Ahead of the state’s September 10 primary, NHPR is talking to the top candidates in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District to learn more about their stance on some of the biggest concerns we’ve heard from voters.

Read on to read NHPR All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa’s interview with Republican Joe Kelly Levasseur, a Manchester city councilman.

What questions do you have for the candidates running for Congress and governor in the 2024 elections? What issues do you want them to address when seeking your vote? Share your thoughts here.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Many voters we’ve spoken with are concerned about the high cost of living here in New Hampshire. What measures would you propose or support to make life in the state more affordable?

Well, as a restaurant owner for 35 years, I probably know more about food and energy costs than most. Five years ago, my restaurant cost me about $20,000 to operate with utilities. I’ve since leased the restaurant. Five years later, the owner told me he was spending $50,000 on utilities. So when you look at gas prices, oil prices, electricity prices, I think those are basically the factors that are driving up food prices everywhere. Anywhere you own a restaurant, every store in the country, of course, the grocery stores are all — everyone has their fruits and vegetables, their meat, all their groceries delivered by trucks from all over the country. So when oil prices and gas prices are high, they have to raise those prices somehow.

I believe that Biden’s decision to shut down the Keystone Pipeline didn’t really affect the amount of oil available, but it had a psychological effect and drove up prices because a lot of people and a lot of companies assumed there was going to be an energy shortage. So the fact that we’re not drilling and our prices went up really affected the cost of everything.

So your approach would first be to reduce the cost of oil and fuel to make things more affordable, right?

New Hampshire is one of those really weird places. Well, the whole Northeast is, but our electricity costs are ridiculous. If you own a restaurant or a store, you have refrigerators running all day, right? All day long, you have refrigeration running. We need to do something in New Hampshire to reduce those electricity costs. And, you know, we need to figure this out. I think we should be using a lot more nuclear power than we are currently doing.

Immigration and border policy are also important issues for many voters. What immigration policy would you specifically support?

Well, I would definitely support legal immigration. I really believe that we need to bring a lot of immigrants into the country because we had and still have a very serious labor shortage. My own restaurant, one of the main reasons I finally had to close it is because we couldn’t find help. And there were a lot of good people out there. I worked with a lot of Venezuelans. A lot of people from South America had worked in my restaurant. Very good employees.

I think legal immigration has always been something we should have been pursuing. Right now, it’s kind of scary because all these people are coming into the country and we don’t know who they are. We don’t know if they’re using real IDs. We don’t know if they’re using real social security numbers. They’re not screened. So we’re not sure what their background is. I think that’s a bit of a burden on businesses.

So when it comes to enforcing legal immigration, would you support additional funding for border patrol for the wall on the border? What would that political support look like for you?

If there’s a border wall, I think it slows down the process of them just walking across. But I mean, we have a border wall all along the southern border and they find ways to get in. But it’s not about how they get in. They’re being let in. They’re being let in by the policies of this current administration. I’d love to build a border wall and get it done, just to get that argument out of the way. But I think it really depends on what the Border Patrol is told by the government that’s running the country. If the Border Patrol is being told not to let these people in and you have an agreement with Mexico to hold them there until you’ve vetted them enough to let them in, that’s policy. And the policy of this administration was to just let them in. So that was an issue for us.

(Editor’s note: You can read NPR’s coverage of President Biden’s administration’s latest border policy Here.)

Republicans in Congress have voted across party lines to restrict abortion. Would you support federal restrictions on abortion?

The Supreme Court has made its decision, and I will abide by that decision. And if I am elected to Congress, I will not do anything that takes away any rights from the states. I will let the states sort it out themselves. They have fought long and hard to make it a state right. So I see no reason to get involved in this matter at all.

If your GOP colleagues supported a policy that would have federal implications for abortion here in New Hampshire, would you vote with them?

I wouldn’t do it if it was just Republicans. I would do something, you know, there would have to be a majority — and I’m not talking about 50-50 majorities, I’m talking about 75-75 (and) both parties could agree on something with the president. (Then) I would consider that. But that’s never going to happen because we can’t seem to get people in Congress to agree on anything.

I just want to leave it as it is. I want to see how this develops over the next decade and how it works for the states. A lot of people thought there would be a lot of disaster if Roe v. Wade was lifted, but I didn’t see it. I think New Hampshire was in the position that most people are comfortable with. Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine are neighboring states, so I don’t think women should or have the same fears that they originally had two years ago, or at least I hope they don’t.

We continue to hear from voters that they are fed up with political polarization. Trust in Congress across party lines continues to erode. What background qualifies you to work with members of all parties to achieve the best for New Hampshire?

So I’ve been a Republican in Manchester for seven terms. I’m a councilman for all 12 districts. We have 14 councilmen, 12 of them for each district. I cover all 12. For the last, I think 14 years, I’ve worked with boards that have 12 Democrats and 2 Republicans. And I’ve had to work across the board as a very small Republican on the board, and we’ve done a lot of work. I’ve worked very well with the Democrats. I work with anybody who’s doing the right thing and getting things done in the best interest of Manchester, and I don’t think that’s going to be an issue when I go to Congress. I’m just somebody who just does the job that I think is right. For me, it has nothing to do with politics. I’ve never asked anybody what party they’re from when they call me for constituent service. I just do my job, and I do it well.

Click here to view interviews with all of the top candidates for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.