WHEELING, W.Va. — Ralph Baxter believes that Washington, D.C. needs more politicians who are sincerely focused on solving the problems that confront the American people, and that’s why he chose to run for West Virginia’s 1st District House of Representatives seat in 2018.
3/8/07
CD 42-2007
Photo by Shelley Eades, The Recorder
“In Congress, I will focus on every issue that helps the working person make ends meet, and those are not words I’ve chosen lightly. That’s the broad concept,” Baxter said. “The wages and earning capacity of people are too low, lower than they should be, and then the burdens on them are too high.”
Baxter said that’s been imminent with the nation’s health care costs, which is the first legislation he hopes to influence if elected.
“We know health care is too expensive. What the patients have to pay is too much for insurance and otherwise, what they have to pay in deductibles is too high, and we need reform to get to something better,” he said. “So far, the efforts in the Congress have not been sensible, they’ve not been sensible as far as I’m concerned, they’re not bipartisan in the slightest, and that needs to change.”
However, Baxter has not yet decided whether he would support a single payer system more favorably than incremental changes.
“Single payer is appealing in lots of ways, but I don’t think we know whether it’s financially feasible. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.
Baxter is passionate about correcting the “plight of the hard-working people of West Virginia.
“I’m from West Virginia. All of my people are from West Virginia since the 1800s, and I’ve had a great life,” he said. “It’s very troublesome to me that people are working as hard as they are and still unable to make ends meet, unable to put money aside for their children’s education and the other things that American people ought to be able to put money aside for.”
The former CEO of Orrick brought the international law firm to Ohio County, opening a global operations center in Wheeling in 2002. Baxter is confident that his knowledge and experience in that position would be a great benefit in Congress.
“I know how to create jobs. I’ve created thousands of jobs in my lifetime. I know how to do it,” he said. “I know how people choose to move facilities to one place to another and why they choose West Virginia because that’s what we did 15 years ago in Wheeling, but that job requires collaboration.
“Everyone in government, everyone in organizations focused on the public good, non-profits and everyone alike needs to work on that.”
Baxter considers himself to be a moderate democrat, similar to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, with a belief in limited government and personal responsibility.
“I believe in limited government, but I believe government has a role that’s a positive role. It needs to come into play as the circumstances dictate, but it’s a limited role,” he said. “The people are responsible first and foremost for their own welfare and what happens to them, but government needs to play its part. That’s my political philosophy.”
The problem with government, Baxter believes, is lawmakers who are focused primarily on the interest of their donors or are focused primarily on the interests of their political parties.
“Our Congress is more dysfunctional than anytime in my lifetime, and that’s a long time,” he said. “I’m in a position to do something, I’m in a position to devote my life to public service, and I’ve decided to do that and to offer myself to represent the people of this district in Washington.”