Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Iowa 2nd District U.S. H

Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 2020 Iowa 2nd District U.S. House Debate 20240712

Iowa secondhe Congressional District debate. Your voice, your vote. Moderator welcome to the second Congressional District debate in cedar rapids. This is the first of a twopart set of debates. The next debate will be next thursday, october 15. Focus on a few different topics and we will tonight such as education, but still, weve got plenty of subjects to work through for the next hour. James lynch,y longtime political reporter with the gazette in cedar rapids, also to serve as moderators tonight. Audience. Hout an we are trying to keep it socially distanced with the candidates and now it is time to meet our candidates. Democrat rita hart is a former served as iowa state senator in the 49th district six years, covering clinton and scott counties. On the right, Mariannette Millermeeks, ophthalmologist from a tumwater ottumwa. Soft for 60ead a seconds to talk about why you are the best choice for this seat in congress. Ms. Hart thank you so much and it is a pleasure to be here. Im rita hart. Im a former teacher, farmer, and a lifelong rural iowa and. Agrew up on a dairy farm with democratic father and a republican mother and eight brothers and sisters who had a lively caucus at our dinner table every night. That is where i learned to stand up for what i believed. It is also where i learned good ideas come from people you dont agree with. I took that lesson into the classroom and i taught in local andols for over 20 years, also took that to the state senate were i worked with my republican and democrat colleagues on important issues like Economic Development. I know we are not going to agree on every issue tonight, but i want to go to washington to find common ground. We are facing some tough problems right now with the pandemic, the economy, with health care, and with education. The way to get to the best solution is to do it together. Moderator senator, 60 questions for you seconds for you . Ms. Millermeeks i would like to thank the cedar rapids gazette. , am Mariannette Millermeeks my father was a Master Sergeant in the air force, my mother had gotten a ged. No one in my family had been College Educated though they valued education. Burnt in a16, i was kitchen fire and in that hospitalization, i had an epiphany about my future. I was going to become a doctors i left home at 16, got a job, and rolled in san antonio junior college, enlisted at 18 and worked and went to school until i got a degree in nursing, masters in education, and was able to go to medical school and i came to iowa to do my residency in ophthalmology and now i am an iowa state senator. I served 24 years in the military never having been up on serving my country. That tenacity, that great, resilience is not my story alone. It is the story of countless wans and i had the privilege of serving them and working on things like health drug lowering prescription prices and i got awards at a senate as a senator which i wasnt expecting and we can take that tenacity to washington, d. C. To work for you on recovering from this pandemic in preparing for the next one, Economic Growth that allows us to fulfill our potential, working on important issues such as how we defend our country and what do we do about all of our programs we know we need to fund through Economic Growth. Moderator thank you for those opening statements. Lets delve into the experiences both of you have had within politics. Senator vitter heart ran as Lieutenant Governor two years ago. Senator Mariannette Millermeeks has run. From youryou learned political stages from campaigning or having gone through this district to capture it. What have you learned from your previous runs . Ms. Millermeeks one of the things you learn the most is to be authentic and sincere. Remain the person you are. Speakingg with people, with them, listening to them, addressing their problems, i saw that in the state senate. Some of the best bills i authored in state senate were problems people brought to me and asked to address for them, such as passing a legislation asking for a waiver for fiveyear eligibility to get prenatal care for lawful permanent residents, Prescription Drug prices, a bill looking at pharmacy benefit managers, and also contraceptives overthecounter for those over 18 with proper counseling and screening. Those bills came from listening people. We passed a bill on broadband this session and had a successful session, even to write pandemic. Being authentic, willing to listen and listen with your heart and your brain and your ears and act upon what you hear. Moderator senator hart, what did you pick up from two years ago as Lieutenant Governor with fred hubbell . That is much larger than this district statewide. What did you pick up . Ms. Hart it was a great experience. I got to travel across the state us talk to people in very corners of the state. It was a great experience and i would agree with senator you areeeks, that listening because you can learn so much from people. We all come from a different place. We all have a different story to tell and every time we take the time to listen to people, you come away a little wiser and you theable to then go after kinds of solutions that can really make a difference. I learned that lesson throughout my senate campaigns, as well, and serving as the state senator. Is important thing you to do to show up and have some important through no fault of their own. If they cant pay their bills, pay their rent, landowners will have to evict and we will have in the homeless population. Certain sectors are hurt worse. The retail industry, hospitality industry, these people need some assistance. We dont want our cities and counties to have to cut our services or to lay off Police Officers or firefighters. A resilient one that was unexpected and unanticipated. Most go away and are seasonal in nature, but covid19 has been resilient and somewhat unpredictable in how it has stayed on. Ifnomy and it will be worse we dont do it. It is we can talk about how we are following the mask suggestions and the washing of the hands and that kind of thing, but the fact is, senator you stood on the senate floor and told colleagues they did not need to wear a mask. Sen. Millermeeks i said you did not need to if you were socially distanced. I read the cdc guidelines. They specifically say if you cannot physically separate, wear a mask. Sen. Hart it is also very important that as leaders here that we are providing a great example and when we are indoors, the risks are much higher so the bottom line is, weve got to come together and quit making this a political thing, and instead, take advantage of the opportunity to bring people together on this. It is what we did in the derecho. We got hit pretty hit hard on our farm and our neighbors and friends all came together. Nobody asked about republican or democrat because it was a common problem. That is what we have here with a common crisis, problem and we lost an opportunity to bring people together on it and follow the science and bring down this infection rate, so we are doing a better job. We can see what has not worked well, when the United States is compared with other countries and this state is compared to other states. We have got to bring people together to do it. No wonder the legislative session came down with covid19. Moderator moving on, lets talk about an issue that in the midst of the pandemic has come up and that is the social justice, social inequities. We saw this in june with demonstrations in iowa city and the quad cities and elsewhere after George Floyds death. I want to ask you all, what is the federal role in resolving this, in addressing social injustice and inequities, nor is there a federal role or should it be left to the states . We go first to senator hart. Sen. Hart this has been an issue that again has divided the country and it is an important issue that we have got to address correctly. As looking at what can really make a difference, weve got to start with listening first. Weve got to bring people to the table who have been most affected by this and thats why i spent some time talking to the chief of police in davenport andt this and his approach, my local sheriff. They talk about the same things we have to do everywhere, which is bring people together, the stakeholders here, the naacp, the black lives matter leaders, the social agencies, entire group of people that can really address the situation. Whatabout it, figure out steps we can take that will really make a difference, and that is the approach id like to see at the federal level, as well. Moderator senator millermeeks, the federal role in resolving this, for example, should police be required to wear body cameras . Should we get rid of qualified immunity for Police Officers who are bad actors . Sen. Millermeeks this has been something that has roiled our country and first, as we continue to address the challenge of racial inequality, we shouldnt rush to racial hatred. All of us, i think, working together, this is a problem we can solve. Can we meant went back into the legislative session soon after the tragic death of george floyd, we enacted quickly as a legislative body in a bipartisan way, bringing people together to reform. Lice we also do this in concert with Law Enforcement and members of our legislative body who happened to be in Law Enforcement. Chokeholds,anning allowed the state attorney general to bring charges against the police officer, implicit bias training, to expand on it and to prevent Police Officers from being routed around to other Rural Police Department so they could avoid prosecution recriminations for their behavior and their conduct so they are not allowed to just continue to go to other places and be bad actors, so we did that at the state level. Moderator senator, we are out of time on this one. Partisanship, we hear about this, how people will work across the aisle. Each ofsk a question to you, specifically to your own candidacy. Senator millermeeks, where do you break from President Trump . Is there anything people might associate with President Trump as they are voting that you hope they dont associate with you on election day . Is there anything significant you differ on . Electing theeeks event at the rose garden with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett could have been handled differently. I dont know all the things that happened there. Checkedknow if they people, if they had temperature checks for screenings. It is a momentous occasion but there should have been physical separation and mask wearing at the event. That would be one place where i would be at odds with President Trump and i wish he would tweet less. Moderator senator, for you, since the district was redrawn a decade ago, hes closing out 14 years, seven terms, if people see your name on their, is a vote for you a vote for his eighth term . Is there anything you would split with him on from his own record or other democrats . Davehart i do think that did a great job of representing this district, but i think also you are going to see im a much different person then they walk dave. I come from a rural perspective, i understand the farming aspects and i lived my entire life in rural iowa. Work on important we Economic Development issues for small towns and rural areas and i can have those conversations, and i look forward to that. To the particular question you are asking, is there areas of disagreement . Absolutely. That is the thing i like about the democratic party, it is a big umbrella and we dont always agree on issues, so for an area of come from agriculture were writing their are specific things we ought to be doing to create a Strategic Plan to take us from where we are now on Water Quality and climate change, carbon sequestration, to get to where we need to go so i dont always cks someth the ta of my colleagues do. Moderator shifting to derecho the congresswoman talked about trying to get some a the noncovered costs into relief package like tree damage, causing some people in cedar rapids and other people thousands out of pocket. As second didnt take on much property damage, but there was damage to some of the farmers. For either of you, is there anything else each of you would propose that would be Financial Relief for those who suffered financial losses . Sen. Hart first of all, we suffered more loss in the Second District than you might think. We got hit very hard on our farm. We lost every building that we have to store equipment in. Andost three grain bins, weve got a lot of our crop on the ground and it is going to be a really tough harvest and i think that is something people havent talked much about, how this derecho, the pain of the derecho is continuing because there are a lot of farmers working tonight who are facing a really tough harvest and some really tough situations where they dont have grain storage, etc. It took tooointed long for Clinton County to get the relief they needed. I see they finally got that. I think there is a way to maybe look at that, to speed up that kind of relief that is so important, but to your point also about the trees, i think that is a huge loss to us as a stage. The thousands and thousands of trees we have lost across the state. I think there is definitely some work we need to do in that area, as well. Moderator senator millermeeks, your response on derecho and trying to make some people whole who might not be covered on costs . Sen. Millermeeks there are costs that could be covered and the derecho is one of those straws that breaks the camels back after the pandemic. It has been a difficult year for all of us and for iowa especially in iowas farmers, but there are other things in more urban areas, the loss and storage of food, the getting electricity backup. Other Natural Disasters in other places and those equipment and trucks had to be brought back into the looking at our electric infrastructure, electric grid and how we can handle that in the next Natural Disaster that comes along is important but we know people lost a lot of food that was stored so replacing that, access to food, access to ice. Moderator im going to cut you off here. Senator millermeeks, we will start with you. Second District Residents around scott and johnson counties probably enjoy access to some of the best Health Practitioners and facilities in the state. What about the folks in the other 22 counties . How do you ensure they have access, especially during a pandemic, and specifically weve seen later use of telemedicine. Is that the answer, and if it is the answer, does the Second District have the bandwidth to make it available to everyone . Sen. Millermeeks it is interesting you would ask that because the night we met to go into the pause, one of the things i brought to my caucus was we needed better access for telehealth, Insurance Companies that did not cover telehealth, they should cover it and increased reimbursement for telehealth knowing this was going to be an issue Going Forward. In rural areas, there are difficulties in our critical access hospitals with the level of providers, maternal care and these are things we are working on within the state legislature with our programs. We need to continue to do that but also continue to recognize the importance of telehealth and with digital electronics, cameras, we have access to Telehealth Services much better than we used to in the past. A bill onsed broadband, specifically because, and i think the pandemic underscored that better than anything else, we need better access to broadband. I am in a rural area and dont have good access to broadband. If there is a cloud in the sky, my connectivity goes down. Willof the covid19 money be going to broadband nature so faster broadband for telework, telelearning, and telehealth will be important. Senator hart come out on the farm, you are not far from the quad cities but you are rural. Do you have the Broadband Connectivity to talk to your doctor, feel confident your doctor is seeing you and you are seeing him or her . 30 seconds on a response. Yeah, it is so important to us in rural iowa. Telehealth andto it is a great advantage and we need to utilize that. We have great broadband because we have a local Telephone Company who made the investment. The need to make sure everyone has that highspeed internet and recognize that health care is crucial to keeping people in rural iowa. We have an Elderly Population that want to stay in their homes. We need that kind of access to good health care, and it is so important that we have Mental Health care. That is a huge problem across the state of iowa. Moderator keeping it with health care but looking at the attacks weve seen, we will start off with senator hart. Criticism for your backing of a legislative bill, you talked about this in the first date, but often we see in campaigns where that can be a First Impression, you see criticisms about you. Sen. Hart lets be clear, that lets talk about the facts. Not one person lost their health care because of this bill and the reason i voted for that bill is it was the only option on the table to help my constituents needed it. We had a selfemployed farmers y for theot qualif subsidy and could not afford the premium. This allowed the farm bureau to create a niche for those people. Thati had no alternativ

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