Texas has not had a Democratic senator since 1994, but despite the odds, former congressman and democratic candidate Paul Sadler is campaigning against tea party Republican candidate Ted Cruz.

On Oct. 18, Sadler came to Midwestern to discuss health care, education and the economy.

“I ran because we deserve an effective government,” Sadler said. “I have the qualification and experience. Right now we have an obstructionist government and a Congress than can’t agree to do anything. That’s hurting every single one of us.”

Sadler is known for being fiercely independent and not letting this party define him.

At a rather impromptu meeting in the Atrium with only 20 or so people, Sadler said his track record proves that he can do bipartisanship.

Sadler, who was chairman of the Texas Public Education Committee for eight years, said the most important thing he can do to keep university tuition down is to maintain the Department of Education on a federal level.

“We must maintain the Department of Education on a federal level to have a real balanced student loan program to help with the cost and keep down interest rates,” Sadler said.

Cruz defended a policy to abolish the departments of education, commerce and energy.

“The most effective thing I can do is making it an effective loan program with low interest rates and any program that can help students deal with the high price of tuition,” he said.

Sadler said from the protection of Social Security to women’s health rights, he differs from Cruz on almost every issue.

“I’m for allowing women to make that decision themselves and he wants to take it away from women,” he said. “He has what I view as a very extreme view of the world – a very different view of the world. He has a real tea party and extreme views.”

Sadler said marriage equality is another issue where it greatly disagrees with Cruz.

Sadler said marriage equality is a matter of discrimination and non-discrimination.

“A marriage license is issued by the state,” he said. “Religion may choose to bless a marriage or not, but the policy of the state should be non-discriminatory.”

Sadler said current laws discriminate against people based upon sexual preference or sexual orientation.

“I’m not asking anyone to change their faith or religious beliefs, but it’s a matter of should we as a government discriminatory or not and I don’t think we should be,” he said.

When it comes to the economy, Sadler said everything is in place for the United States to have a great economic recovery if only the Congress would act.

“What the business community wants more than anything is stability and predictability,” he said. “They want stable tax policy and to be able to predict where [the economy] is going.”

Sadler said uncertainty by business owners is one way to explain the current job market.

“We have an unprecedented amount of capitol in corporate America today, but it is not being unleashed because of the uncertainty,” Sadler said. “We simply put those two things in place, we’d see this economy continue to rebound. All of this has to happen to create a larger job market.”