Missouri House District 29: Democratic challengers to incumbent differ on education, health care, taxes

One thing’s certain in the Democratic primary for Missouri House District 29: Education will be an issue.

The two candidates, a former high school social studies teacher and a current science teacher, have a combined 42 years of teaching in Independence schools.

John Sutton has taught science for 22 years and his opponent, Winston Apple, taught social studies for 20 years. The winner will go on to face incumbent Noel Torpey, an Independence Republican.

Sutton is running a second time for the spot after losing 57 to 43 percent to Torpey in 2012. Apple may be known to voters through his music career. He had a record deal and a song on the singles charts and was under contract with Mad Dog Records of Kansas City before it went out of business. He taught from 1985 to 2005.

Despite the similarities in their teaching career paths, the two differ on how they approach the issues coming up in Jefferson City.

Take, for example, education.

Sutton said full funding from the state is a must to give Missouri students the training that companies are looking for.

“We also need to take a look at how the education money is being spent,” he said.

Sutton would like to see schools offer two tracks — college prep and vocational education.

That way students who are on the vocational track could devote more time to learning related skills, he said. But they should not be locked into those tracks, he added.

Apple, who wrote the book “Edutopia: A Manifesto for the Reform of Public Education,” said too much bureaucracy is the biggest impediment to education.

“I’m in favor of doing away with school districts and allowing students to attend any publicly funded school in the state,” he said.

Preferably, he said, that would be accompanied by a mass transportation system that would make that possible.

Apple also disagrees with the idea of allowing transfers to private schools. “I’m for strengthening our public schools, not undermining them,” he said.

Sutton, too, objects to allowing transfers out because of the financial blow to the districts that lose those students. He said a better solution might be to dissolve the large districts and start over, getting rid of far-flung administrators and giving more local control to principals and voters.

The candidates agree that the state should accept federal money and expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but differ in their views on that federal measure.

Sutton, who describes himself as a moderate, or a conservative Democrat, said that although he doesn’t support the act known as Obamacare, he believes it should still be enforced because the state should follow federal law.

Apple said a market-based public option should be added to the law for catastrophic illnesses. Also, he said if the state started a “New Deal type jobs program,” more people would be earning income and not as apt to need Medicaid.

Neither candidate liked the recent decision to cut income taxes.

Apple, citing the popularity of sales tax holidays, said the state should reduce or eliminate the sales tax to compete with tax cuts in Kansas. But that shouldn’t be done unless there are replacement revenues available for first responders, he said.

Sutton called the tax cut a “horrible decision.” The breaks will not help the average Missourian much, and will not trickle down, he said.

“Why not tie jobs to the tax break?” he said.

This story was originally published July 26, 2014 at 1:30 PM with the headline "Missouri House District 29: Democratic challengers to incumbent differ on education, health care, taxes."