Meet Our Candidates Donyale Hall for Lieutenant Governor

Hi, I'm Jane Brady. I'm chair of the Delaware Republican Party and I'd like to introduce you to Donyell Hall. She's a veteran, a mother of 10, and she believes in Delaware and our future. She's willing to put herself on the line and invest her time and effort to make Delaware a better place to live. Donyell, it's good to have you with us today. Thank you for inviting me, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to share my platform and tell people what I stand for. So thank you again. Yes. Now, I understand that you have as part of your platform effective government. Tell us what you mean by that term. Well, effective government at the core of it talks about how we spend our taxpayer dollars here in Delaware. And there's a very clear indication that we, outside of COVID, didn't have a revenue problem, but we had a spending problem. And so in my experience, I used to work for the U.S. Department of Labor, where I acted as oversight for the entire state of Delaware for the federal monies coming into Delaware to service the veteran outreach programs. And what they had to do in order to maintain their funding stream was to have a quarterly report met and acted as oversight to be able to see that the intended recipient was actually getting the monies that were set aside. And so there's no reason in our state government with different programs that we can't have that same type of oversight and be able to have some accountability for where the tax dollars are going. And if we see that our tax dollars being spent in an ineffective program is not working, then after a five-year period, you should be able to determine whether you want to keep that program, whether it can be tweaked and preserved, or if we need to just get rid of it altogether. I think that's a very realistic approach to being able to solve some of the issues that we have here economically, is just to have a watchdog over where the money is going and have some transparency and some accountability for the funding. How about the one-party rule issue in Delaware? Often Republicans don't get to proper successfully their positions on some issues. Well, I'm a firm believer that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So certainly when you don't have a system where you have some checks and balances, you can't really see a good representation of the people's interest here in Delaware. And I think for that reason and that reason alone, that we need to be more open to having a conservative voice and have some robust conversations about what we really should be doing and how it can best benefit Delawareans. You talk about equitable education, and you know education is a big issue for Republicans in this year and subsequent years. And I wonder what you mean by equitable education? Well, there's no secret. If you look at the statistics here in Delaware, we have, I think the last number I saw was 40 percent of our high school graduates graduate on reading level. They're neither college ready or career ready coming out of high school. And I think that we need to look more closely on how we can get the dollars that follow the students into the classrooms, into the teachers' hands, so that we can see that achievement gap close and have some opportunities to make sure that we have some things in place that make our students stronger, they're tomorrow's leaders. And what we put in them today is what we're going to have in the decades to come. So it's a worthy place to focus our energy and effort on is to make sure that we properly educate our children. You also talk about the need for economic advancement and opportunity. And how would you advocate for that? What does that mean to you? Well, as a small business owner, I have firsthand experience dealing with the lack of reachable, accessible resources that strengthen our small business community. I think that it's a real shame in this age of technology that we shouldn't be able to have a one-stop shopping experience. So if I want to start a business, grow a business, I should be able to type in at Google or whatever search bar you use that, you know, I want to start a business, or I need working capital, and it should point to a place where all those resources should be housed. I've actually attended roundtable discussions where I have suggested, and I've seen something that's kind of metamorphosing into that, but it's still not all-encompassing. And I think that if we get the lending partners, for instance, involved, we can actually start having some metrics and track success of the availability of resources, even give, you know, a rating, a four- or five-star rating on how your experience was with various lending partners. And that takes the angst out of being able to grow economically here. I mean, our small businesses certainly are very important to our employment structure, and we need to make sure that we strengthen them and support them so they remain viable. Now, this is going out on social media, but also to the delegates and alternates, to the convention. Tell them a little bit about yourself, your personal life, and your life experiences, and why you want to be Lieutenant Governor of Delaware. Well, I think at the heart of why I decided to throw my hat in the ring in politics years ago was the fact that we have marginalized communities all across the state. Those are the people who have been overlooked and forgotten, and I've had to walk in those shoes personally in a lot of different arenas wearing a lot of different hats. And so, it's really important to me that working families, hardworking families, have a voice at the table to talk about the things that we need to be able to do here in the state of Delaware, lean in, have the influence to help craft policy that gives people socioeconomic advancement opportunities. Again, it's all about putting the resources where people can reach them and utilize them, and I think that we just have not developed an action plan that puts that in place. I will be sharing that on my website, exactly what my plan looks like, and all of my policy points, and where I feel that we should be concentrating our efforts, and what that strategy looks like. You can't come to the table with a belly full of complaints and have no solution. So, I'll definitely be sharing those in the coming weeks, and again, I really thank you for the opportunity to be able to address everybody who's watching this video. My website is up. You can go to www.donyellfordelaware.com, and you can find me on social media. I'd love to hear from people, and I would love to answer your questions. My phone number is there, and I always answer it. Well, there you go. That's Donyell Hall, Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Good luck, Donyell. We wish you all the best.