Jeffrey Cila
Elections and appointments
Personal
Contact
Jeffrey Cila (Republican Party) ran for election to the South Carolina House of Representatives to represent District 95. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Cila completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Jeffrey Cila was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. He earned an A.S. from the University of the State of New York (also known as Excelsior College) in 1986, a B.A. from the University of South Carolina, Columbia in 1990, a B.S. from the University of South Carolina, Columbia in 2002, and a graduate degree from the University of Illinois, Chicago in May 2012. His professional experience includes working as a clinical business intelligence analyst. He served in the United States Navy from January 1978 to September 1999. Cila is affiliated with the Health Information Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Health information Management Association (AHIMA).[1]
Elections
2022
See also: South Carolina House of Representatives elections, 2022
General election
Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Gilda Cobb-Hunter advanced from the Democratic primary for South Carolina House of Representatives District 95.
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Jeffrey Cila advanced from the Republican primary for South Carolina House of Representatives District 95.
Endorsements
To view Cila's endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
2020
See also: South Carolina House of Representatives elections, 2020
General election
Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Incumbent Gilda Cobb-Hunter advanced from the Democratic primary for South Carolina House of Representatives District 66.
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Jeffrey Cila advanced from the Republican primary for South Carolina House of Representatives District 66.
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Jeffrey Cila completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Cila's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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My wife Debra and I are long time resident of Santee, SC and actually live in District 95 year round. A retired Naval Intelligence Officer with 17 years of healthcare information management experience in the private sector working for Lexington Medical Center and USC School of Medicine. Hold four degrees, Masters Health Informatics from U of Illinois-Chicago, two Bachelors from U of SC - Columbia, and and Associates from the U of New York - Albany. Current serving as pastor for three churches, Smoaks Circuit - Walterboro District of the United Methodist Church and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Orangeburg Christian Academy. I ride motorcycle, fish, hunt, golf, and play with our three grandchildren whenever I can.
- Without Change...Nothing Changes
- My Democrat opponent is a 30 year incumbent of district with stagnant academic achievement and slow economic growth.
- It's time to reduce the tax rates and phase our personal property taxes, which are an undue burden.
-That taxation by city, country, state, and nation be reasonable to support vital services and infrastructure; that it be equitably shared so all citizens have a stake in there communities; personal property should not be an ongoing revenue source for governments.
-In safeguarding the rights of the unborn, encouraging the exercise personal responsibility, and the excessive use of abortion on demand.
- That government must be proactive in providing state of the art public education to ensure our young people are prepared for an ever changing economy. The state constitution mandate to provide a "minimally adequate education" is a substandard view that devalues the potential of our citizens and handicaps the state's ability to compete in a way that attracts quality employment opportunities that can facilitate a rising standard of living for all. The governor needs to work with the key legislators of all elected parties and develop relationships with legislators that are introducing new ideas and doing the essential committee work so the people's needs are being met.
Developing a robust primary education and transportation infrastructure that meets our growth demand that increases academic achievement and leverages all modes of transit for persons and freight. Our intellectual capital is being squandered with low achievement during students formative years putting our state at a comparative disadvantage among states. As our retiree ratio raises, there needs to be modes of travel that are communal (rail versus reliance on only intercity bus services) as well as personal types of conveyance.
No, this is the root of our governance problem. We are saddled with career politician, entrenched occupies of an office, and unwilling to act boldly in the near term. Limits on service necessitates the need to adapt to change. Too often government, waits out its constituents to get use to a "new normal" vice stepping out with leadership and vision to correct and provide solutions that can have longevity. Politicians create their own longevity by acting too slow but promising much...
Absolutely, party is your constituent base but should not mean legislators become totally beholding to senior party official; who are not always the most capable after years in office only concerned with the next election.
There needs to be sensitivity to the fact that metropolitan areas hold too much representation power. Rural areas become minor players whose tax dollars end up leaving their community to prop up the metropolitan areas.
To speak plainly, be honest with your constituents, provide meaningful services locally, and keep the electorate informed when the politics of an issue are getting in the way of solving problems that impact their daily lives.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2020
Jeffrey Cila completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Cila's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Education includes a Masters in Health Informatics from the University of Illinois - Chicago 2012, two time graduate of University of South Carolina - Columbia with a B.S. Information Management 2002 and B.A. in 1990. Maintained a residence in Santee, South Carolina since 1987.
Currently work for Lexington Medical Center as Business Intelligence Developer/Clinical Analyst for the past five years. USC School of Medicine Systems Manager for 15 years, taught high school for two years at Orangeburg Christian Academy, and U.S. Navy Lieutenant - Retired (1999), having served 22 years starting out as enlisted Hospital Corpsman.
- Without change, there can be no change.
- Healthcare and the pace of technological change create burdensome expenses for people, businesses, communities, and states.
- Government needs to better manage revenues leaving more earned income in the pockets of those who earned it.
- Retaining public and private health coverage systems as mechanisms to bring about a Consumer Driven Healthcare System, where citizens have the ability to price shop for quality health services.
- Infrastructure projects that can be capitalized through public-private ventures.
- Strengthening through renewal of our system of compulsory public education. The quality can be driven by the content which state and local government arrive at though collaboration with the businesses that drive our capitalist economic system. We need to revitalize vocational education such that our Educational Lottery can actually pay for those career opportunities.
-The fair and equitable administration of justice in our legal system with clear pathway options for adjudication and sentences that have a goal for non-violent offenders of truly achieving correction and/or rehabilitation so they can return productively to society.
-Increasing the availability of drug and alcohol rehabilitation services at the county level where the patient and government share in the cost to achieve a positive outcome. Society is on a dangerous path of legalization but does not fully embrace the negative harm to teens and young adults just getting started on their lives.
- Promote municipality actions aimed at curbing pollution of our waterways, updating waste management practices, and direct action to reduce the litter that lines our roadways and works it's way into our water sheds, lakes, and streams. I look up to the person that I should be in all endeavors because of my faith in a God who wants the best for all peoples and given us the charge to look after one another. Beyond that, decisive people and ones who accept the responsibility to make meaningful change in the lives of people. My high school civics teacher Mike Manning who had a wonderful sense of community and promoted in his students to engage in acts of service, namely being a regular blood donor. My Operating Room Supervisor in the Navy, LCDR Luther Daniels who started his career as a Navy Nurse during Vietnam working in Guam. He never made peace with that war or the severely injured patients he cared for. But he compensated by a lifetime of providing comfort and compassion to everyone he came in contact with. General George Patton, the myth of the man really, he seems to be a person that sets a goal, believes it to be noble, and works and prods his subordinates to achieve it. His motive was to be expedient, sometimes courses of actions need a direct path to quickly get through a bad circumstance before it got worse. Another is Colin Powell, former General and Secretary of State, mostly because of a quote I attribute to him regarding intelligence given to him by analysts at briefings. "Tell me what you know, and tell me what you think, and be sure to distinguish between the two." In life our paths cross many lives and for expedience we may just ask for advice and direction, hopefully we have a basis for trusting in what we are told before acting on it. The people who have shaped my life were trustworthy, regardless of fame or lack there of. Many people in life will confidently give you bad information without context or source. I've learned from both types to do my own homework, my own work, and my own investigation to find answers. The people I hold close as dear friends tell me what they know and what they think and have no problem telling me the difference between the two...
The ability to listen and relate to citizens across the socioeconomic spectrum. The public needs to see that elected officials can be sympathetic, not just empathize with their concerns because their lives have shared experiences. That the citizens' elected officials understand them because they too have struggled, succeeded, served others, and have been served by others. An elected official should always feel they are the advocate for their constituency charged to convey their needs and courageously honest to articulate why at times compassionate compromise may be necessary from time to time. Elected officials need to treat the electorate as friends, be trustworthy in their motives and dealings, and diligent in service to the citizens they work for (not themselves) to ensure our system of laws and governance is fair and just.
I remember watching the television, at the moment President Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas. I was almost 4 years old but recall it clearly because I told my Mother, who was in the kitchen, and she came to watch the news...and she openly cried. That made an impression on me, even at that age, something tragic had happened that even Mom could not make better...even for herself.
My very first job required obtaining a work permit at the age of 14. With that I worked for a summer planting Christmas trees for $1.65 and hour. I left that job for an after school job sweeping and daily cleanup of the local elementary school for $2.20 and hour for the next two years.
The Bible, because every time I'm searching for an answer one can always be found.
Doc Savage. One of the first paperbacks I began reading as a youth and sadly never finished. A traveler, hero, and adventurist. Appealed to me for being fearless character doing good with a surrounding cast of military type characters operating our of New York. Set me on a path believing life will be exciting and I can survive it.
Tom T. Hall - Whose Gonna Fee Them Hogs
Like many families over the past decades, maintaining a sense of close connection to multi-generation family members has been complicated. Our family began with close ties as a youngster and grew to 6 children then ended in divorce when I was in elementary school (2 of 6). My mother went to work and remarried a gentleman who had lost his wife and had 5 children of his own. By the time I was a senior in high school little sister was born making us a blended family or 14 people. We were all very different people in terms of heritage, likes, and social circles. A family that large, or any group, will touch just about every point of success and heartache in the world. So it was for us, a struggle to relate to one another and to stay connected as individuals as a result. Building a cohesive connected family that the world could not harm was a goal I set for myself. That's a tall order, difficult to do, and harder to maintain in a world that seems to evolve too fast - or not at all depending on your lot in life. Yet I believe to my soul families units are important, they should be supported and celebrated as the "tap-root" where you can always find the help you need, when you need it most.
The House is where the pulse of the people emanates. Given the districts are more numerous than the counties themselves should afford Representatives a closer understanding of the needs and desires of the people. The dialogue among Representatives is essential to reach consensus on issues that require a legislative remedy. I see the State Senate as a smaller body that takes the well being of the county and state more into consideration to ensure regional issues are not forced upon the entire state in a manner that my cause undue harm, disruption, or discomfort. Their insight and deliberations afford the time for municipalities within districts to ensure issues are not inherently regional and ones they can work out. But in those cases where the issue and remedy would be a benefit to the state as a whole then the House has a duty to draft, pass, and promote the peoples legislative agenda for the state Senators to act in the best interest of the citizenry, which ultimately is the state.
I do not. Our system of government should be such that the all people of sound moral character and competence should be able to step into a representative position at all levels to make the voice of their constituents heard and acted upon. Politics has become a club dominated by reciprocity and legalism as tactics to delay. Is it helpful to understand civics, yes. Governing should be a process aided by clear rules of procedure but it should not be overly burdened such that tradition, imposed decorum,excessive regulation, and seniority is valued above ideas and the needs of the citizenry to exercise their God given right to liberty.
South Carolina is growing with internal and external pressures at a rate that now exceeds 600,000 persons every 10 years. Our small businesses make up a significant percentage of the opportunities for employment of our citizens. That is a good thing, but government needs to be forward focused to ensure infrastructure is ahead of that growth. We know today our population will be greater every successive year. Government needs to be out in from with infrastructure that promotes commerce, provides quality uniform public education, that healthcare is consumer driven and value based, that our legal system is fair for all economic segments of the society, and that regulation promotes safe prosperity opportunities so our citizens and businesses can thrive harmoniously.
The Governor must embrace that he has the best interest of all citizens as his top priority and that our state should lead boldly. Setting an agenda can often be words and no concrete course of action when the legislature is mired in political expedience. Governors need to move among the people and businesses and see the shared goals of both and prod the legislature to capitalize on those commonalities to serve the people and meet the social and economic needs of a growing state. Frankly, few governors today offer concrete plans or draft legislative initiatives to get the entrenched bureaucracy to act and then get out of the way of the free enterprise to operate.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
External links
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 22, 2020
Leadership
Speaker of the House:G. Murrell Smith
Majority Leader:Davey Hiott
Minority Leader:James Rutherford
Representatives
Republican Party (86)
Democratic Party (36)
Vacancies (2)
