Candidate Profile: Aaron Paul Godfrey for For U.S. House 16

The 2020 election is heating up in Ohio and there are plenty of races with candidates eager to serve in elected office. Eyes are primarily focused on the presidential election, but voters will also decide the outcome of state representative and senate seats.

Patch asked candidates to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

Age: 34
Party affiliation: Democratic Party
Family:Brother, Joshua, 35, unemployed due to COVID
Sister, Kristen, 33, works for local school district (outside the 16th)
Mother, Janet, 62, retired/disabled
Occupation:Physicist, 10 years (5 years in current job)
Previous elected experience: Precinct Leader, Westlake 3-D, Cuyahoga County Democratic Party
Family members in government:No
Campaign website: Aaron Paul Godfrey for Congress

The single most pressing issue facing our state is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

The COVID-19 pandemic. If elected, I will put the people first and do what I can to ensure we can all get by these tough times together. This includes supporting further stimulus that would include direct payments, extended unemployment benefits, eviction/foreclosure moratoriums, and a revisited form of the PPP program that specifically bars large corporations from accessing funds intended for small businesses.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I am running for this office to make change. I am doing this because I think our government should work for the people, and that legislators have a responsibility to their constituents. The incumbent, however, shows no such consideration. He instead enables the most corrupt administration of our lifetimes, foresaking his role as a check and a balance on the Executive branch.

He also ignores the needs of the people in this district, instead doing only what he is told to do from party leaders. I am independent of party leaders. I am running to work for the people of this district, not Trump, McConnell, Pelosi, Schumer, or anybody else.

I am trying to bring accountability, respect, transparency, and decency back to this office. I would work tirelessly to expand healthcare and make it more affordable and more accessible, whereas the incumbent has called such efforts a waste of his time. I would work tirelessly to bring good, high-paying jobs to this district that can't be offshored - like those that could grow from an expanding renewable energy industry.

At the end of the day, I am no different than any of Patch's readers. I'm just some nobody from a working-class family in a Cleveland suburb. I know what it takes to get by in this district today, because I've had to do it myself with very little help from anyone else. And after watching how this government has worked in the last couple of years, I've decided that enough is enough, and I would rather be a part of the solution than sit on the sidelines.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I am a physicist - I graduated in 2010 from Miami University with an MSc in the field. Afterwards, I went on to start a doctoral program at the University of Toledo - a program I had to quit early due to my dad's failing health. But how is this relevant? As one of my advisers at Miami used to say, a degree in Physics is a degree in critical thinking. It's a degree in problem solving. In all of those classes, in every job I've held since graduating, there's a common thread: a complicated problem that is difficult to solve, and the tools that might help you solve it. Getting from start to finish is a matter of creativity, critical thinking, and work ethic.

That's what I bring to this job. A career that has trained me to look at every problem from every angle and then find the best solution. I also bring with it the life experience of growing up in a working class family, being a first-generation college graduate just to graduate from college during a recession. I bring with me the empathy and understanding I have for others who, like my family and my dad, couldn't afford life-saving medicine because they had to feed their kids and keep a roof over their head. And the empathy and understanding for people who are down on their luck, and swallow their pride to accept help in the form of unemployment assistance.

Government is not a game. It's not a balance sheet, where people are statistics and the bottom line is minimizing services - it's about people's lives. It's about helping the people who put you in that office and giving them the tools they need to succeed. Whether or not someones voted for you, they deserve that shot at success, and they deserve a Representative who will help provide them that shot. The incumbent does not. I will.

What steps should state government take to bolster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic for local businesses?

Direct payments to the people have helped other nations weather this storm, and helped the people here when the pandemic first forced shutdowns. It will also channel money into our local benefits, as will extended unemployment benefits, and so, those programs should be resumed. We should also bring back to the PPP to ensure local businesses do not have to close during this time, and include safeguards this time so giant corporations that do not need help - like Walmart and Amazon - can't take advantage of it themselves.

How will you address the calls for racial justice and police reform?

It is important for everyone to be at the table when discussing far-reaching reform. When it comes to the calls for police reform, I think we need to look at the root causes of the problem and address those - and there's a lot of them. First, it seems true that police are being asked to answer calls for situations that do not necessarily require law enforcement. We could address this by increasing funding for social services and employing more social workers to work alongside the police, so that when it comes to mental health concerns, the situation can be handled by people who may be better trained to handle it. We can also help address these problems by ensuring that police are hiring officers from the cities and towns they're working in. And investing in the communities where the racial injustice exists is a sure way to alleviate some of the inequities - by ensuring services exist in these areas, and by ensuring that the quality of said services (especially schools!) match those in nearby communities. The absolute bare minimum we can do is to stop selling military gear to our police forces - a practice President Obama stopped and President Trump restarted.

This is a big, big problem though, with deep roots throughout huge parts of our society. I don't pretend to have all the answers or know the correct answers on all of these problems. But I will engage the community and leaders within the community to make sure that they are heard and have a seat at the table. Systemic racism is just that: systemic. It's built-in. People like me, despite my own issues growing up, will never understand the impact it all has. But acknowledging that, and listening to those who have experienced the racism within our society, is the first step towards fixing the problem.

List other issues that define your campaign platform:

-Corruption: Gerrymandering isn’t where it starts or stops. We need to address dark money in politics, overturn Citizens United, end the revolving door with K Street/lobbyists, and of course, undo gerrymandering from the Federal level. In 2018, Ohio voters passed a measure that will help protect us from this deceitful practice, but it is still rampant across the country. We need legislators willing to stand up to corporate interests, dark money, and put an end to gerrymandering once and for all.

-Healthcare: in July alone, over 5 million Americans lost their healthcare as the pandemic worsened around us. This system is broken. We need to recognize healthcare as a human right, not as a privilege. In Congress, I will fight for Medicare-for-All, but I will never pass up the opportunity to expand coverage and access should we fall short of that goal.