DENVER | Candidates for Aurora’s 6th Congressional District covered familiar ground during a televised debate Wednesday, trading barbs about immigration, student loan debt, affordable housing and controversy swirling around GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Republican incumbent Mike Coffman and the Democratic challenger, Morgan Carroll held their second debate Oct. 12 for the Channel 12/KCNC-Channel 4 in the Colorado Public Television studio. They were questioned by a panel that included Channel 12’s Dominic Dezzutti,CBS4’s Shaun Boyd and political analyst Eric Sondermann.
Boyd kicked off the debate by asking both candidates about their feelings toward presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Boyd asked Coffman why it took him until only recently to publicly state he was not voting for Trump, after the Republican presidential candidate insulted “many groups of people” including Sen. John McCain and a Gold-star Muslim Family of a slain U.S. Soldier.
“Number one, I never endorsed him,” Coffman replied, referring to an ad he released in August saying he would stand up to Trump if the New York billionaire were elected. The ad received national attention for being the first that a House Republican used explicitly anti-Trump messaging in paid advertising, according to Politico. In the ad, released in August, Coffman says: “People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump?’ Honestly, I don’t care for him much.”
Coffman said electing someone to the White House was not as important as who was elected to be the speaker of the House of Representatives, who is currently Republican Paul Ryan.
“One of us could very well be the deciding vote,” Coffman said. “Whether Nancy Pelosi becomes the speaker or the speaker is Republican, I think that’s very significant.”
Boyd posed a similar question to Carroll, who said she is voting for Clinton, pointing to Clinton’s email controversies as well as Clinton’s statement that it’s OK to have different public and private opinions when it comes to policy issues.
“I think she was right to acknowledge on the emails it was a mistake. And not try to defend it. I don’t try and defend it either,” Carroll said. Carroll said she also didn’t think Clinton was right to call all of trumps supporters “deplorable.”
Carroll said she also didn’t see Trump or Hillary as a “usual” party choice.
“What has been fundamentally disqualifying about (Trump) has nothing to do with conservative positions and has everything to do with a kind of open bigotry and racism and misogyny that doesn’t belong in either party,” Carroll said.
Following Carroll’s statement, Coffman accused Carroll of having “never stood up to a Democrat,” mostly accusing Carroll of not standing up to Clinton.
“My entire legislative career has sometimes been a thorn in someone’s side,” Carroll, who has represented Aurora for the past 12 years in the state Legislature, including previously serving as Senate Minority Leader, said. “Sometimes that’s the Republican leadership, sometimes it’s the Democratic leadership, sometimes it’s wealthy special interest groups.”
Sondermann questioned both candidates about immigration reform. He asked Carroll where she stands on border enforcement as it relates to immigration legislation, stating the issue is a “bugaboo” for Democratic lawmakers in Congress.
Carroll did not directly provide a solution for border enforcement, but did say she supports the DREAM Act, a federal bill that would allow people brought into the country illegally as children to become citizens.
“I think every attempt we’ve seen that could lead to a bipartisan package of course includes enforcement on border security but it has to be focused on respecting the humanity and integrity of the families in our district,” she said.
Sondermann asked Coffman how Republicans would address issues other than border enforcement when it comes to immigration reform.
“Certainly we have to fix our broken immigration system,” Coffman said. “Almost half of illegal immigration today is visa overstays. And there’s no penalties for doing that. It’s essentially a civil penalty. People never show up for court, we’ve got to strengthen those laws. What we need is an opportunity for people to come out of the shadows that are here and have legalized status.”
Coffman touted limited and specific paths to citizenship, such as his Military Enlistment Opportunity Act, a proposal that would allow undocumented minors a path to citizenship through the military. In the past, he was demonstrably against a comprehensive package of reform laws suggested by the so-called Gang of Eight.
“I’ve introduced broader legislation last summer that would take the DACA children and make them eligible for a permanent legal status, and then give them a path to permanent residency through education, through work history and through military service,” Coffman said.
The debate turned heated when Boyd asked both candidates about their nasty political ads.
Coffman took the opportunity to again tie Carroll’s work as a state senator to her work as a “shady” trial lawyer who made it easier to sue nurses and doctors. The ad has been deemed “false” by the fact-checking website Politifact. The University of Colorado News Corporation found the statement to be “somewhat true” based on one bill in Carroll’s long career.
“I have never had a single ethics complaint filed against me in my career,” Carroll said. “One of us on this stage has had ethics violations, one after the other, not me but you.”
Coffman has been deemed guilty of election ethics violations when he was Colorado secretary of state in incidents from 2000 and 2004. In 2009, however, the Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission found insufficient evidence that Coffman violated state ethics rules from a separate inciden. Issues in consideration were that his staff members in the elections division of his office operated a partisan Web site on the side, and also that Coffman certified electronic voting machines for a company that used the same consulting firm that he used in his campaign, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
Coffman went on to lambast Carroll for also helping trial lawyers when she fought against construction-defects legislation that would make it harder for homeowners to sue condo builders. Developers who want changes to construction-defects laws in the state say owner-occupied condos are hard to build because developers fear being sued.
“Morgan Carroll in her leadership has harmed the Colorado economy,” Coffman, who previously ran an Aurora-based property management company, said. “The only two choices in terms of new construction now are either you rent an apartment building, or you have to buy a more expensive, single-family detached home. But that’s just not a balance. You fought for that, and that’s wrong.”
Despite the claim, there has been no independent study showing the relationship between homebuilder insurance costs and condo construction in the Denver market. Critics say the lack of condo construction is market driven. Proponents say it is affected by high insurance costs.
Carroll, who worked on legislation to regulate the way homeowners associations operate in the state, said she didn’t support changing construction-defects law in Colorado as a solution to the state’s affordable housing crisis.
“You don’t solve affordable housing by saying you can make it substandard and defective,” she said. “Allowing defective construction for either tenants or homeowners is not a solution for affordable housing.”
Sondermann went on to question both candidates regarding what they would do about the country’s increasing national debt, which is now at $19.6 trillion, according to the Associated Press.
Coffman said he was part of a bi-partisan group in Washington working on both sides to reduce the country’s debt, without giving specifics.
“On this issue our common ground is Republicans have to yield on revenue and Democrats are going to have to yield on spending. The greatest threat to our national security is in fact our debt,” he said.
Carroll said the country needed to look at restructuring the tax code to make it more fair among individuals.
“I think we need to restructure our tax code so we’ve got more billionaires and large corporations paying their fair share so we can ease up a little bit on the middle class tax burden,” she said.
Another question posed by Boyd asked both candidates how they felt about the skyrocketing cost of college and Bernie Sanders’ plan for debt-free college.
Coffman said he was co-sponsoring legislation in Congress that would help students refinance debt and lower their interest rates. He also emphasized that there should be more skills-based training.
“When people study things, and that doesn’t lead them to a job that will enable them to pay that back, we need to take that into serious consideration,” Coffman said.
Carroll said soaring student loans and their accompanying interest rates are one of the economic crises for younger generations, surpassing credit card debt.
Carroll said she would like to see student loan interest rates reduced to 1 percent, the same as what the government charges banks.
“There is no reason Congress can’t reduce the interest rate,” she said.
Watch the debate here: https://www.cpt12.org/watch/colorado-decides-live/