The midterm elections are Nov. 3. WPSU's Anne Danahy spoke with Beth Farnham, the Democratic candidate running for the U.S. House 13th Congressional district, challenging Republican U.S. Rep. John Joyce. Farnham lives in Adams County and is a stay-at-home parent. She has served as a school board member and worked as a credit analyst and administrative assistant. The 13th district covers a large section of southcentral Pennsylvania, including Blair, Huntingdon and Mifflin counties.
WPSU reached out to Joyce for an interview multiple times, but did not hear back. Here is Farnham's conversation with WPSU.
Anne Danahy
Beth Farnham, thank you for coming in to talk with us.
Beth Farnham
My pleasure, Anne. Thank you very much for having me here today.
Anne Danahy
You ran against Representative Joyce in 2024 and lost. He got 74% of the vote. Why are you running again?
Beth Farnham
Because I love my country. I am answering that call of history in this moment to check the egregious violations of the current presidential administration. We've got a president who is violating human rights and constitutional law, and he must be stopped. Unfortunately, people like Representative Joyce are just incredibly complicit in allowing this president and his cabinet members to continue unchecked. And it is hurting the American people. The president went and declared war illegally against Iran, and when it has finally come up for vote in Congress, our own US representative, John Joyce, keeps voting to continue this illegally declared war. So it is costing Americans literally.
Anne Danahy
What do you see as the biggest issue facing Americans, and what would you like to see Congress do about it?
Beth Farnham
Well, the very first thing is to recapture affordability of our American lives. You know, everyday Americans such as the hardworking families and the retirees on fixed incomes and everyone who is not a multimillionaire are struggling right now. We are struggling at the pump with the price of gasoline. We are struggling with the price of home heating oil. We are struggling with the cost of groceries. We are struggling with the cost of health care and housing. So absolute number one, the thing that we need to work on is affordability. And the first thing to do is to pull us out of Iran in order to reduce those costs and fuel. Our farmers are suffering too. We also need to rein in our tariff policy. Currently, it's emotional tariff by tweet by our current president. But we really need to work with economic advisors and rein in that tariff policy and reestablish relationships with our trusted allies so that our national security is not further put at risk.
Anne Danahy
And you started to answer this question, but what specifically do you think Congress should be doing to deal with the rising prices of everything from food to fuel?
Beth Farnham
Well, that's it. We have to start with pulling out of Iran. There is no sense to this ridiculous war that is just costing us — the groceries and gasoline, like I mentioned. It is also drawing down our reserves of oil. It is also drawing down our stockpiles of weapons. So this renders our nation less secure. We also need to rein in the cost of healthcare. A lot of people may be experiencing skyrocketing premiums, especially if they get Penny, which is Pennsylvania's version of the Affordable Care Act. That is because our own US representative, John Joyce, signed that, I'm sorry, he voted for that bill. And so he voted for the bill that ended the COVID era subsidies. And now people across our district are finding out the hard way that their payments are rising several hundred dollars per month. So the key for that to solve in Congress is to have a national healthcare plan. But you need Democrats in Congress to make that happen.
Anne Danahy
Data centers are drawing a lot of pushback across the political spectrum. Do you think they should be more regulated at the federal level? How would you address them?
Beth Farnham
Absolutely. I think I would actually support right now the three-year moratorium that's been proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders. I believe it is wise to look into... to stop the builds in order to ensure that the economic impact will be positive for community members and that the environmental and consumer impact will not be negative for community members. And right now, we just don't have those reassurances. We need these AI data centers regulated, and we cannot afford to build more. Plus, I don't know that we're fully justifying their builds in the first place. Unfortunately, our own U.S. representative is so gung-ho about AI data centers that he actually pushed for an FBI investigation into Americans who oppose AI data centers. So again, this opponent just needs to be voted out. And vote for me, please — Beth Farnham.
Anne Danahy
Can you elaborate on what your concerns are specifically about data centers?
Beth Farnham
Sure, absolutely. So first of all, they take up large chunks of land that could be better used maybe for farming. This is an agricultural area. They also consume vast amounts of water. Now arguments are made for closed loop systems, which would be less evaporative, but it's not 100%. They also use vast amounts of energy. Now I went to a presentation from the Penn State Extension, and this was in Franklin County, where they explained that really they wanted to power them through natural gas from the gas basin. But when I mentioned counties that were not in the gas basin, they mentioned micro reactors. Micro reactors, we're talking nuclear reactors that can fit on the back of a truck. They have a little bit of a gee whiz factor. Unfortunately, they're not so developed that they're used militarily or commercially. So a lot of this is predicated on a theory that we would use micro reactors. So the technology is interesting, but it's not explored. So I don't think that we're where we should be in terms of justifying them and the resources they use.
Anne Danahy
Do you support term limits for members of Congress and the Supreme Court and what would you like to see and why?
Beth Farnham
Thank you so much for asking me this important question. I do support term limits for justices of the Supreme Court. They are not elected by the American people. They are appointed. So I believe that they should have term limits. However, I don't support term limits for members of Congress, and the reason is because each election is that term limit. However, I do recognize we have a problem in the United States. Voters keep voting for the same people election after election, and so they're in there so long. Now we do need to understand that if we were to put term limits on members of Congress, the people who would most benefit from this are the staffers and lobbyists who wouldn't have term limits and be very grooved in to the machinations of how Congress works, whereas you'd have a lot of junior members of Congress kind of jockeying for position and influence, and you'd have the lobbyists best in control of those situations. So we don't want to have that kind of thing, but we do want our members of Congress to be duly elected. And so what I propose that is vastly different is that members of Congress be compelled to hold town halls. These are public in-person town halls and they must hold them quarterly. They must be accountable to their constituents. No more hiding like Representative John Joyce. Our members of Congress serve us and therefore we deserve to be in the same space with them, sharing our concerns, asking our questions, having them answer us, the people who have elected them or may elect them out.
Anne Danahy
Beth Farnham, thank you so much for coming in to talk with us.
Beth Farnham
Thank you very much. I really appreciate it, Anne.
WPSU reached out to Republican incumbent John Joyce for an interview multiple times, but did not hear back.
