Leading up to the state primary on Sept. 10, NHPR is speaking with the top candidates running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District to learn more about where they stand on some of the biggest concerns we’ve heard from voters.
Read on for NHPR All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa’s interview with Republican Joe Kelly Levasseur. He’s an alderman at-large in Manchester.
What questions do you have for the candidates running for Congress and governor in the 2024 election? What issues do you want them to address while seeking your vote? Share your thoughts here.
Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Transcript
Many voters we've talked with are concerned about the high cost of living here in New Hampshire. What kind of policies would you propose or support to make the state a more affordable place to live?
Well, as a restaurant owner for 35 years, I understand the cost of food and energy probably more than most. Five years ago, it was costing me about $20,000 to run my restaurant with utility bills. I [have] since leased that restaurant out. Five years later, the person who's running it told me they're spending $50,000 in utilities. So when you look at gas prices, oil prices, electricity prices, that's basically what I believe is driving the cost of food everywhere. Anywhere that you own a restaurant, any business in the country, of course your grocery stores are all — everybody gets their produce and their meats and all of their groceries dropped off by trucks from around the country. So if oil prices, gas prices are high they have to raise those prices somehow.
So I believe when Biden made the decision to shut down the Keystone pipeline, whether that had a real effect on how much oil was available, it had a psychological effect and drove prices way up because a lot of people assumed, and a lot of companies assumed that we would have an energy shortage. So the fact that we're not drilling and our prices have gone up has really affected the cost of everything.
So your approach to that at first would be to bring down the cost of oil and fuel that would trickle down and make things more affordable, right?
New Hampshire is in one of those really strange places. Well, the whole northeast is, but our electricity costs are ridiculous. If you own a restaurant or a business, you have coolers on all day, right? Refrigeration on all day. We need to do something in New Hampshire to bring those electricity costs down. And, you know, we have to figure that out. I think we should do a lot more nuclear than what we're doing right now.
Immigration and border policy are also a top concern with many voters as well. What is one specific immigration policy that you could point to that you would want to support?
Well, legal immigration would definitely be something I support. I really do feel that we needed to bring in a lot of immigration into the country, because we did, we do and did have, a very serious labor shortage. My own restaurant, one of the main reasons why I finally had to get out of the business is because we couldn't find any help. And there were a lot of good quality people out there. I worked with a lot of Venezuelans. A lot of people from South America had worked in my restaurant. Very good employees.
I think legal immigration is always been something that we should have gone for. Right now, it's kind of scary because we have all these people coming into the country and we don't know who they are. We don't know if they're using real IDs. We don't know if they're using real Social Security numbers. They're not vetted. So we're not sure what their backgrounds are like. So that has been a little bit of a burden on businesses, I think.
So when it comes to enforcing legal immigration, would you support extra funding for border patrols for the wall at the border? What would that policy support look like for you?
If there's a border wall up, I think that slows the process of them just walking over down. But I mean, we've had border wall all across the southern border and they find ways to get in. But it's not about how they're getting in. They're being let in. They're being let in through the policies of this current administration. I would love to put a border wall [and] finish it off just to get that argument out of the way. But I think it really comes down to what Border Patrol is told by the administration that is running the country. If Border Patrol is told not to let these people in, and you have a deal with Mexico to keep them over there until you can sufficiently vet them to bring them in, then that's a policy. And the policies of this administration have been [to] just let them in. So it's been an issue for us.
(Editor’s note: You can read NPR’s coverage of the President Biden administration’s latest border policy here.)
Republicans in Congress have voted along party lines to restrict access to abortion. Would you support any federal restrictions to abortion?
The Supreme Court's made its decision, and I'm going to stick with that decision. And if I do get elected to Congress, I am not going to do anything that takes away any state rights. I'm going to let the states work it out. They fought long and hard to make it a state right. So I see no reason to get involved in that matter at all.
To say, if your GOP colleagues were in favor of a policy that would have federal implications on abortion here in New Hampshire, would you vote alongside them?
I wouldn't do it, if it was only Republican. I would do something, you know, it would have to be majority — and I'm not talking majorities of 50-50, I'm talking 75-75 [and] both parties could agree on something with the president. [Then] I would consider that. But that'll never happen because we can't get people to agree on anything, it seems, in Congress.
I just want to leave it where it is. I want to see how this works out over the next decade and see how this works for the states. A lot of people thought there was going to be a lot of calamity when Roe v. Wade was overturned, but I haven't seen it. I think New Hampshire has been in the position where most people feel comfortable. Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine are surrounding states, so I don't think women should or do have the same fears that they originally did two years ago, or at least I hope they don't.
We continue to hear from voters that they are tired of political polarization. Trust across party lines in Congress continues to dwindle. What about your background qualifies you to work with members of all parties to do what's best for New Hampshire?
So I'm a seven-term Republican in Manchester. I'm an alderman-at-large, which is all 12 wards. We have 14 aldermen, 12 are one ward each. I cover all 12. The last, I think ,14 years, I've worked with boards that were 12 Democrats, two Republicans. And I've had to work across the board as a very minor Republican on the board, and we've done a lot of work. I've worked very well with Democrats. I work with anybody who will do the right thing and get things done for Manchester's best interests, and I don't think that's going to be a problem going down to Congress. I'm just somebody who just does the job that I think is right. It has nothing to do with politics for me. I've never asked anybody, when they call me for a constituent service, what party they're from. I just do the job and I do it well.
