Interview with Karen Morian for State House District 12

[Jaxson]

State House candidate speaks on the issues
By John Louis Meeks, Jr.
Green would be the last word to describe the Green Party candidate for Florida House District 12.  Karen Morian, a veteran professor at Florida State College of Jacksonville aims to expand the political dialogue beyond the two traditional parties to empower the voters of Northeast Florida.
Running on the Green Party ticket, Morian believes that the Democratic Party is a lot closer to her but, “I am able to work with everybody regardless of party structure.”
She explains how she is working to represent Floridians across the political spectrum â€" including Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians.
“I don’t care what color jersey your team wears,” she said.
The perception of third parties having no real power in politics does not faze Morian as she believes that she would have more clout as an independent voice instead of being lost in the crowd of freshman legislators.
Her role as a local face of the Greens is something that does not escape Morian in her pursuit of public office.
“Nationally, [Green Party officials] know who I am,” she said, saying that the national party has been “extremely supportive.”
Morian’s beliefs are in alignment with those of her party that she chose on principle as someone who disagreed with the role that corporations play in the political system.
The two party system as it exists, she said, allows the corporations to hedge their bets and not have any real concern about who wins at the polls.
“I would like to see both parties commit to undoing that,” said Morian, who is not taking any corporate contributions.
Morian takes exception to what she believes to be a misconception that pigeonholes her party as a one-issue proposition.
The Green Party is more than just an advocate for environmental issues, she said, explaining that her party proposes a ‘Green New Deal’ patterned after the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal that was designed to combat the Great Depression of the 1930s.  She said that a major plank of her campaign is to create new jobs for Florida.
In addition to the economy, Morian says that education takes special precedence with her work.
“That’s what I've devoted my life to,” she said.
When asked her thoughts about education reform, she said, “It’s a scam,” calling it an orchestrated PR program designed to break up public education that uses vouchers and choice as wedge issues to turn the community against public education, which she called “the last public good that is still public.”
One area of disappointment for Morian, however, was the failure of the Jacksonville City Council to extend its human rights ordinance to protect the LGBT community.
“The public has moved even though the laws have not,” she said.
Furthermore, she believes that politics is taking a wrong direction with women’s reproductive rights, saying that quite a few major religious groups oppose divorce but the practice continues to be legal.
The lines drawn regarding abortion rights, said Morian, is a relatively new debate.
Having taught cultural history, she said that it had been commonly accepted that life begins at the quickening for thousands of years.  It was only in the late 19th century when the pope declared that life began at conception.
“It’s a perception shift,” she said, that continues to prevail in the discourse over reproductive rights.
She was especially bewildered at how modern politicians are referring to pregnancies from rape as God’s will.
“A lot of the men just don’t understand how invasive this issue is,” she said, “It’s hard for good, generous politicians to say, ‘It’s not up to me.’
“That takes some guts.”
Abortion would be a moot point, Morian said, if women had access to free or affordable birth control to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies.
Her stance on reproductive issues has gained the support of local women’s rights groups.
“Personally, I have been proud of the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and NOW,” she said.
Morian disputes the commitment that many politicians have regarding the issue of reproductive choice under the guise of being ‘pro-life.’
She explained how many religious voters supported George W. Bush for president in spite of his reputation for being a pro-capital punishment Texas governor.
“They’re cherry picking the issues and ignoring other issues of life,” she said, calling this contradiction “unacceptable.”
The death penalty was just the tip of the iceberg regarding the former president’s ostensible defense of life, said Morian, because he waged two separate wars that took many lives.
“How do you declare war if you believe [in protecting life]?” she asked.
While on the topic of war, Morian questioned the feasibility of corporate tax cuts while trying to pay for wars that went on for nearly a decade in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Morian supports “preventing corporate handouts under the guise of military spending and subsidies.”
She believes that it is important for corporations to pay their fair share to help balance the national budget similar to when the highest corporate tax rate was under President Eisenhower- around 90 percent.
The current focus on the corporate bottom line is what has harmed the economy, she said, likening derivatives to a game of Three Card Monty where it’s not “to put people to work, it’s just to make money.”
“They’re on the verge of destroying everything that makes our country good,” said Morian.
When asked about the hazard of being seen as yet another angry liberal who is venting, she said that those critics have not met her personally.
“I’m very passionate about the issues.  We see teachers being bullied.  We see students getting shortchanged,” she said, “Passion is not the same as anger.”
Her passion extends to the need for electoral reform in Florida, a state in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans and yet the GOP enjoys veto-proof majorities in both houses of the state legislature.
Morian believes that this partisan overreach is threatening the Florida Supreme Court, which is has the duty to interpret the laws without partisanship.
“I support retaining all three of [Supreme Court justices on the ballot], personally and politically,” she said, calling them “fair and diligent jurists.”
“There’s an attempt to hound them out of office because of politics,” she added.
Morian understands that the movement to reshape the state judiciary is not something that is solely homegrown.  She knows that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is fighting a battle across the nation to influence individual states’ politics with ‘cookie cutter legislation’ which she deems to be “detrimental” to the people of Florida.
She believes that the ALEC efforts are designed to force the state governments to cater to the needs of the corporations and not the people.
“I have a problem with that,” she said, “We have a social contract, not a business contract.  That’s what our Constitution is.”