{"id":3745,"date":"2022-01-20T17:03:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T17:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2022-01-20T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T17:04:06","slug":"morgan-harper-dem-candidate-for-senate-tours-toledo-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/20\/morgan-harper-dem-candidate-for-senate-tours-toledo-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Morgan Harper: Dem Candidate for Senate Tours Toledo Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Morgan Harper and Steve Foster admire a fresh cut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Fletcher Word
\nSojourner\u2019s Truth Editor<\/p>\n

Democratic senatorial candidate, Morgan Harper, toured Toledo small businesses on Saturday, January 8 and shared her vision about what\u2019s wrong and right in Washington and what she intends to do about it when she is elected to fill the Senate seat currently held by retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman.<\/p>\n

Harper, however, has a formidable task ahead of her. She is facing an uphill battle against Congressman Tim Ryan who declared his candidacy months before Harper and has amassed a bunch of money and a lot of local and national endorsements including from Hillary Clinton, Senator Sherrod Brown and most of the Ohio General Assembly Democrats. Just this week, State Rep. Emilia Sykes, House Minority Leader, endorsed Ryan.<\/p>\n

Harper, during her visit to Toledo, focused on her vision \u2013 her determination to stay independent of corporate influence.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Morgan Harper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYes, there is a lot of focus on Democrats and Republicans,\u201d she said in answer to a question in Steve\u2019s Sport-N-Cuts from owner Steve Foster about the inability of those in both parties in Washington, D.C. to accomplish much. \u201cThe reality is that both parties, the majority of people in those positions ae about protecting people who have a lot of money \u2013 the large corporations that dominate the economy,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

Harper, an attorney and community organizer, declared her candidacy in August of last year. She had previously run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 against Congresswoman Joyce Beatty in Ohio\u2019s 3rd<\/sup> Congressional District. In the primary, she lost to the incumbent, who is now the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, by a 68 to 32 percent margin.<\/p>\n

An Ohio native, Harper was adopted at the age of nine months and raised on Columbus east side. A scholarship helped her graduate from Tufts University before earning a masters degree from Princeton and a law degree from Stanford.<\/p>\n

Harper returned to Ohio to serve as a clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, worked as a paralegal at the Federal Trade Commission and served as a senior advisor at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Recently she has been director of Policy & Advocacy at the American Economics Liberties Project, a non-profit group fighting to break up corporate monopolies. She is co-founder of Columbus Stand Up!, a grassroots community organization that has mobilized volunteers in central Ohio in response to the pandemic. Columbus Stand Up! Volunteers go door-to-door delivering masks, driving voters to the polls and transporting people to their COVID-19 vaccine appointments.<\/p>\n

Harper is running for the U.S. Senate \u201cto get political and economic power back on the side of the working people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis current economy is one of large multi-level corporations and they are allowed to do that because policies are set up to allow it,\u201d she told her barbershop audience. \u201cBut by getting people elected, things change. People serving in Congress can change things; our leaders have failed us; our government has laid conditions for multilevel corporations to dominate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Steve Foster asks question<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harper\u2019s platform includes all the elements of a progressive candidate: universal health care, universal childcare, equitable funding of public school districts, an end to inequities in the criminal justice system, pro-choice, workers\u2019 rights, LGBTQ rights, etc.<\/p>\n

Above all, Harper touts her independence \u2013 her grassroots fundraising, her pledge to stay away from lobbyist money.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opponent is one of the biggest takers of lobbyist money in the Congress,\u201d she says of Congressman Tim Ryan.<\/p>\n

Harper, a young (38 years old) candidate with no previous elective office experience on the local level is pursuing what would be her first political office on the national level. When asked why she is trying to start \u201cat the top,\u201d she replied that she feels a certain urgency was necessary and that service in Washington matched her experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that we have a lot of time to waste based on what\u2019s happening right now in our country,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are suffering. You need to have Washington-level resources in order to address it. That\u2019s the place where I have experience. I\u2019ve been in and out of Washington the last 15 years and I know how the place works.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fletcher Word Sojourner\u2019s Truth Editor Democratic senatorial candidate, Morgan Harper, toured Toledo small businesses on Saturday, January 8 and shared her vision about what\u2019s wrong and right in Washington and what she intends to do about it when she is elected to fill the Senate seat currently held by retiring Republican Senator Rob Portman. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[98],"class_list":["post-3745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3750,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions\/3750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}