Danielle Ahrens

1. In 2009 Sarah Palin came to Sandpoint where she had been born and her dad was a science teacher to do a book tour for her new book “Going Rogue: An American Life”. I had read the book and stood in line with my daughter Alexus to meet her and have our books signed. I told her what a tremendous inspiration she was to me as a woman that I could go into politics and make a difference like she did. She told me that I should get active in politics and run for office locally so that got me started into serving the people. Now i am the elected Republican precinct committeemen for the Colburn area. I was elected unanimously by the Bonner County precinct committeemen to serve as the Bonner County Republican Central committee Chairman and after that term I was unanimously elected by the precinct committeemen in Bonner and Boundary counties to serve currently as your Republican Legislative District One Chairman. I love my constituents and am looking forward to working for you as your new Senator.

2. At 58 I am a mother and a grandmother and I bring a unique perspective of compassion and respect to my constituents. I have the toughness of making the hard decisions from working in a maximum security prison to helping people through rehabilitation counseling and Christian guidance. Serving on the Boards of Directors for the Bonner County Farm Bureau, Life Choices pregnancy Center and Sandpoint Community Resource center plus being a member of Kiwanis and Community Assistance League gives me the tools to understand and reach solutions to problems for our fellow citizens.

3. Anything that impacts the health and safety of my constituents is of the utmost importance. I have asthma so I understand the concerns of the air quality. Per the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment I believe in states rights and this project is in another state so we don’t have jurisdiction to tell them what to do but if and when the quality of our air, water and health is being impacted we do have the ability with our state DEQ department of environmental quality to get involved. At the current time my friend Norm Semanko is the CANS attorney and I am following his facts on the situation.

4. Our biggest challenges are the quality of the State roads in our district. We have much more severe weather here in the North and our roads are in need of a more consistent rate of repair than the southern end of the state. Our Highway 95 goes into Canada so its imperative to keep our highways operating at a top capacity. Another challenge is our vocational training programs for our high schools. We need to have these strengthened so our kids graduate with marketable skills. One size does not fit all students and we need to support different options for careers and not focus everyone toward college degrees where many kids end up with large debts and no jobs.

5. The overwhelming amount of taxes, fees, permits, licenses and other oppressive regulations that each of us deal with on a daily basis. It is strangling our entrepreneurial culture and our country. We have to start eliminating and rolling back these killers of job growth. Many of these are just self perpetuating to the agencies that create them.

6. The nature of a campaign is to show the differences between yourself and your opponents. Do it in a factual way with documented proof. One of my opponents is the man who stands in front of our schools, farmers market and churches with horrific pictures and is very aggressive towards people with his beliefs and calls for the executions of women and girls who get abortions on Facebook posts. My other opponent has made statements in public and private that he supports gun control and has refused to answer questions on the candidate questionnaire of The Idaho Second Amendment Alliance and their President Greg Pruett has even made a video of this and shared it on social media. So as a former law enforcement officer I make sure my facts are documented, recorded and I have witnesses. So when I receive criticism I show the facts and it’s up to the people to decide who they want to represent them. That’s why we vote.

7. Effective, experienced Leadership is what I can offer the people. The last ten years I have been working on this. I volunteered for a session in 2013 working for Senator Sheryl Nuxoll and learning about the Senate and how it operates. I have been going down to session for 6 years volunteering to get co sponsors on bills, testifying in committees, working on legislation and helping new Representatives. I have supported and worked on numerous campaigns locally and statewide to put conservatives into office which increases my effectiveness because I know our state and her people well and can achieve solutions quicker because I have worked with them before and have their mutual respect.

8. No I do not. To have someone come in here and try to lock up our lands to shut down our culture, traditions and heritage and to make it inaccessible to the disabled is not acceptable. They are trying to do this also on the Montana side. We are tired of having people come in from out of the area and trying to further restrict our abilities to hunt, fish, collect firewood, huckleberry pick and use our forests. The lack of timber management alone in a wilderness will make this area a deathtrap for the locals in the event of a forest fire. No more wilderness areas.

9. First of all we should be careful of looking to government to solve our problems because the solution to many is reaching into your neighbors pocket to pay for these good ideas and that is wrong.

There has to be an element of self accountability and we do need to take care of the few that absolutely cannot take care of themselves due to a physiological issue. In the legislature their have been many proposals and plans. There is a difficulty with reaching a consensus on the solutions. More options available for health insurance coverage and the freeing up the marketplace will help us address this issue.

10. What is your understanding of the purpose of the Second Amendment?

My answer is it’s to secure our God-given fight to the defense of ourselves and others. Whether that is an individual or a rogue government and you are fighting against tyranny.