 33. We talk about a lot here in district 33, about how much we value education. I helped work on that bipartisan effort to get the college of Eastern Idaho to turn that into our community college, I fought on that campaign. I worked on that campaign. However our representatives here go to Boise and vote against higher education budgets. In fact, my opponent voted against three higher education just for basic appropriations. And so, that was disturbing to me. I'm here in district 33. We passed prop two, which is that Medicaid expansion piece by 65%. And both of our representatives at the time here in district 33, not only fought against it, but then once it did pass, went ahead an pushed for. Restrictions, expensive restrictions, with extra bureaucracy.

And so it was just very frustrating to me to feel as if our representatives were not actually representing us and more like fighting against us rather than fighting for us. So it was just very frustrating for me to see that. Another good example is the Idaho patient act. This was a once again, a bipartisan effort. It had a lot of support here in district 33. It was brought forward by Frank Vandersloot of Melaleuca. And it had a lot of bipartisan support and a lot of support here in district 33, but both of our representatives fought against it and voted against it. So it's just very frustrating. It's been very frustrating for me too see that. And so in the end, I thought, well, if we want to see actual values are real Idaho values from district 33 represented in the legislature and somebody needs to challenge the status quo. And, so I decided I was gonna walk the walk and I am challenging the status quo.

What issues specifically do you hope to address if you’re elected?

Very good. Second question. What issues do you hope to address if you're elected?

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest frustrations, a lot of people I've been talking to. So I did some socially socially distance door knocking earlier in the year wearing my mask, staying six feet apart. But I did a little socially distance door knocking and talked to a lot of people. I've also been doing some socially distanced Popups where people can come talk to me, and remain socially distance and talk to me about their concerns and the number one concern that I have heard from the people here in district 33 is their concern about affordable housing and rising property taxes.

So back in 2016, um, yeah, the state legislature passed a law that shifted, that unfairly shifted, the most of the property tax burden onto residential homeowners and people are starting to feel. Feel that a lot. And so I think that, and when we asked for it, we asked for, um, our legislature to do something about this property tax. And we did have a bipartisan effort. Senator Dave Lent here in district 33, partnered up with "Grant We're Going," and they proposed some legislation to help deal with this property tax issue. It never saw the light of day and rather than dealing with this issue that affects so many Idahoans, our representatives instead, spent time and taxpayer money on, on other bills, bad policy bills.

And so I think one of my main issues is bringing that, like, raising awareness and bringing that piece, that property tax issue piece back to the fore. Education is another big priority of mine. Once again, when I talked to people here in district 33, education is a huge issue for them. They are very interested in making sure that we get proper support for our children and for our educators so that we can provide a truly world class education. And so looking at that education funding piece is hugely important for me as well. And then I also would like to dig into what is going on with that online sales tax funds? It's very frustrating to me to know that online sales tax is getting funneled off into another fund that's not benefiting education, it's not benefiting our infrastructure. It's not part of the rainy day fund. That's supposed to shore us up in times of need. It's just this find sitting there. What is the money using, being used for? What is its purpose? Why is it sitting there and why is it not being used to invest in our communities?

So that's another question I want to get to the bottom of. And then, and then of course, we're looking at, I think more than $500 million of a surplus, and definitely going to be wanting to look at that and say, okay, well, what are our most immediate needs of people are talking about once again, property tax relief, education, we've got infrastructure we need to talk about, particularly in this time of COVID-19 one of the things that it has been laid bare is that digital divide amongst our students.

And, and so, yeah, so being able to look at that and say, okay, where are priorities, where should I priorities be? And look at this windfall that we have, and also look at, look at this money. They're squirreling away in this super shady secretive fund. Where should we begin doing this so that we are investing in our state and investing in our people.

Do you have any specifics on how you would manage community growth in the long term?

Final question. Growth is a big issue or a big story in our community, a long time story. How would you manage growth in the long run?

Right. So managing growth is definitely one of those issues that we need to work with with our city governments. And we need to have a good, strong state local partnership when we're talking about growth. Right. So I think that because, because you know, so much what happens with growth is dependent on local, like local city policies. And so we need to make sure that we have that strong line of communication. Now I am a big fan of letting local solutions lead the day for a local issue. So I wouldn't want to step too hard on what's going on here in Idaho falls.

I think so far, our city council and our mayor have done excellently at doing their best to manage growth. We are having a bit of a housing problem and some affordable, housing issues. And so that is probably the thing I have heard most when I talked to two local residents here, most of them are mostly concerned about how growth is impacting housing availability and the availability of affordable housing. And I believe that the mayor is planning on having a summit on that very soon, I would be interested to watch that and see how that shakes out because that's something that we can definitely work together on. We did, the state legislature did a look at some rent protections. The last session which included, you know, Hey, you have to, before you can do a red spike, you need to give some notes.

You know, so, protections for renters for like when they move out and making sure they have that inspection, Our, unfortunately, our local representatives voted against those protections. But, you know, looking at kind of that stuff and saying, okay, what are some ways we can make sure we protect our residents here?

Well, we kind of look at this growth because these are gonna be issues that we face as we move forward. We have to find a way to manage that. But I definitely think that the local state partnership between the governments and making sure it's a true partnership and not, you know, us dictating what, what is good for local communities?

I think that's very important. And I think we ought to take a step back and reconsider that whole local option tax, sales tax thing, because that could also provide. Some help for our community to help manage that growth. When we have so much tourism coming through now and being able to capture some of those out-of-state dollars for the benefit of our local community could also do a lot to help us as we manage that growth.