Training and Experience
Director of Arts and Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, 2008-2025. Councilwoman, City of Euclid, 2020-2023.
Although I am running for Congress and many voting and elections policies are at the state and local levels, I am listing things I think would be good to do, even if I would not necessarily have direct impact on them.
• Make it easier to register to vote: same-day registration, automatic registration, extend deadlines for registrations prior to elections.
• Make it easier to vote: increase voting locations, times, and drop boxes.
• Fund voter education efforts - especially for young/new voters - for both registering to vote and the importance of voting.
• Increase funding to boards of elections so they can serve the public better.
• Pass legislation for campaign finance reform.
• Overturn Citizens United.
• Pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
There are immediate, short-term, and long-term things that can be done to address the rising cost of living.
Immediate actions that can be taken are to end the war in Iran, prevent the president from continuing the illogical and illegal tariff policies, stop arresting hard-working immigrants, and rein in health insurance and pharmaceutical companies – all things that are contributing to the current rise in prices. Further, I would restore and expand SNAP and Medicaid benefits that were recently cut.
Short-term actions that could be taken are to pass federal legislation to do things like:
• Increase the minimum wage.
• Invest in America again, similar to the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed during the Biden administration, as well as investments in environment and sustainability.
In my campaign for Congress, I will listen, learn, and try to find common ground with the people with whom I interact. I will be respectful, empathetic, and open-minded. This requires humility and self-reflection. The larger causes of our hyperpartisanship and lack of civility are much more difficult to try to address: the rise of social media and the problems therein, the lack of common news sources or even a shared understanding of what is news or what are facts, the destruction of norms of behavior and civility for over a decade, and more. But change can start with one action by one person anywhere, anytime, whether in a family, a community, or in Congress. Let’s commit to doing that.
I believe in diplomacy, soft power, foreign and humanitarian aid, international institutions, multilateralism, and economic cooperation. The use of military force should only be as a last resort. The United States should participate in international organizations, commit to our alliances and partnerships, and work to promote peace and human rights.
We should be helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia. We should be pursuing a just peace in Palestine. We should not be engaged militarily in Iran. We should be working closely with our allies to mitigate threats from China, Russia, and North Korea.
I believe in vigorously protecting our country from all threats, including foreign, domestic, cyber-attacks, terrorism, and natural disasters.
First of all, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) needs to be reined in, retrained, and restructured. ICE is violating the Constitutional rights of citizens and noncitizens every day and this needs to be stopped. Building mass detention centers should also be stopped.
I support a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our communities, especially for those who have lived in this country for years and have American children. Good people who are not bothering anyone should be given an opportunity to remain in the country and become citizens. Immigrants are the backbone of our society, have revitalized whole cities and towns, and are overwhelmingly a positive asset for our country.
Reform of our immigration laws is necessary and long overdue.
Training and Experience
Ten years, Assistant Attorney General; 10 years, Court of Appeals Judge; Five years Supreme Court Justice; twelve years pediatric emergency room nurse, Hillcrest and Lake Hospital systems
Volunteer/Community Service
Senior Vice Commander, VFW Post 12067; Eucharistic Minister, St Joan of Arc,Chagrin Falls
At the present moment, I am not inclined to change any of the voting policies in the United States. One current bill that intends to change these policies is the SAVE Act. I believe the SAVE Act is unconstitutional as it discriminates against women who have taken a married name, and impoverished individuals who may not have access to their birth certificate or a passport, or the funds to purchase replacement documents in order to vote.
Some of the biggest ways to help manage the cost of living crisis is by increasing taxes on high-earners, lowering defense spending by ending the Iranian War, boosting the economy through sustainable job creation, and by keeping the interest rates low to incentivize private-sector investment. Another great way to improve the affordability of life for Americans is by improving our trade agreements by removing the tariffs that have been placed on our biggest economic partners over the last few years.
As a former Supreme Court Justice, partisanship was never one of my first priorities, serving the people and honoring the Constitution was. In order to reduce hyperpartisanship and to promote civility, American's need to return to humanizing groups of people instead of lumping them together. Instead of talking about 'the police' and 'illegal immigrants', we need to return to looking at these individuals as exactly what they are; a person who works as a police officer, and a human being who lacks American citizenship. By humanizing our neighbors it is harder to villainize them and rationalize their mistreatment.
The biggest thing all Americans need to be aware of and consider regarding military intervention is that there is a constitutional process to declare war and to allow our own citizens to be put in a position of risk in the name of war. This process must
absolutely be adhered to, regardless of who is in the current administration. This process protects our people, our resources, and ensures that we are putting American lives above all other concerns. When our congress determines that involving
ourselves in conflict is pertinent, we will know that it was a bipartisan juncture that was reached through a diplomatic and democratic process.
While having secure borders and policies and procedures to immigration is pertinent to any successful and secure nation, there is one change that I would make to current immigration policy. The change that I would make to immigration policy would ensure that the process is clear, equitable and streamlined, to ensure that an immigrant who is impoverished is just as likely to obtain their citizenship as an individual who is wealthy, privileged, or highly skilled. American citizenship is not something that should be able to be bought by the highest bidder by paying a well-known immigration lawyer or given only to individuals who have received an already extesive education.
Training and Experience
Carl Setzer has twenty years experience building businesses, brands and technologies across borders and cultures long a focus of American foreign policy and trade. His career spans Information Security, Metal Fabrication, Beer and Beverage Production and International Spirits Acquisitions.
I believe here in Ohio we have a great system, but improvements can be made to ensure free and fair elections are easily accessible to all American citizens. We need to be able to maintain accurate voter rolls without disenfranchising voters. That will likely take a combination of an improved notification system regarding registration status, better cooperation across the country for identifying duplicate voter registrations, and a voter ID system that is fair to people of all ZIP Codes, backgrounds, economic statuses, and abilities.
More at setzerforcongress.com/issues/f/vote-411
Healthcare in America is tied to employment, which means millions of working people are one layoff or illness away from losing coverage. Medicare for the Working Class fixes that. If you pay into the system with your labor, you should be able to buy into Medicare just like seniors do today. It builds on a program that already works, lowers costs by cutting out middlemen, and gives workers stability no matter where they work. The goal isn’t to disrupt what works, but to extend the security Medicare provides seniors to the people who are paying into the system every day. That’s what Medicare for the Working Class is about.
More at setzerforcongress.com/issues/f/vote-411
We haven’t lost our civility because we are inherently less civil. We’re less civil because we spend too much time being inflamed by unaccountable tech platforms and data-mining incentives. When video apps are unregulated, it becomes difficult to see how people are “activated,” and we start assuming it’s human nature. But studies show consuming negativity makes people more negative and depressed. Outrage fuels more outrage and increases susceptibility to ads. Giving Americans control over their data, power over what they see, and limits on access for minors under 16 would improve civic discourse. We also need an updated fairness framework for modern media and a culture of structured debate. That’s why my slogan is Radically Moderate.
More at setzerforcongress.com/issues/f/vote-411
I spent twenty years as an immigrant in other places. I know exactly how important a robust diplomatic corps and strong naval and forward deployed military forces are to our economic strength and world peace. Our current policy approach and culture that is coming out of a complete control of all three branches of our federal system is a clumsy, non-strategic and inefficient use of the infrastructure that we spent decades building. Our constitution is being ignored and my children’s birthright of a stable and strong democratic approach to international relations is being squandered by short sited and belligerent sycophants.
More at setzerforcongress.com/issues/f/vote-411
We need to realize that we have a labor shortage in critical industries. We have an opportunity to not only facilitate legal pathways to citizenship for those that desire it, but we also have a responsibility to establish an overseas contract worker program that lets people come to America, work in designated areas that have high demands and shrinking labor pools, and then go back to their home if they don’t desire to stay and become naturalized citizens. There is honor in hard work and there is humanity in giving people a legal pathway to work for the benefit of our communities
More at setzerforcongress.com/issues/f/vote-411
