John Lane, the Republican running for Missouri House District 50, is centering his pitch to voters on small business development, university funding and crime prevention.
With incumbent Democrat Doug Mann stepping down, Lane faces Democrat Gregg Bush for the open seat.
“I’m spending time walking and meeting the constituency of the 50th District and listening to the issues that are important to them. That’s what’s going to drive my decision making,” he said.
“I think (it’s) important that we’ve got to set aside our personal feelings on issues at times,” said Lane, who has spent most of his professional career in the restaurant industry.
Lane said he believes the economy is the most important part of his campaign.
“We need to work to encourage small business development,” Lane said. “To do that, we need to make it easier to open a business and sustain that business mostly by reducing regulation and reducing taxes.”
Lane said a lot of government forms pertaining to opening and licensing small businesses could be consolidated because most ask for the same information.
Like many Republicans, he wants to see an end to state income tax.
Another goal for Lane is working to help businesses find employees.
“They have people that will call in to do appointments and interviews, half of them won’t even show up,” Lane said. “It’s a struggle for a lot of small business people to find the staff that they need in order to do the work that they want to.”
Lane said the MU Research Reactor Center and other facilities at NextGen Precision Health are important to making sure the University of Missouri stays on top with research.
“I’m running to make sure that we fund Mizzou, and I’m not going to commit to defund it,” Lane said. “I think Mizzou is instrumental in our community. It’s our largest employer in the community, and we need what Mizzou brings in their education to make small businesses successful.”
He also stressed the importance of trade schools and hopes to promote them as a viable alternative to a university education.
At the K-12 level, Lane said he believes that parents should be the ones to teach kids “social policy.” He said that a focus on social issues in public education leads to what he perceives as failures of public schools to teach students basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
Lane said he wants to give more money to police departments to fund community policing training programs. He believes that an increase in beat officers that know their neighborhoods would lead to greater public safety.
“I think crime has become a big problem for Columbia and for Boone County, and I think people should be able to feel safe in their homes and in their neighborhoods,” Lane said. “I’ve talked to a lot of folks that just simply don’t feel safe anymore in Columbia.”
But, he does not believe in the need for any new gun control measures.
“We should hold the criminals that use guns responsible for how they’ve used the gun and the crime that they’ve committed,” Lane said.
Lane was born in Columbia, but moved to Clinton, where he lived until he moved back to Columbia to attend the University of Missouri. He graduated in 1991 with bachelor’s degrees in accounting and hotel and restaurant
management. He went on to work for the university for three years, where he helped open the Reynolds Alumni Center.
Lane operated the Johnny’s Beanery bar and grill for several years, when he joined and served as president of the Missouri Restaurant Association from 2007 to 2008. Lane went to work in food service distribution, where he has been since 2008.
Lane became active in politics relatively recently. In the past year, he won the Boone County Republican Party Central Committee Ward 5 seat, then was elected Central Committee vice chair. He decided to run for House District 50 on Sept. 10, the last day to file after the previous Republican candidate dropped out.
While in college, Lane minored in political science, and cites Rick Hardy, a former professor, for sparking his interest in politics with his political science class.
In a letter to constituents, Lane wrote, “I’ve created jobs in this community and now I want to help make Columbia a better place to live.”
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