Wes Moore hopes to become Maryland's next governor
BALTIMORE - With election day just weeks away, Maryland voters are ready to find out who the next governor will be - Democrat Wes Moore or Republican Dan Cox.
The two candidates debated for the first and only time Wednesday.
WJZ's Ava-joye Burnett sat down with Moore to discuss this race, his experience and what he will do if elected governor.
Moore has never held political office before but says his military and private sector experience has prepared him to lead.
Moore is a big proponent of education.
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He told Burnett that he believes it's vital to give students an early start to education access.
"The data cannot be more clear that 80 percent of brain development happens in a child by the time that child is 5 years old, so why we're having children starting school [at] 5 just doesn't make any sense," said Moore. "We've got to make sure we're starting earlier and that means having access to PRE-K for every child. It means we have to do things like increase teacher pay, and also increasing things that focus on professional development, and career pipelines and career pathways."
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On the issue of crime, Moore said if elected he will continue to work with federal partners to get illegal guns off the streets.
"How will you balance funding for police, while also ensuring that there is money that's going towards preventative violence measures?" asked Burnett.
"It's not one or the other. We have to invest in both," Moore said. "We have to address the immediate challenges of violence that we're seeing in our communities. Children should not have to grow up in fear of their own neighborhood. People have a right to grow up and feel a measure of safety in their own communities in their own homes and in their own skin and it is important that we invest in mechanisms that ensure that people can and should feel safe. It's important that we invest in a police force that moves with appropriate intensity and absolute integrity and full accountability."
"Would you increase funding for organizations like Safe Streets?" asked Burnett.
"We would and we think it's important," Moore said. "I think about just weeks back I was with the teams from We Are Us, which is one of the violence interruption teams and they have a slogan where they say, 'We're all we've got.' And my message to them was, not for long."
On the topic of abortion, Moore condemned the Supreme Court's June Roe v. Wade ruling.
"I believe that abortion is healthcare and I think what the Supreme Court did was rob millions of women of health care," said Moore.
Moore said if he becomes governor, he has no plans to raise taxes.
As the former CEO of an anti-poverty nonprofit, he said job training and improvements to mass transit will help to close the wealth gap between White and Black families.
"Would you want to see the Red Line become a reality?" asked Burnett.
The Red Line would be an expansion of train services in Baltimore City.
"The Red Line needs to become reality," Moore said. "If a person can't get to the job, then what's the point? We've got to increase transportation assets to move people from where they live to where they can work. "
Moore is chasing California's dream of making Maryland a clean energy state by 2035 with a focus on electric vehicles and solar and wind technology.
WJZ also spoke with Moore about the precedent that he'd shatter if he's elected.
"If you were to come governor here in Maryland, you'd be one of only three elected Black governors in the country, what does that say about where we are right now?" asked Burnett.
"It's humbling and the history making measure is not lost on me especially when you also consider the history of my family, where I am the grandson of someone who was run out of the country by the Ku Klux Klan because my great grand-father was a very vocal minister and started receiving threats in the middle of the night and picked up his family to include my grandfather and left this country. And my grandfather always pledged to come back because he said this is where I was born," Moore said.
"And while I understand that I would make history as the first Black governor in Maryland, my intention is I'm not running because I'm trying to make history. I'm running because I want to make the wealth gap history. I want to make environmental injustice history. I will make educational and economic disparity history. That's why I'm running."
