Cris Dush

LOCK HAVEN — Incumbent Cris Dush (R-Jefferson) is looking to retain his seat as the Pennsylvania Senate’s 25th District representative in the General Election on Nov. 5. Dush, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force was first elected in 2020.

The 25th District encompasses a portion of Centre and Jefferson counties and the entirety of Cameron, Clinton, Elk, Mckean and Potter counties.

The Express asked Dush 10 questions regarding various issues the Commonwealth, and those in the 25th District, face. His answers are printed below verbatim:

Q: What are the key policy initiatives you plan to prioritize?

Dush: 1. Continue to improve the law with regard to anti-human trafficking. 2. Improve the government’s working relationship with faith based organizations which have proven to be the most effective in dealing with people going through the many and varied agonies we face in this fallen world. 3. Get the government out of the way of business by shrinking regulation and getting the legislature to take it’s responsibility to be the authors of anything which compels people to do something or not to do something rather than some bureaucrat whom the franchise owners (The People) of this Commonwealth can’t fire. I have more as well, but for the sake of keeping your article reasonable I will stop there.

Q: In what ways will you advocate for the needs of your constituents in Harrisburg?

Dush: As I always have; by being reachable and responsive to my constituents, meeting with individuals, organizations, businesses and local government personnel so I know the issues and can bring their concerns to the Capitol. I’m not known to be a “shrinking violet.” I stand, even against leadership in my own party when necessary for my people.

Q: How do you intend to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for Pa. residents?

Dush: Obamacare has caused a lot of damage by paving the way for insurance companies to gobble up hospitals and then, because the bean counters find it more efficient to consolidate and force the patients to travel for care, close down clinics and hospitals in rural areas. It also is forcing closures in urban hospitals. This is what happens when (as Nancy Pelosi said when they forced the massive bill that no-body had time to read), “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” There is an effort to get to a single payer healthcare program run by the government. I’ve seen how badly that goes with family members during my four and a half years in England. I will fight to get health care decisions and care restored to local communities and under the control of the physicians rather than the insurance companies. I will also fight the “venue shopping” that allows our local doctors to be taken to court in Philadelphia where they are subjected to outlandish penalties that drive up insurance premiums for doctors that force them to look to other states to practice.

Q: What strategies will you implement to create jobs and foster economic growth in the state?

Dush: Regulatory reform; getting unnecessary regulations eliminated or written more responsibly. Responsible tax reform. Career and tech ed improvements that allow students to be job or business ready right out of high school or college.

Q: How will you work to address the issue of mass shootings and gun violence?

Dush: We have a mental health crisis in this nation. Empirically speaking what we are seeing is not just “gun violence” but an increase in violence in general. The lack of fathers in a child’s life, the lack of a stable, loving family and the lack of people of faith being role models for people as they grow up have been the largest common denominators of what we have seen over the past 20 years. I can speak to that directly because I had the pre-sentencing investigations on hundreds of my inmates while working at the Department of Corrections where it was glaringly obvious, across all demographics, that 90 percent of my male inmates lacked a responsible father figure in the home. In speaking with my colleagues in the women’s prison system it was 95 percent for the women incarcerated. I talk with former inmates from all over who have confirmed it and of those, the ones who recognize that are the ones trying hard to get back into the lives of their children.

Q: Where do you stand on reproductive rights and abortion?

Dush: God gave us our reproductive rights and instructed us to “be fruitful and multiply.” I am in agreement with Him. He also instructed us not to shed innocent blood. There are none so innocent as the child who is still in the womb. Prior to a court ruling in which a small group of Justices ignored all prior case law and declared a “right” where The People, in their sovereign authority had not made it so in the federal Constitution, ripping a child apart, limb-by-limb was considered an abominable practice. People came up with language to divert from what really happens so as to make conversations around the practice more tolerable. The young people I’m encountering have started to see, through the enhanced imaging we have now, that these are children and are turning away from the idea. Eventually, people are going to come to the point where this is no longer acceptable and The People will again have forced the law to reflect the intolerable nature of the practice.

Q: How would you bridge the divide between the state’s rural and urban communities?

Dush: I work with fellow Senators from urban areas, like those who represent Kensington in Philadelphia where I had worked as an investigator for a number of years. They know I’m willing to not only listen to them but come to their communities to learn what is going on. I’ve encouraged them to visit my constituents and others in rural Pennsylvania who have programs that are working for people.

Q: LGBTQ+ rights have become a major topic within the state, and even nation, within recent years. What is your stance on this and the legislation that has been considered in various levels of government?

Dush: Individuals in this Commonwealth and nation do not have more rights than any other citizen. Having this narrative that there are “rights” specific to a group of individuals is divisive.

Q: What specific changes do you propose to the state’s tax system?

Dush: One area is property tax reform. That issue has so many nuances and a diversity of interests in such a vast and varied commonwealth as ours that it is truly difficult to address. Former Representative Frank Ryan had the best proposal I’ve seen, every part of Pennsylvania was going to have to give a little, but it was defeated because every area of the state had groups opposed and all for different reasons. I do have colleagues who are more directly working on this and I will examine their proposals as they are given.

Q: Do you feel climate change action is a priority? If so, how would you work to combat it while also balancing economic interests?

Dush: No. In the 1300s during the Medieval Warming Period there were no factories, cars or any of the “man-made” devices being used by big money corporations and the Chinese government to push this scare. Yet, Erick The Red and his son Lief Ericson lived on a continent they named “Greenland” that still bears the name even though it is mostly covered by ice today. Interestingly, though there were no glaciers in that area, like there are today, the ports of the Mediterranean and Europe were not flooded. The Roman Warming Period, around 200 AD was even warmer and again; no flooding. I don’t appreciate the Chinese government, the source of most solar panels and nearly all of the rare earth and critical minerals necessary to produce the solar panels and windmills, buying off politicians and, through their use of “Confucius Institutes” and the like that they create in American universities, to buy “scientific studies” to push us into purchasing and relying on this type of energy production when they won’t do it themselves.