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Interview with Anthony Woods, Congressional Candidate

Jordan Carr - 9/1/2009

Anthony Woods served two tours of duty in Iraq after graduating from West Point. Upon returning he attended Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Openly gay, he received an honorable discharge under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy. Woods is running as a Democrat in the September 1st special election to fill Ellen Tauscher’s vacated seat in California’s 10th District.

Jordan Carr: What are your religious views?

Anthony Woods: I’ve been a Christian since I was fourteen, and still very, very serious about my faith.

JC: So, since you were fourteen?

AW: Yeah, since I was fourteen. It’s when I became a Christian. My faith has been a real fundamental part of everything about me. And, ironically enough, when I was stationed in Colorado Springs I went to the New Life Church, which is the church that Ted Haggard was the pastor. But, I’m an evangelical Christian.

JC: When you decided to come out, were any friendships tested, or broken?

AW: My peers in the military, my soldiers in the military, everyone is just disappointed I couldn’t continue to serve. Only one person has only had anything negative to say. Everyone else… It’s been amazing to see. You know, I guess I’ve been lucky that I have good friends, but it’s only been, only one person.

JC: Was that someone you were close to?

AW: Yeah, actually I was very close to. I was a groomsman in the guy’s wedding. He took issue with it… so be it. It’s unfortunate. I look at it as if I had been allowed to be honest who I was from the beginning, maybe we wouldn’t have been as close of friends, but at least he wouldn’t have felt at all surprised by anything. So, it’s just perhaps another repercussion of what I think is a failed policy is it damages unit cohesion when you have to lie to other people.

JC: You said in an interview with Harvard Magazine you expect the Supreme Court to play…

AW: The interesting thing about that is I don’t. She and I were talking about… I think we were talking about marriage equality and I thought that one of the final steps… I see it as sort of a state by state strategy right now but at some point you’re going to hit a road block and I think that’s where the Supreme Court’s going to have to become involved in terms of recognizing marriages all across the country. As far as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, obviously, you know, it’s an act of Congress and obviously I think that’s where the traction needs to come to get it pushed, but I think the President certainly can show leadership in this area and push it as a serious part of maintaining national security.

JC: Would being the first black openly gay congressman, or the first Don’t Ask Don’t Tell… victim, I guess… Does that mean anything special to you?

AW: To be honest, no, not really. Not really.

JC: Has President Obama’s success had any influence on your decision to run?

AW: I mean, he’s an inspiring figure to… should be an inspiring figure to all Americans for a lot of reasons, so I’m certainly excited by who he is, what he did. But it certainly was a clear signal that we’ve made a lot of progress in this country and people with very diverse and interesting backgrounds can run and be successful at all levels. I think he helped to demonstrate that. I’m certainly hoping that’s going to be the case in this one as well. The thing that I’ve actually really enjoyed seeing on the campaign trail is that people don’t really care about my orientation or my race. They care about the issues that are important. I care about the issues that are important. That’s what we talk about, you know? Maybe in some small part because of Obama’s election they realized people with diverse experiences are going to have different ideas, and that’s helpful.

JC: What are some issues that the people might be surprised to learn are priorities of yours, or aren’t receiving enough attention?

AW: My top three priorities as a candidate, as a congressperson would be first universal healthcare. I am a huge supporter of the public option and I’m afraid that we may not even get that and the direction this debate seems to be going. Second is economic recovery and job creation. Third, we don’t send a lot of veterans to congress so national security and veterans aftercare issues are very, very important to me. There are 50,000 veterans and military retirees who live in this district alone. It’s a very, very big military because of Travis [Air Force Base]. Whether you’re a vet or not, people care about national security. Having that firsthand experience is important.

JC: If wars of choice are a bad idea, how do you suggest America maintains a deterrent against rogue regimes, against the countries that are actively seeking to undermine us?

AW: Right, that’s why I said first and foremost it is about having a strong military so countries recognize there is a risk to inappropriate behavior, to acquiring nuclear weapons, to sponsoring terrorism, for example. They need to recognize that America has the ability to quash that. If we focus on the diplomatic relationship with Pakistan, for example, that will certainly help us in that Afghan-Pakistan border region. Or if we improve the economic conditions of all these countries and make it harder for extremist ideologies to take roots, that certainly is helpful for our country as well.

JC: Are you in favor of marijuana legalization?

AW: I support the idea of the use of medical marijuana. In this state, voters made their voice clear on that one. I’m also very willing to explore the idea of decriminalization. If you look at the budget problems of our state, one of the largest drivers is the prison population and the cost of investigating those sorts of things and so if this is a way to save that, I think we should explore it.

JC: You’ve said about Afghanistan that we need a clear goal, clear missions and a timetable. What should the goal be, what should the missions be, and what’s the timetable?

AW: The timetable’s based obviously on what we want to do. It all resorts back to my fundamental argument. We need to maintain security. We need to provide an environment in which USAID and other NGOs can operate safely in helping to train the people of Afghanistan in modern farming techniques, improve their schools, improve their medical clinics. The State Department could play a fundamental role in improving the ability for the government of Afghanistan to govern. They could also play a critical role in Pakistan coming aboard and helping to secure the border region. These are some sort of high level issues. How long that takes, I’m not sure. It depends on how committed we are with resources to solving these sorts of problems but I think an open ended commitment is not going to be in their interests. We were screaming the military’s at its breaking point because of Iraq. We’re drawing down troops, but increasing the exact same number into Afghanistan. That’s not going to last the pressure.

JC: If you had to pick one goal for the war in Afghanistan, what would it be?

AW: I would say primarily it is securing the Afghan-Pakistan border region. Because that’s clearly where the Taliban and al-Qaeda are most successful.

JC: Back to healthcare. You grew up without healthcare. What does universal healthcare mean to you, why is that important to you, and do you think it’s ethically wrong, morally wrong to try to obstruct that?

AW: Well, I think it’s very, very clear that it’s within our interests as a country to have a system of universal healthcare, or to solve this problem, which is fundamentally one of access and costs. People allow normal problems to become acute, go to the emergency room, drives up costs for everyone. I think it is tied to our economic challenges. Wouldn’t it be great if we would allow small businesses, for example to not have to worry about the cost of insuring their employees or if we could help drive down those costs, make it cheaper to employ people. Or if we could take the cost of healthcare out of our goods when we export them overseas, we’ll be more competitive overseas. I think there are real economic advantages to making this a national priority, take it seriously. A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce, just as a more educated workforce is more productive. It’s clear that these things all line up within our interest, and it’s obvious that those who have a profit motive—private insurers—or those who just want to see the president fail because they have a political agenda, they don’t have the interest of the 47 million who are uninsured in mind, or those who have private insurance who are watching their costs rise; they don’t have them in mind, they don’t care. They’re enjoying pretty good health insurance themselves.

JC: Would you say it’s fair to say that you can increase access and decrease costs simultaneously?

AW: Well, if you have more people pay into the system, obviously that offsets those who are sicker in the system, but there are savings to be achieved by those who are on preventative care, certainly savings to be achieved there. Like I said, the fundamental aspect of competition between private insurers and a public option will help to drive down costs simply from a free market approach. I think there is a lot of savings to be gained.

JC: But, can we have universal healthcare and decrease costs, or is that something we’re just going to have to pay for?

AW: There is a need for shared sacrifice. I think that is important. This is important, this is valuable. I turn back to a personal example, when I was going overseas, or one-tenth of one percent of our country was being asked to sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan we also at the same time cut taxes for the wealthiest one percent of our country. That was not a clear sign of shared sacrifice, and so I support allowing the Bush Administration tax cuts for the wealthiest to repeal or expire in 2010 and that’ll certainly help pay for it.