Collin Duprel has appeared at a of the same number of events as Sisters United. We have been impressed with his willingness to listen to women and understand what they would like to see from him as a representative in Washington. Collin was kind enough to sit down with us and chat with us about some important issues.
What is your opinion on the overturn of Roe v. Wade?
The first thing is, I don’t think the federal government should have been making sweeping legislation about abortion in the first place. However, it was already there, and it was something that was pretty happy with most of the country. And for justices to come in every four years under a different president and just change standing legislation and case law, I think it’s going to get pretty tiring if we play this monkey house of just putting more justices on the court every time we have a political change of mind. Roe V. Wade, and for a lot of reasons, should probably be codified at least to a certain degree. I think the beginning is what we talk about all the time and that’s what can we do to compromise for liberty? And I think at a baseline making exceptions for rape, incest, ectopic pregnancies, and mother’s life is the very minimum that we should be talking about.
What will you do to ensure that all people maintain access to critical healthcare despite growing restrictions on birth control, abortion, and other services?
The first thing that I think people need to think about is, just about a week, 10 days ago, my opponent, Dusty Johnson, he voted against women having access to contraceptions. And my opponent is also pro-life. To me, this is pretty common sense. If you want to stop abortions, you stop unwanted pregnancy. The more we can do that, the more we can curb, stop abortion at the source, because the reality is I am pro-life. I truly am. However, I don’t think that my morality should determine your morality, your reality.
And if I don’t feel a way about something that doesn’t mean that you should have to feel the same way, and I think the easiest way to do that is to stop unwanted pregnancies to begin with. Because not only that, our adoption system and our foster care system is clogged up too. And people that can’t get access to contraception are the ones that are having abortions and they’re ones that are giving their kids up for adoption, and we kill two birds with one stone.
What will you do to make sure that people who do get pregnant get the healthcare they need in South Dakota without fear of persecution?
This is one of the first things that we talk about when we start talking about abortion bans is what does it actually do? Because the reality is, I don’t think it saves any babies. If you’re a woman and you want to get an abortion, you’re going to get one whether the government tells you have permission to or not. So, I think making sure that women who are pregnant don’t have healthcare already, if we are truly a pro-life society, and I hope that we are, we’re going to make sure that they can have access to healthcare at least throughout their pregnancy. I think that we don’t necessarily need to talk about expanding Medicaid or Medicare, but we can talk about specific programs for low income women to get healthcare while they’re pregnant.
In 2006 and 2010 the people voted to keep access to abortion safe and legal for all who need it in South Dakota, yet the people in Pierre have continued to restrict access leading to a trigger law banning abortions after the reversal of Roe v. Wade. What is your plan to honor the voters and return access to safe and legal abortion to all that need them?
To begin with, I am running for federal office. That means that I can’t pass legislation within the state of South Dakota. What I can do as a federal politician is two things: we can talk about federal legislation that’ll change things across the country, and I can also use a little bit of momentum that I have for spreading my message as a federal politician to change some people’s minds. I think that South Dakota’s trigger laws are, frankly, unconstitutional because the reality is rapists in South Dakota, they get to choose the mother of their child, right now. And I don’t care what your opinion is on abortion one way or another, we all know that that’s inherently wrong. If there’s anything that we can do like I talked about, starting with that compromise for liberty, finding the very bare minimum of getting these abortions legal for certain cases, I think that we can start with that and then work our way towards greater medical freedom for everybody.
What do you plan to do to fight for equality for LGBTQ+, Women /Reproductive, Racial injustice, veterans, people with disabilities?
Not long after I announced, I was contacted by a group called The Equal Rights Advocacy Organization, and they asked me to sign a pledge, and I did. And that pledge was that if I’m elected, eventually we will get the amount of momentum needed to start what’s called The Equal Rights Amendment, which would be an amendment to our constitution which guarantees the rights of women not to be discriminated against by the public offices of any kind. I think that’s a good non-starter for everybody to deal with because it’s 2022 when talking about why the rules should be different for women and why they should be different [inaudible 00:05:23] is pretty outdated.
Two years ago, The people of South Dakota voted to legalize both medicinal and recreational marijuana. What will you do to honor the voters’ wishes to decriminalize marijuana?
The most dangerous thing about marijuana right now is being caught with it. If you look at our prison system, right now, the enforcement of marijuana laws has been pretty racially triggered. 50% of all the inmates in South Dakota right now incarcerated for marijuana of any kind are people of color, they make up 13% of our state. It doesn’t take a math whiz to figure out what’s going on here when it comes to racial discrimination in marijuana.
Secondly, we’re spending a lot of money as a country and as taxpayers. And, to me, true conservative values are figuring out ways to limit the amount of money that we spend. If we can get people not going to jail, not going to prison for marijuana laws and focus on people who commit crimes that have victims, we’re going to save money, the people are going to get what they want.
The third thing that I think is almost as important as all of them, probably even more important, is if you’re a federal politician, a state politician, a city politician county and your people send a very clear message on the ballot of what they want, regardless of your personal thoughts or feelings, you have a duty to obligate them and follow through and do what they want, or you have an obligation to resign.
What do you think should happen to individuals who are currently incarcerated or on probation for marrijuana related offenses after it is legalized?
Well, right now, we’re negotiating with Russia to get Britney Griner released from prison because we felt like her incarceration was wrong. I think if you’re in jail for marijuana and the only crime you had was possession then you should be released immediately and probably paid back for your time. I would say this, just because marijuana is legal and ingestion is legal, that doesn’t mean that you should be under the influence while you’re driving. If you were arrested for a DUI attributed to marijuana, then you should stay in jail.
What will you do to stop the violence against Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls?
I was down in Pine Ridge just a couple days ago, and I learned a lot about this. 87% of women in Pine Ridge are exposed to violence at some point in their lives, and one in three will encounter sexual violence at some point in their lives. The reality is when I talk about states, counties, and other places figuring it out for themselves, I’m not necessarily talking about the reservations, and I’ll tell you why. All reservations are federal property. All reservations and all tribes have treaties with the federal government. We made a deal with all the tribal people that was, if you accept the terms of living on these reservations, we as a federal government are going to take care of you. And we’ve really fallen flat on our face in terms of honoring that deal for a lot of different reasons. What we need are more committees that actually go to work, and I don’t mean from Washington DC. I mean people living and working on the reservations doing community outreach, talking to people in those communities, talking to the people that know women that have been missing, ~knocking on doors, doing investigations, and finding out what’s happening on the reservation as opposed to sitting in Washington DC and just writing about it on paper, because that’s all they’ve done so far.
What will you do to combat the long history of racism, oppression and social injustice against the indigenous people of South Dakota?
Well, I not only went to this powwow on Saturday, but if you go to my Facebook page, you can see I actually danced in it. And I think that the first step is just reaching out to people who think differently than you, who look differently than you are and making an example for everybody else who wears a hat like this for a lot of the part in South Dakota who have never encountered people like that before, even though they’re just a few miles away. We’re all supposed to live together in this country. It doesn’t matter if you’re Black, White, Haitian, purple, [inaudible 00:09:49]. If you’re voting and you’re paying taxes and you’re living in this country then you’re still an American, and we all need to live together.
What would your administration do to make sure young LGBTQ+ and BIPoC youth feel safe in South Dakota?
Well, to begin with, we can quit talking about any kind of legislation that limits the freedom between patients and their doctors. First and foremost, I believe in medical freedom. I believe in medical freedom, whether it comes to abortion. I believe in medical freedom whether it comes to vaccinations. I believe in medical freedom whether it talks about gender identity. It’s not the place of the federal government to decide what you do as a person as long as you’re not pushing it onto somebody else. There are concerns about child abuse from people who oppose the LGBT community. I want to make it clear that this isn’t endorsing child abuse. People who force their kids into unnecessary surgeries are still criminals. But it’s not the federal government’s job to go into each and every household and decide whether or not this kid is making a choice he wants. If there’s a crime being committed, it has to come about the same way, and that’s not by doing Gestapo-style checks on whether or not this kid is getting his medical freedom.
Currently, access to exploratory drilling has been granted to mining groups above Pactola Reservoir. What is your plan to protect our natural resources in South Dakota, such as fresh water, clean air, and the environment? What is your plan to prevent the future risks that are likely to happen?
To begin with, I want to protect all of our fresh water. This is one of the most precious resources that we have. On the same time, I’m still very pro-energy. There are responsible mining practices that need to be adhered to so that we can do this all pretty safely. I think that when it comes to what we consider sacred ground, there’s no harm in letting tribal authorities come in and at least observe and be allowed to have their opinions heard on how the mining is taking place and to at least act as non-partial observers so that they can see what’s going on, because we know that they’re going to be one of the first groups that are going to act out if something is happening that they don’t approve of.
We can’t just get rid of fossil fuels. We can’t. We’re not at that place in our country, and we’re not at that place in society. We need to still have fossil fuels. We need to drill. We need to provide for jobs, but we need to do it ethically, responsibly, and safely to preserve the environment and all the resources that we have too.
Our generation has lost far too many of our peers tragically to drugs, suicide or violence. What is your plan to make young South Dakotans feel safe, or like we have a future without drugs, trauma and violence?
On the one hand, we talk about making sure that marijuana is legal, and I think in a lot of ways, we’re going to talk about protecting our youth on the same token. When we talk about marijuana as a gateway drug, I believe that’s true, but I don’t believe it’s true because I think you use marijuana one day and then decide, man, I need something like meth now. That’s not what’s happening. What’s happening that makes it a gateway drug is that people live in communities where marijuana is illegal, and they have to buy it from a drug dealer. And that drug dealer who is already a criminal is then selling them things besides marijuana. That’s the only aspect of it that makes it a gateway drug. There’s no chasing a bigger high that occurs when it comes to marijuana, medical or recreational. So, I think when we legalize marijuana, we’re going to have a lot less problems with drugs and violence in the first place because we’re stopping it at the source.
We’re eliminating business for the cartels when it comes to selling harder drugs because they’re never getting access to those customers in the first place. I tell you, during the rally which is going on right now… I was a bouncer at the Broken Spoke Saloon for the better part of a decade, and I can’t tell you how many people that I kicked out of the bar late at night because they were too drunk, something that’s totally legal. I can tell you how many people I kicked out because they were too high, zero, because they never caused a problem. Nobody ever smoked too much marijuana and slapped around his wife or didn’t decided not to pay their tab. That does happen when you abuse alcohol, which, as we know, is completely legal and encouraged by the federal government quite a bit.
How can the voices of our generation and the voices be heard in a state as red as South Dakota?
Vote. That is so important. And especially, it’s something that I took away from being down on Pine Ridge this last week. There’s a lot of people on the reservations today that have political opinions but they simply don’t vote because they’re not registered, and some of them don’t even have transportation to get there. If you want to vote and you can’t, there are a million different political groups out there that’ll help you get to the polls. They’ll even send you a ballot in the mail, and help you pay for it a lot of the time. Reach out to the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, any one of those groups will be more than happy to make sure that you’re able to cast a vote. To help you vote. And a lot of people feel like their vote doesn’t matter. Their vote doesn’t matter. You look at the amount of people that don’t vote every election, and it’s usually more than the amount of people that do. So, if all those people who thought their vote didn’t matter actually voted, they would matter more than everybody else who actually voted already.
How can the citizens of South Dakota help you to achieve these goals?
Vote. For the love of God, vote. Vote, vote, vote. Find people you know to vote. Talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to anybody you see on the street. Follow me on Facebook. Go to my website, collinforcongress.com. Feel free to make a donation because there’s a lot of politicians out there that buy their elections. And, to date, we’ve taken no big money. We’ve only taken money from people that have names, no organizations of any kind.
You’ve got to be willing to put in a little bit of work. You’ve got to be the change you want to see in society. A lot of people sit back, they’ll talk on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. They’ll write letters to the editor about all the things wrong with this country, but they’re so afraid to actually do anything. So, don’t be afraid. And if you think I’m talking about you, then I am. You, listening, I’m talking about you. Get off the couch, get off the chair. Put down your phone when you’re driving and actually do something to make a difference. And I don’t even care if you vote for me or not. I’d like you to, but go to the ballot box. Research the candidates and make your voice heard because that’s the only way it will be.