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 alternative, is a vote i took on behalf of my constituents and ill never regret a vote that helped out my constituents. You know, that program exists today. We have people in our district that are on that program and my question is, would my opponent take that program away . Moderator 30 seconds to respond to that, senator millermeeks. Sen. Millermeeks i have a long history of coverage for preexisting conditions. My mother had a heart disease, my brother had surgery at two years of age. I wrote an article about in that, said there has to be coverage for preexisting conditions. The reality, you dont have to believe me, you can believe your running mate fred hubbell who said the bill would deny coverage for preexisting conditions and there is only one person on this stage today that has voted to deny coverage for preexisting conditions and that is rita hart. Sen. Hart again, i did not vote to deny anybody any kind of health care. Not one person was denied health care because of that plan. Give peopledo was in my district and opportunity to get insurance who would not otherwise have it and i will never be sorry that i did something in favor of my constituents. Sen. Millermeeks fred hubbell said it did not coverage and you agreed with him. Moderator next question for senator millermeeks. When some people see the attack are 300nst you, there thousand plus dollars of donations from the healthcare industry, if that is a First Impression of you as they are looking at this campaign, how would you respond if people might be seeing that . Sen. Millermeeks i would say you have to look at my report and there is no quantrill view shes from walmart or humana for or other largea medical and Insurance Companies, but i have a Senate Record that shows i passed legislation asking for a waiver of the fiveyear eligibility to get prenatal care for lawful residence, lowering Prescription Drug prices, prohibiting Insurance Companies from nonmedical switching of medications without your doctor, i was given the 2019 underserved champion of the year and the primary care association, specifically because i was doing things to reduce costs and get access to care and get people the needed services they desire and need. Moderator senator hart, if you would like to respond, you can. Sen. Hart the reality is my opponent has consistently been in favor of repealing the aca, which would take millions of people off their Health Insurance and were not hold Insurance Companies accountable for preexisting conditions. And so thats where we differ. I think we should take the Health Care Program that we have today and improve it and not go backwards. Thats what i will continue to work on. Sen. Millermeeks even last week, i have never been in favor of repeal. I have always said reform. Lets talk about Rural Broadband as part of the larger infrastructure package. There is a lot of talk about doing something with roads and bridges, all forms of transportation. What are the top priorities, senator hart, for the Second District in terms of infrastructure . What do we need most and how do we get it . Sen. Hart there are so many needs for infrastructure. As farmers recognize, we need locks and dams to be there for us so we can get product to market. I think that is crucial. Weve been working on highway 30 for a long time. We need improvements on these two lane roads. I think infrastructure, also our small schools, that we provide them with proper funding so we can have quality education. People live a great life in rural iowa. Im so thrilled that when people can see the beauty of rural iowa and who want to live in rural iowa, but they need resources and that infrastructure includes protecting our rural hospitals, having grocery stores. It also means childcare. Childcare should be considered part of any infrastructure because when families are struggling to get the child care they need, and right now everyone is, particularly in this time of pandemic, but weve got to have affordable and accessible childcare and that is an important part of our economy. Moderator senator millermeeks, in terms of priorities for infrastructure package, what do you see as the greatest needs for the Second District and how should we pay for that . Locks andrmeeks dams on the Mississippi River are very important for manufacturing and agricultural economy, our highways and 30dges, and not just highway that has been a long time struggling to be a fourlane, but highway 2 in southeast download iowa. Our electric grid, all of that is part of infrastructure and needs addressed. The broadband, we passed a bill in order to get higher connectivity, better conductivity in rural areas. I live in a rural area and during a pandemic, ive never been so happy to live in a rural area that is less populated. All of those things need addressed and we need a Bipartisan Coalition and consensus to come up with how do we Fund Infrastructure Going Forward . We know revenue is coming in from the gas tax, people not driving as much, but because of electric vehicles and what we did in the state senate was pass increased registration fees on solely electric vehicles so you could have road use money come from that. Moderator senator hart, i wanted to ask about how we pay for these Infrastructure Projects . Motor fuel taxes, senator millermeeks said, seems to be a declining source of revenue. Sen. Hart weve got to recognize that things are changing, that people are driving more electric cars, that weve got a different way with got to look at things. Weve got to put several things on the table and i think that weve got the first of all know what our priorities are. Weve got to look at the wasteility of finding the that exists already and finding ways to pay for other things by identifying that waste, and taxe got to look at the code we have now and how we can improve it, make it fairer, make sure that middle class working families are shouldering less of the burden so that we can get this economy going in a way that gives us the kinds of revenue that can pay for these into structure projects. Moderator back to senator millermeeks on this, do you have specifics on that . Sen. Millermeeks on which part . Moderator covering the cost. Sen. Millermeeks as i said before, if you have a bipartisan consensus come forward so both parties arent attacking the other party, when you discuss what you do with the fuel tax on the federal level . Do you have added cost for electric vehicles . Do you have a better permitting process and more control so we know world roads and bridges are being addressed in a manner that is best for that state . There are things you can do in that regard, but i really think this is going to take a bipartisan consensus Going Forward and it needs to be multiyear, not just one or two years. Cantads and builders plan ahead when you only have a one or two year funding. It needs to be longterm, multiyour funding into structure bill. Moderator looking toward Social Security, this came up in the first debate, Second District. Plenty of retirees, people rely on Social Security. Senator hart, you said raging the 8 increasing the age limit is not the way to go. Senator millermeeks, you talked about the level of taxation on selfemployed, but if you could talk about the workers who do work at a company and their level of taxation for this. How would you put out a plan to keep Social Security solvent for decades . Sen. Millermeeks we have to have bipartisan groups come together before in order to address issues like Social Security. It happened under Ronald Reagan and it will take that again because it becomes a political attack for everyone running for office, but we need to look at what are the ways we can make sure Social Security lasts. Young people are concerned there will be no Social Security for them. This is a program we pay into. It is not an entitlement. It is paid into and people are getting return for what they paid into. Looking at it as a bipartisan consensus, if you raise taxes on Small Businesses, it is Small Businesses that grow and become Large Businesses and employ people. If you are a Small Business owner, which i was come you are paying 15. 4 , so you have the rest of your over head because you paid the owner and employee. Small businesses are penalized under that system. The income level increases each then we hadaxed, additional taxes on higher income earners to fund medicare. I know that is not Social Security, but there have been additional taxes levied to fund these programs . Moderator senator hart, when i g the ageut raisin limit, you said it is not the way to go. What would you do . Sen. Hart i totally agree we have got to make sure this program exists for the seniors who are depending upon it. It is crucial to our economy that people have a secure retirement, and these are earned that that need promise needs to be kept to them and we want this for our children and grandchildren so im glad to hear we have a in al desire to do think bipartisan way but we cant do that when there are certain things that simply dont make so raising infix, type retirement age or privatization schemes i dont think are appropriate. I do think people on both sides of the aisle would consider raising the cap in order to make so it isix this system solvent going into the future. Moderator coming back to you, senator hart. Something you touched on in an earlier answer, agriculture. Count on a variety of federal programs to support them and protect them from market volatility, and should participation in those programs be linked to water and Soil Conservation practices . Perhaps a good driver discount for farmers who cover crops and take special care of waterways . Sen. Hart such an important us arehat so many of hungry to get to work on, right . This is something people have been working on for generations. I grew up on a dairy farm. My dad was a conservationist and he talked to me all the time about the ingenuity of the American Farmer. They are part inventor, part engineer, and all hard work. If we can unleash the American Ingenuity by the American Farmer to actually put these practices canthe place, i think we solve these problems so yes, we used to have a farm bill that was linked to some of these conservation efforts. What we need to do is make sure that farmers are the ones who are at the center of making these decisions so they make and not everyers farm is the same, and not every area of the country is the same. Geography is different so we need to make sure farmers are the ones who are leading this charge, but we need to unleash their ingenuity to get the job done. Moderator senator millermeeks, should farm programs be tied to good practices on the farm, water and Soil Conservation . Sen. Millermeeks i think that is a way to move behavior into an area you wanted to go. Want it to go. Ive had the pleasure of going to the horse farm that uses cover crops and some of these practices. They just got the feasibility of doing it and the programs and being able to be a sustaining program that can pay for itself, because there is a cost to that individual farmer when they adopt these programs, so yes, there are incentives that can help navigate, but the more and thethat do it, farmers are ingenious, they are hardworking, they have a work ethic and a never stop attitude. They are some of the most hopeful people ive ever met, and i think with that attitude, if you bring farmers to the table, theyll be able to help us navigate through these issues in Water Quality as weve seen them do with the secretary. Moderator we will stick with farming, at least to some degree, talking about trade and especially with china. Senator millermeeks, there is a consensus china has been a bad actor when it comes to trade and respecting intellectual property. At the same time, it is one of the biggest markets for iowa farmers and manufacturers. States go the united about expanding trade with china, even as it disrespects human rights and engages in military expansion in the South Pacific . Sen. Millermeeks i think chinas sen. Millermeeks i think chinas aggressions have been of tremendous concern. Administration after administration has been wary to do anything with china because they are such a large trading partner, but we know they have egregious practices and have not obeyed the rules. We are in a situation where they are a trading partner with us. We want to continue to negotiate those trade agreements. We had the phase one china deal, which we want to see go through. From that standpoint, for the agricultural markets, its a very important trading partner for us. There are ways that you can work with other International Organizations and countries to hold the Chinese Communist Party Accountable for their behavior, the theft of intellectual property, Holding Companies hostages to be able to sell in their marketplace to turn over their technology to the Chinese Communist party. These are things that have to be addressed and can be addressed in collaboration with other countries and with International Organizations such as the wto, world health organization, International Monetary fund. Whatator senator hart, should our policy toward china be . Given the situation there, how they treat their minorities and military expansion . Sen. Hart i will agree with what much with much of what ive heard here. It is clear we are all unhappy with china as a bad actor. Thats why its really frustrating that we went into from a singular factor instead of creating an alliance with other countries. Now, weve gone for almost four years, and farmers have suffered as a result. So, weve got to reengage with diplomatic relations here, and weve got to do this from a position of strength. So, aligning ourselves with other countries with similar concerns. And again, so many of our farmers that are engaged in this trade kind of situation, they understand how to do this, where their advantages are. They need to be a crucial part of that conversation, but weve got to come from a position of strength. Sen. Millermeeks when we are dealing with these issues of trade, america had to be a leader on this. Other countries were not willing to come forward because china is such a tremendous trading partner for us. When the United States took action, other countries were willing to come along. Now, you see other countries willing to assert some authority through the World Trade Organization with china when it comes to theft of intellectual property. I think United States being a leader has helped other countries come along. The unitedi think states being a leader in not doing this very well has caused other countries to say, maybe we should do this a little differently. Sen. Millermeeks i disagree with that. Farmers have told me they want china to be taken on. Moderator we have seen many other debates from the highest levels to congressional debates that have delved into personal attacks. Your first debate was very civil. How do each of you try to bring able towashington to be work, even with the 400 plus members of the house. Senator hart, we will start with you. Sen. Hart i get this question a lot because people are very unhappy with the division in the country. They are tired of the namecalling, tired of not getting along with friends and family because of the political divide. So, i tell them we all have to do our part. Electedrs, as people in positions, weve got to be the example. Weve got to show people that we can disagree with people and do it from a position of respect. I tell people that everyone of us has to do that in every relationship we have. If we want to see this change, weve got to be the change that we want to see. Again, i have talked before about how i came from a divided household with a republican mother and democratic father. Thats where you learn that you can have big disagreements in a conversation, but in the end, youve got to get up from that table and work with everybody to get the work done. We have to lead by example. We have to encourage others to do the same. We can get there if we all do our part. Moderator senator millermeeks, what was your approach should be to keep disability and keep it to the issues . Weve seen these debates for the past three weeks, present company excluded. Sen. Millermeeks thank you for that. I follow the golden rule, treat other people how you want to be treated. When i went into the senate, i treated my colleagues with respect and dignity. I was very fortunate to be given the leeway from my leadership as chair of Human Services that if there was a bill that made good sense, it did not matter who authored it, if i thought it made good policy sense Health Policy sense, that i should pass that. There were republican bills, democrat bows. If you bills. If you treat people with respect, courtesy, and dignity, you dont always get it in return, but it is incumbent upon you and your response to how you are treated is going to follow set the tone for that. I follow the golden rule. Moderator Green New Deal or no green deal . What should congress do to protect the environment, limit harmful emissions, but without crippling farming or our diets as we know them . Where do we begin . Sen. Millermeeks i think thats a great question. Truly the question is, how do we keep an economy growing in which we know we need the economy to grow so that we have the tax revenue we need in order to help . Eople in our state that we have a great example of that. 40 of our Energy Sources are from grenoble whether, wind, solar, biodiesel, and ethanol. Thanol has gotten better marks in being environmentally friendly in the recent years. We can continue to do that. We continue can continue to have research and development as we look for cleaner sources of energy, change vehicles. I had a honda civic hybrid, 2003. It also had a hybridelectric engine. We have great farm agriculture and some great geniuses in our state that have worked on carbon atuesteration and funding iowa state university. I had a great opportunity to tour moderator you have reached time right now. Green new deal . Members of your party have championed the idea. Is that something you support if you get to congress . Sen. Hart i come from a very practical aspect on this. With my farm background, i recognize that there is so many things that we can do as farmers. Yes, to that point, we are lucky to live in iowa that we have iowa state and the university of iowa and the iowa Farm Foundation and leopold center. They know the practices that are effective. Many of our farmers have been doing these things and doing them on their own. But we need to have Foreign Policy that lends itself to this research, and allows an opportunity to really get things done. Getyear when we didnt things done on a Water Quality bill in the senate, i hosted a Water Quality summit locally so that we could have those conversations, bring experts to the table, bring urban and rural people together and really talk about what would make a difference. What came out of that was that rural people said, hey, i could do more than i am doing, and i want to know more about this practice. The urban people came and said, its not as easy as i thought it was going to be. Weve got to wed these things together and Work Together to get it done. Moderator quick followup to each of you. Yes arnon this. Should the federal government follow californias lead and set a goal for doing away with fossil fuel vehicles . Senator millermeeks . Sen. Millermeeks no. We need a Strategic Plan. We know where we are now and where we need to get. We need to have a Strategic Plan to get us there. Us sots where it leads that we can do something about the carbon in the air, moderator sounds like a maybe. Sen. Millermeeks it has to be done right. It has to be done correctly. Moderator assume each of you gets elected, often times, people in congress and the firstterm, theres not much you can do right away. Senator hart, what specifically would you want to focus on in your six months First Six Months in office . Sen. Hart i hope the first bill i could vote on is an anticorruption bill. This is another thing that people talk to me about and i feel strongly about, that we have got to create a system that people have faith in. Right now, people dont believe that people in Public Office are there for the right reasons. They feel like they are there for their own gain rather than doing things for everyone else. Anould like to see us pass anticorruption bill that stops gerrymandering so that people feel like theyre vote counts congress fromns ever serving as lobbyists, that bans congresspeople from buying individual stocks. That attacks campaignfinance reform. We have got to do a better job so that people have more faith in the system. Moderator senator millermeeks, as you focus on going to washington, d. C. , for your First Six Months, what would you really advocate for, put your time and effort towards . Sen. Millermeeks covid19 pandemic, how we recover through this, prepare for the next pandemic. One. Ow that we will have i predicted that we will have another one and we need to address our strategic stockpile, manufacturing from china and not having a Single Source for ppe and pharmaceuticals, so bringing that back into this country. I think addressing the covid19 pandemic going as it is currently on Going Forward, and then health care. The next thing is an infrastructure bill. Its very important for us to grow our economy and state. There have been so many jobs lost and businesses that may never come back from this pandemic that were involuntary shutdown involuntarily shut down by the government that may be an avenue for job creation. Dams,w we have roads, infrastructure that needs to be repaired. We know that this is something that we can work on in a bipartisan fashion. And then, trust in government and accountability. I think it is very important, we need to have more transparency in all of our agencies, more accessibility for citizens to address elected leaders and heads of agencies so we restore faith and trust in our government agencies. Moderator im going to jump in here. Before closing statements, we are going to give you 30 seconds for questions the tv news anchor made up. Go ahead. All right, we are being told that there will be tens of millions of doses of covid19 Vaccines Available by the end of the. Will you get the vaccine . Yes, i willmeeks get the vaccine. It should not be mandatory. Sen. Hart if it is cleared by the health experts, absolutely we should be front and center. Yes, there should be a mandate. If we want to keep people safe, weve got to make it happen. We have a bit more time. Senator hart, any thoughts on term limits coming into place in congress or Supreme Court . Are you still good with Lifetime Appointments . Sen. Hart what i would like to see us do is fix the system so that people feel like they can vote they can keep a person accountable who is there elected representative. Representative. If we can do something about gerrymandering and campaignfinance reform, we will find opportunities to hold elected officials accountable. That is i think the better solution. Moderator 30 seconds, senator millermeeks. Any thoughts on term millers for congress or appointments on the high courts . Sen. Millermeeks its certainly hard to run against unencumbered. Having said that, an incumbent. Having said that, there are term limits at the ballot box. Power within the bureaucracy increases. One of my favorite senators was senator tom coburn from oklahoma. He term limited himself, said he would serve no more than eight years as a representative. He did that, went back to oklahoma, was asked to run for the senate seat. He ran for the sea and in his second term stepped down and resigned. He recently passed away from prostate cancer. As far as the Supreme Court, i think at this time, yes, i would continue to agree with Lifetime Appointments. Moderator wrap this up. Both of you can get your last words in. You get 60 seconds each to make a final pitch. Senator millermeeks, you have the floor. Sen. Millermeeks being a 2040 year military 24 year military veteran my being a doctor does not make me the best candidate for the seat. What makes me the best candidate is i am a person who listens with their ears, heart, and brain and is moved to action by the things they hear. My life story will tell you that i never quit fighting and never give up. I will never quit fighting for the people of iowa, their futures, and the future of our great state. I will continue to work hard to be your voice in congress and to make sure that all of us can reach and fulfill our potentials. Moderator senator hart . Sen. Hart thank you so much for the opportunity to be here tonight. I really appreciate that. We have talked a little bit about health care tonight. That is an issue that is personal to everyone. Everyone i talked to has a personal story. My personal story has to do with my mother, who had a heart condition that caused her to lose her voice. She raised nine children with just a whisper. Children and ie think back on that and think, how did she raise nine children successfully with just a whisper of a voice . I know the answer. She taught us how to listen, because we needed to listen. Sometimes, she was in trouble. We needed to listen in order to know if she was happy, sad, or mad. The other lesson that i learned is that sometimes the loud voices are not always the one that you want to listen to. Sometimes, that less powerful voice, the voice that you have ar is then to he one that has the most to say i can make the biggest difference in your life. I think washington has forgotten that lesson. I will never forget it. I would be honored to have your vote. Moderator thanks to both of you. We are out of time for the debate for the second candidat Congressional District. The 24 counties covering ottumwa to iowa city to Clinton County on the quantities. Host the next debate. They will touch on some of the topics we did not get to, education, some of the other topics. Of course, we would like to thank senator rita hart and senator millermeeks and james lynch from the cedar rapids gazette. Thanks for this presentation. Always important to try to be informed and we hope you are able to pick up something about each of these candidates. We appreciate your time. 35 senate seats are up for election, with 15 considered competitive, according to the cook political report. If democrats were to get a senate majority, they need to pick up 4 seats. New mexicos candidates for u. S. Senate include ben ray lujan, republican mark ronchetti, and libertarian bob walsh. They debated each other in the race to succeed tom udall, who is retiring. This is the kob
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