I’m currently in the last few months of my fifth and final term serving Hoke and Cumberland Counties in the North Carolina Senate. I count the ten years that I have served in this capacity an honor and privilege. My plan was to retire from elected office and find other ways to serve in my community. Watching the incumbent congressman actively participate in an insurrection against this nation changed my thinking.
To hear him call it his “solemn duty” to perpetuate a knowing lie that Joe Biden lost the election, without a shred of evidence and despite more than 60 court rulings to the contrary left me outraged.
To see him take the side of an angry and violent mob over the law enforcement officers who tried valiantly to fend them off to protect his life was more than enough to make me rethink my plans for retirement from elective office.
For months, when people asked me why I was running, that was the reason I gave. I’m a retired Air Force officer with 20 years of service that include three tours in Europe working alongside our NATO allies to defend democracy at home and abroad.
You can take a patriot off active duty, but you never take the sense of duty from the patriot.
While the threat persists, and is real, and is imminent; over the past few months a different but no less serious threat has emerged with stunning clarity — the Republican War on Women.
Hudson and the Republicans are fully prepared, if they take the Congress, to roll back the clock on women’s freedoms, women’s safety and security, and women’s economic opportunity.
I’m fully prepared to do my best to stop them.
For ten years in the NC Senate I fought for and won expanded healthcare access for women, tax breaks for women-owned businesses, birth control without an unnecessary prescription, reopening of the schools so moms and caregivers could rejoin the workforce, and opportunity scholarships for low-income women to have the same access to school choice for their kids that middle class and wealthy families already enjoy for theirs.
In Congress, I’ll continue to fight for women’s health, education and economic opportunity. America’s prosperity shouldn’t leave women behind!
It’s clear that many women know what’s at stake in November. From the emails I receive, to Democratic Women’s Clubs across the district doorknocking like there’s no tomorrow, to the energy and optimism around
Cheri Beasley’s campaign, there’s no doubt that women are paying close attention to the Republican war that’s being waged against them and their freedoms.
But for those who may not know or be able to weed through all the noise and rhetoric and yelling and talking points and fear mongering, here’s what happens if Republicans win the Congress:
Republicans plan to severely curtail Social Security benefits for 38 million women. They’ve made no secret about this. In their “11 Point Plan to Rescue America” it clearly states, “Eliminate federal programs that can be done locally. Any government function that can be handled locally should be.” Republicans are on record with plans to eliminate or privatize the Social Security you’ve worked your whole life for.
Republicans plan to raise taxes on poor and working-class women because, as Republican Senator Rick Scott said, “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount.”
The federal minimum wage for a full-time worker is $15,080 per year. Scott — the richest member of Congress — believes $15,000-a-year workers should kick in a few bucks so that they have “skin” in the game.
Why can’t Republicans understand, this isn’t a game; it’s real life and nobody earning the federal minimum wage each year has a nickel to put in so that someone worth $260 million can take a nickel out.
Republicans will pass a national abortion ban. John Roberts’ Supreme Court will uphold it. Women will be forced to carry a child to term if the child has a heartbeat — but no skull.
Please don’t fall for Republican attempts to tone down their radical, far-right rhetoric one month before the election. Hudson sponsored H.R. 705, which forbids the termination of a pregnancy if a heartbeat is detected, even if the baby has no head! And no chance to live outside the womb. That’s not just cruel; that’s barbaric!
Last month, Democrats capped out-of-pocket healthcare costs at $2,000 per year and insulin costs at $35 per month for 22 million women on Medicare. Hudson voted no; every congressional Republican in NC voted no. Every congressional Republican in the country voted no. How could they make their priorities any clearer? Republicans don’t believe women’s taxpayer dollars should be returned to women to help keep women’s healthcare costs low.
Democrats do; I do.
With a few more seats in Congress, Democrats can finally pass equal pay legislation over Hudson’s and Republicans’ objections. It should go without saying that women should be paid the same money as men for the same day’s work!
Over the past few months, Hudson and the Republicans have opposed women’s right to contraception, women’s right to marry the person of their choice, women’s paid family leave and women’s childcare assistance. And they voted no to a monthly child-tax credit that — for the few months it was in place — lifted 4.7 million children out of poverty and extreme hunger.
If that’s not compelling enough for you — consider this: Hudson voted no to funding an alert system that would let the authorities notify women of an active shooter at their kids’ school.
My friends, that’s a Republican War on Women.
Every woman — and everyone who loves a woman — should get mad, should get up, should get engaged, should get to the polls and send Republicans home.
The future of our country depends on it.
Editor's note: Sen. Ben Clark has served since 2013 in the NC Senate representing Cumberland and Hoke counties. He is running for the NC 9th Congressional District, which consists of all of Chatham, Hoke, Lee, Moore, Randolph and Scotland and parts of Cumberland, Harnett and Richmond counties. The 9th is also home to Fort Bragg. Clark was born at the old Womack Army Hospital on Fort Bragg. His father was a helicopter pilot; his mother a teacher. Clark grew up in Hollywood Heights and graduated from Seventy-First High School.
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