Democratic candidate Renita Green will oppose Republican incumbent Kathy Swan in the Nov. 6 election to represent Missouri House of Representative District 147.

District 147 represents Cape Girardeau and part of Cape Girardeau County in the Missouri House of Representatives.

__Kathy Swan (R)__

Swan has spent a lifetime in the community. She attended Cape Girardeau public schools and graduated from Southeast.

“We believe that we live in a great area, a great community, in which to work, to raise children and to enjoy life,” Swan said. “My intent is to ensure that it stays that way.”

She said her platform is founded on making sure government stays smaller and taxes stay lower.

Swan has passed over 20 pieces of legislation in the past six years, many of which involve issues in education.

Swan said she would like to continue to pursue areas she deems important, including education, workforce development and health care.

“I am concerned about the access to health care, particularly in the rural areas,” Swan said.

Swan sponsored the telehealth bill language in 2013 to help establish telehealth by advanced practice nurses in certain rural areas that have a shortage of healthcare professionals.

She said she wants to increase access to good health care for all Missourians, regardless of their zip code.

“I have lived in Southeast Missouri all my life,” Swan said. “I have the same common sense values that Southeast Missouri holds, and that’s how I have approached every issue in what makes the most economical, common sense to help the most people.”

__Renita Green (D)__

Green carries community priorities, which include education, affordable housing and safe shelter and accessible, affordable health care.

“Education needs to be more geared toward the students learning versus the students testing,” Green said.

She was fully ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2008. She has served four churches since 2001, the most recent St. James AME Church in Cape Girardeau, and it’s brought her near to the problems citizens are facing on daily basis.

“One of the ladies on my team, her and her husband both are retired educators,” Green said. “They had to go to their doctors to figure out which one of them could do without their medication because they both can’t afford it.”

If elected, Green said she will work for the legislation and funding necessary to make District 147 better for all.

She participated in a panel discussion concerning homelessness and affordable housing with incumbent Swan. The conversation was filled with talk about what is not possible, which inspired her to run.

“I don’t take well to being told what we can’t do,” Green said. “Because we can do it. Does that mean that we have to shift priorities? Yes. Does it mean we have to find creative solutions? Yes.”

Green hopes to build strong businesses, provide secure jobs with sustainable wages for workers, and favors common-sense gun reform.

She said her problem-solution mentality encourages collaboration and community conversation.

“I show up when people ask me to show up,” Green said. “There’s something in that showing up that seems to make a difference.”