Wednesday, March 30, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Pahrump resident Bill Hockstedler, a veteran who works as the vice president of strategic development for Mayo Clinic, refers to himself as a “straight shooter” and a moderate Republican who wants to see a level of civility and decorum return to politics.
He’s running for U.S. Senate in Nevada, and isn’t toeing the GOP party line when it comes to the 2020 presidential election. Hockstedler says President Joe Biden is the duly elected president, while one of his primary opponents — former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt — touts claims that the election was stolen and that mail-in ballots were submitted fraudulently.
Those claims have been proven false in court challenges, and Nevada’s Republican secretary of state, Barbara Cegavske, has assured the public that the election was free and fair, untainted by meaningful fraud.
“We need honesty, we need people who don’t make up things for extremism, to get media attention, to distract from what the real problems of this country are,” Hockstedler said.
Hockstedler, 59, echoed the beliefs of those who call themselves “principled conservatives,” who want to see people follow rules and laws and want to concentrate on the Republican Party’s founding principles of limited government, free market and free people.
With only a couple of months to go until the primary, Hockstedler is getting more active in his campaigning, attending events and trying to build up a following, but he hasn’t raised nearly as much money as his opponents and is having trouble getting invited to the debate stage, he said.
We sat down to learn a little more about him and his campaign goals. Here’s our conversation, edited for clarity and concision.
What pushed you to run for Senate?
Before the last election, I was thinking about running because I saw a breakdown in our government, a division of our politics on a national scale. Within our own party, we have a lot of finger-pointing and name calling. And I decided that we needed more decorum and civility in government, so we could get more things done.
I always felt that we should be sending more responsible people to Washington, people who can fix more problems than they create and that and right now we’re, it’s the other way around. We’re sending people who aren’t necessarily there for the people who elected them. They’re there for themselves and special interests and lobbyists and all kinds of other things. And I just want more honest people going to Washington.
What are some of your biggest issues or priorities in your campaign?
Things dealing with the economy and with our military dominance, things dealing with our educational system, our scientific achievements and our manufacturing. We need to be more responsible with the things we can manufacture, the things that we can do. I call it repatriating our manufacturing and our raw materials from countries like China.
Right now, a lot of our manufacturing is offshore. Even the medication that I take as a veteran was made in China and got recalled because there was a defect. So we can’t even trust where our medicine is being manufactured.
How do you differ from the other Republican candidates?
I’m more of a regular citizen. I’m not an elitist. I’m not the guy who runs a $2 million law firm in Washington, D.C. And I’m not the guy running on the fear and uncertainty and doubt tactics.
I’m not a victim. We need more honest people in Washington. I’m the honest type of person who will go for the right reasons. I’m not in it for the money. I don’t need a job. I don’t want to disparage youth, but there comes a time when we need an elder statesman in Washington making decisions for us.
I have the knowledge of functionally working in government, at the levels needed to make the decisions — not just for Nevada, not just for America, but for the international impact. We have to understand that a strong economy and a strong military go hand in hand with not just protecting America’s interests but helping the world. We’re a nation of hardworking, honest people. America can do better. We’re great, but I think we can do better.
What are some pieces of legislation you’d want to introduce as a senator?
They’re always going to be geared toward our economic and military dominance. ... Once you have those in order, we can do all the other social programs. I’d like to see there be an interaction between industry and education ... so if an industry wants to come to Nevada, we need to make sure we have our educational standards up to the speed that they need to incorporate that into their business.
We need Nevadans to get those good-paying jobs and stabilize our own economy without adding extra infrastructure and a burden on housing and water and all the other things that come with growth. Let’s bring in the industry, let’s tell the industry, “tell us what you need for education.” Let’s bring our education standards up to meet that need and have a robust economy and a diverse economy because of that.
Most of your Republican opponents think the election was stolen in 2020. Do you believe it was free and fair?
I believe it was free and fair. I do not believe that this election was stolen. I’m going to get roasted for this, but some of the Republicans don’t have enough background or life experience to run other issues up the flagpole than a stolen election. They were talking about the election being stolen nine months before the election even started. In fact, it was the most secure election we’ve ever had. Nobody’s actually given any direct, substantiated evidence that a judge could use to even warrant an investigation, much less a prosecution for voter fraud. In fact, the only voter fraud that ever really happened, I believe, was (by) a Republican, who did something with a ballot for his deceased wife.
Do you believe that any sort of election reform is necessary?
Not so much, unless you think of campaign reform.
It’s wrong that we base everything on money. I’m at the low end of the totem pole when it comes to raising money. But to be told that you can’t be in a debate because you haven’t raised a certain amount of money? I should be in a debate because I’m qualified to be in the debate.
Catherine Cortez Masto can beat (Adam Laxalt and Sam Brown). She’s a very intelligent, strong, articulate lady, well-educated and knows the ropes. She would love to be able to run against Adam Laxalt. Or she’d love to run against Sam Brown. She might not want to run against me.
We need to do a better job of making sure we have standards that everybody needs to be able to get their story out there. Let the voters see who we are.
What are your thoughts on the Jan. 6 riot in the Capitol?
That was a very unfortunate event, and it was an illegal act. Anybody involved with that, whether the planning or execution, or the delivery of that act, should be held responsible for what they did. And whether it’s jail time or some other type of thing, everybody should be held accountable to the law, including President Donald Trump. Nobody’s above the law.
We need to make sure that we are accountable for our actions. And we should be that way throughout life for whatever we do, whether you’re the president or the person in a small town in Nevada who decided to make the trip out there, you have to be held accountable for what you do.
Nevada has a front-row seat to climate change through rising temperatures, droughts and wildfires. Are there any policies you would like to implement in Congress to help Nevada?
All of our clean energy aspirations need to be explored. We have a lot of fuel in this nation, we have a lot of raw materials and wealth underground that we can extract.
And I know people are telling us to do more. We want our energy independence. But there’s nothing wrong with buying foreign oil. And I don’t believe in buying Russian oil. It was 2.9% of our production anyway, so that’s not a big deal (The Sun fact-checked this and found 3.5% of imported oil came from Russia).
We need to make sure we extract our resources and oil in the most efficient, clean way possible. And we do have clean natural gas. We do have clean energy. We have, obviously, the resources of the sun and all those other things we can do to have clean energy. And there’s some cost to that. There’s an environmental concern with the way things look, or what do we do with those solar panels after they’ve expired 20 years later? Are we putting in solar panels where we’re selling the energy to California instead of using the first subs in Nevada? All those things need to be addressed. But clean energy is very important. It brings good jobs. It helps clean up our environment and gives us some energy independence. So I’m all for it.
Do you think police reform is necessary?
I believe in making sure our police forces are well-trained. I used to be in law enforcement myself, so I believe we need to have excellent training. And we need to give everybody the tools that they need so accountability is good on both sides, both on the citizenry and for the police officers.
Police officers are wearing body cams, and there was always reluctance to that in the beginning. But now people are seeing it and officers I’ve talked to say, “Hey, we like the body cams, because it protects us from false allegations of abuse.” And it helps the police do a better job of making sure they know they’re being monitored. And the public is protected because it’s being monitored. It’s a two-way street where everybody wins.
I believe in the blue. All groups, whether you’re a minority group or a majority group, if you’re rich or poor, whatever, you deserve and expect law enforcement to be there to protect the laws.
How do you plan to improve the economy?
We need to repatriate manufacturing.
We need to make sure our alliances are more fair people to deal with and don’t take advantage of workers. We have human rights issues to deal with. Look at China, where people are working for pennies a day in areas of smoke and smog and everything. I mean, it’s killing these people. And it’s not right to enslave people to produce $1, or whatever it is, to get an extra few pennies out of this.
We need to make sure that human rights are protected. We can’t be dealing in dollars and cents when it comes to those types of values. ...
We have lithium up in Nye County. We have one of the largest lithium-production capabilities in the world right there. If we’re going to use that, we need to do it in an ecologically sound way, so we don’t hurt animals and people doing it, and we don’t scar the earth and stuff like that. ...
I believe in smaller government. We need to have a more efficient government. And we need to make sure that bills passed many, many years ago are taken into account. Some of these bills have long tails on them, where you might have had a program that passed in 1956, and we’re still funding it today.
We need to be making sure we don’t let the bill live longer than its actual natural lifespan should be.
