SC State House District 123: Lisette Cifaldi, a Democrat, announces write-in campaign
Although her name won’t appear on the ballot Nov. 8, Democrat Lisette Cifaldi is making a late push to oppose incumbent Jeff Bradley in State House District 123, which includes Hilton Head.
Inspired to give voters a choice in what was previously an unopposed race, Cifaldi began her write-in campaign earlier in October. One of her primary campaign goals is to provide abortion access in South Carolina.
Cifaldi has lived on Hilton Head Island for decades, she said, which she hopes will make her a good fit to lobby for the island and Beaufort County’s interests in the state legislature. Cifaldi has not held or run for a public office before.
She works as a psychotherapist and earned a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of South Carolina, where she also received a master’s in social work. She is a first-time political candidate.
The Island Packet sent questionnaires to candidates in contested races and asked them to limit their answers to 150 words.
Here are Cifaldi’s responses:
What are your top issues this campaign?
The top issues of my campaign based on concerns voiced to me by residents include:
1) Building stronger and healthier public school systems by providing more mental health resources through onsite mental health counselors and letting our teachers focus on teaching, not testing.
2) Ensuring our teachers, nurses, first responders, small business owners, and workforce have access to affordable housing.
3) Ensuring access to affordable health care in the community including mental health and addiction resources as well as access to reproductive health care for women including abortion.
4) Protecting our coastline against the impact of climate change and safeguarding our natural environment from over development and poor environmental stewardship.
5) Promoting recycling initiatives through education, increased recycling stations, and tourist-focused recycling engagement. I pledge to continue to listen to the residents of District 123 and to prioritize their needs.
What issues affecting the district will be addressed in the next legislative session?
The 2023-24 legislative session will need to tackle some hard issues in our state including addressing economic issues, education reform, and environmental protection.
South Carolina needs to prioritize education reform including increasing teacher pay, allowing our teachers to teach in the classroom rather than spend countless hours on administrative tasks and ensuring that mental health resources are available to our children by funding mental health counselors in our public schools.
The legislators also need to continue with some of the unfinished business for 2022 including passing a Hate Crime bill supported by Democrats and Republicans. We need to address the crippling effects of climate change and its impact on our community. The SC Legislature needs to adopt a comprehensive climate change strategic plan that coordinates actions at the state, county, and local levels of government.
Should the state use public money to create educational scholarship accounts to allow parents to send their children to private schools?
My children are the product of Hilton Head public schools, so I believe in a strong public education system. While I firmly believe in school choice, I also strongly believe that public taxpayer monies should be used exclusively to support our public education system.
Diverting public funds to private schools only weakens the public school infrastructure and private schools are not accountable to taxpayers. Diverting scarce funding from public schools, which serve 90% of students, to private schools will prevent much-needed teacher pay increases, hinder the hiring of badly needed mental health counselors as well as guidance counselors, social workers and behavior interventionists, provide public school students less access to musical instruments, science equipment, modern technology, textbooks, and after school programs.
In addition, there has been no credible research to suggest that vouchers/scholarship accounts improve academic performance.
Should SC ban abortion? What exceptions, if any, should there be for an abortion ban?
No, South Carolina should not ban abortions.
Governing women’s bodies is an egregious overreach of government which diminishes women’s rights and puts their health care in jeopardy. Instead of focusing on stripping women of their bodily autonomy I would like to see our legislature spend time creating a strong foundation of resources and education focused on preventing unwanted and life-threatening pregnancies including better sex education in schools and communities, access to free birth control, family planning community initiatives, infrastructures for making men financially responsible for bearing children and stellar pre/post natal care.
Also on the ballot for voters in Beaufort County is the green space sales tax referendum. Do you support the statewide effort to fund conservation efforts with sales taxes?
I support the green space sales tax referendum because preserving our green space in Hilton Head and all of Beaufort County is essential to our community.
Is there anything that can be done at the state level to address the affordable housing shortage in the Lowcountry?
Many of the solutions to affordable housing are under the control of our county and local governments, so the role of the legislature is limited, and perhaps presently unclear. However, that does not mean that as state representatives we should step back and ignore the pressing problems of our communities, especially here in Hilton Head.
Affordable housing in South Carolina has become a challenge for many sectors of society such as our middle class, and more specifically, me. As state legislators, we can bring together different communities of interest with experts to help our county and local leaders develop solutions and we can use the tax system in our state to provide incentives to developers to build affordable housing.
We need to look at zoning barriers that may play a role in developing affordable housing. As with other pressing issues in our state, the most critical role that the state legislature can play is to develop a comprehensive housing strategy that includes buy-in from all levels of government so we can work together in a coordinated effort. This issue affects me directly, so the voters of District 123 can rest assured that I will be rolling my sleeves up for this one!
