The four men vying for the Republican nomination for the 59th District seat in the Michigan House of Representatives squared off on Tuesday, presenting their case to Cass County voters as to why they deserve a spot on the ballot in November.

John Bippus, Aaron Miller, Roger Rathburn and Bob Sills, all residents of St. Joseph County, fielded questions from local voters during the League of Women Voters in Berrien and Cass County’s candidate forum, held at the Cass County COA’s Lowe Center. Around 50 citizens from around the area attended the debate.

During the 90-minute session, the candidates answered a variety of questions concerning issues that concern the people of Cass County, including those about governmental spending, education and, perhaps biggest of all, the maintenance of the region’s ailing roads and bridges.

Bippus, the chair of the St. Joseph County Road Commission, said that the solution to improving the condition of the state’s infrastructure was to direct existing governmental funds towards those types of projects.

“The way to pay for improvements to existing infrastructure is to look at restructuring state government,” he said. “We need to look at ways of cutting costs at the state level.”

Miller echoed Bippus’ statements, arguing that raising taxes on citizens to solve the problem was an unacceptable solution. Instead, he proposed that the Michigan’s gas tax rates should change, charging more per gallon of diesel fuel.

“Our trucks do far greater damage than our cars on our roads,” Miller said. “The ratios that we pay on our gas are not the same ratios as the damage. We need to look at what damage they are doing to our roads and have them pay proportionally for that.”

Miller, a high school mathematics teacher, also criticized the state’s implementation of national common core education standards, a point of contention among many educators throughout the state. He argued that these standards should be dropped, and that Michigan should instead control its own benchmarks for student success.

“The aim behind the standards were wonderful, to raise our educational standards,” Miller said. “But we really must look at not putting our students through the same educational hole, everywhere they go.”

Rathburn, the former Superintendent of the Three Rivers school district, said that decisions about student curriculum should be made at the local level.

“I think that each school district should have its choice of what curriculum to implement,” he said. “I think that decisions are best made when the people on the front lines are making them.”

When asked about by the audience about whether they support private, for-profit charter schools, the former educator voiced his opposition to such entities, arguing they rarely spend devote the same amount of resources to students as public schools.

“What happens when charter schools operate as a business is that just open up elementary buildings,” Rathburn said. “It’s much less expensive to educate a child K-6. You see very few charter schools at the high school level. It costs a lot to run the science labs, add bands, athletic programs.”

Sills, on the other hand, said he was in favor of charter school programs, even ones that operate on a for-profit model.

“I think it creates a competitive atmosphere in terms of public schools,” Sills said. “I think there’s an unnecessary rivalry being built out there. I think a lot of them do compeliment each other.”

The candidates were also asked a number of questions referring to low voter turnouts, especially for primary elections, and about the importance of absentee voting.

“Absentee voting is a good thing,” Bippus said. “It gets out, it gets people to vote. A lot people I’ve spoken to have told me they’ve already voted.”

Sills, on the other hand, felt that some voters are abusing current absentee ballots laws, and that permitting early voting may cause some to make decisions before fully evaluating the candidates running for office, the business owner said.

“It is a honor to be able to go to the voting booth,” Sills said. “If you diminish that to an envelope with a stamp on it, I think you’re overlooking the patriotic principles of our country.”

One issue that all four candidates expressed unanimous support for was Proposal 1, one of the ballot proposals that will go to voters during the primary election.

If passed, the proposal will eliminate personal property tax paid by businesses for commercial equipment in Michigan. The Republican hopefuls said they believed that by doing so, the state will encourage further business development in the region.

The four candidates will be on the ballot during the primary election on Aug. 5. The winner of their party’s nomination will go on to face Mike Moroz, who is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination, for the seat during the general election on Nov. 4.

Tuesday’s forum was the only debate the League of Women Voters has planned for the primary election season, though the organization will also hold one for the 59th District race before the general election.