WEBVTT 00:00:00.226 --> 00:00:07.370 - That's good. Thank you all so much for coming. I'm Bryce Green. I am a DSA member, and I helped to organize 00:00:07.370 --> 00:00:14.250 - this. Thank you. Yeah. So first of all, I'd like to give a big thanks to all the DSA members and people 00:00:14.250 --> 00:00:21.328 - who helped make this event happen. If you helped make this event happen in some way by being a co-sponsor, 00:00:21.328 --> 00:00:27.678 - someone who helped set up a DSA member, could you raise your hand? Well, thank you all so much. 00:00:31.426 --> 00:00:38.001 - Yes, and of course, we'd like to give a big thanks to First United for being a pillar of the community 00:00:38.001 --> 00:00:44.576 - and letting their space be used by important community organizations and doing good work. So thank you 00:00:44.576 --> 00:00:51.087 - to First United, of course. And we'd also like to thank co-sponsors for this event, people who helped 00:00:51.087 --> 00:00:57.790 - promote and make this happen and give us some good questions. We'd like to thank the Indiana 5051 people 00:01:00.738 --> 00:01:09.529 - Actually, let's hold the applause, because there's a few. The Monroe County Education Association, Mask 00:01:09.529 --> 00:01:18.404 - Block Bloomington, the Monroe County Young Dems, the IU Bloomington College Dems, and the IU Bloomington 00:01:18.404 --> 00:01:24.574 - Young Democratic Socialist of America. Thank you all so much. All right. 00:01:24.994 --> 00:01:30.574 - The reason that we have this candidate forum is because we believe that fighting fascism starts at home. 00:01:30.574 --> 00:01:36.206 - And if you're going to be serious about fighting fascism, one way to do that is to ensure that the people 00:01:36.206 --> 00:01:41.679 - who are representing us in the halls of government genuinely represent the people here. And so DSA got 00:01:41.679 --> 00:01:47.153 - together these co-sponsors and other people, other people of the community, and we solicited questions 00:01:47.153 --> 00:01:52.254 - from them because we want them to be able to have a line to the people who are representing us. 00:01:52.738 --> 00:01:58.930 - And so we have a broad range of viewpoints, a broad range of questions here. But, of course, at the 00:01:58.930 --> 00:02:05.370 - center is DSA. And if you don't know about DSA, I mean, A, what are you doing? But B, I mean, I'll just 00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:11.810 - tell you a little bit about us. First and foremost, we're an organization that believes that capitalism 00:02:11.810 --> 00:02:18.002 - is the problem. That much of the issues that are facing our country, our state, our city, and us as 00:02:18.002 --> 00:02:22.398 - individuals come from this relentless drive for capital to accumulate, 00:02:22.626 --> 00:02:28.067 - to consolidate and to exploit. And if you're not addressing that system, then you're really not fighting 00:02:28.067 --> 00:02:33.248 - for anything, really. You're fighting to maintain an exploitative system. We believe that we need a 00:02:33.248 --> 00:02:38.688 - Green New Deal to combat climate change and reinvigorate the industrial base in this country. We believe 00:02:38.688 --> 00:02:44.025 - that healthcare is a human right and that the best way to implement that right is single-payer system, 00:02:44.025 --> 00:02:44.958 - Medicare for all. 00:02:45.250 --> 00:02:50.986 - We believe that housing is a human right and that we believe that housing should not be speculative 00:02:50.986 --> 00:02:57.182 - asset but should be used to house people. We believe that trans rights are human rights and bodily autonomy 00:02:57.182 --> 00:03:03.033 - for all. We believe in immigrant rights. We believe in abolishing ICE. We believe in ending America's 00:03:03.033 --> 00:03:09.170 - involvement in the oppression of Palestinians and in the imperial project writ large, including especially 00:03:09.170 --> 00:03:11.006 - this unprovoked attack on Iran. 00:03:12.034 --> 00:03:20.037 - And we are in favor of supporting unions, of course. All the workers have the right to organize and 00:03:20.037 --> 00:03:28.281 - to get better conditions. That's a good platform, I think, right? So over the last six months, our DSA 00:03:28.281 --> 00:03:36.445 - chapter has experienced a dramatic increase in activity and growth. We have done a lot. Let's see. We 00:03:36.445 --> 00:03:39.486 - raised $6,000 for Hoosier All Options 00:03:39.842 --> 00:03:47.430 - at the, what was it called, the Bread and Roses Bash. Another one will be coming soon. We supported 00:03:47.430 --> 00:03:55.626 - materially Starbucks workers striking in town. We organized volunteer work days at food banks. We organized 00:03:55.626 --> 00:04:03.442 - a cut the contract anti-ice rally, which yesterday seems to have borne some fruit at the city council. 00:04:03.442 --> 00:04:08.830 - And we continue to do anti-ice work, anti-flock work in the community. 00:04:08.930 --> 00:04:15.244 - And of course, we're doing a candidate forum so that the public can be more informed in our fight against 00:04:15.244 --> 00:04:21.677 - fascism. So we work with a lot of different organizations to put on a lot of different events. But tonight, 00:04:21.677 --> 00:04:27.932 - we have the candidate forum. And your host for the candidate forum is the host of the Who's Left podcast 00:04:27.932 --> 00:04:34.008 - and the founder of the Progressive Indiana Network. Did I say that right? Yes. Scott Aaron Rogers. If 00:04:34.008 --> 00:04:38.654 - you don't know him, you should really get a card and find out more about him. 00:04:38.914 --> 00:04:48.761 - He's great. And managing our time and, you know, keeping our candidates in check is our co-chair of 00:04:48.761 --> 00:04:58.707 - DSA Brent. All right. And my final announcement, my final ask is that if you are not, well, how many 00:04:58.707 --> 00:05:08.062 - of you are DSA members right now? Oh, that's pretty good. That seems like a lot of you aren't. 00:05:08.290 --> 00:05:14.323 - And so I would definitely encourage you guys to join DSA. Please get involved. Bring your ideas. Bring 00:05:14.323 --> 00:05:20.414 - your motivations. And we can change the world. So without any further ado, I will hand it off to Scott. 00:05:33.058 --> 00:05:38.118 - Thank you, Bryce, for the warm introduction. Again, my name is Scott Aaron Rogers. I am the host of 00:05:38.118 --> 00:05:43.481 - the Who's Left podcast. That's H-O-O-S, Left Like Who's Your Left, and founder of the Progressive Indiana 00:05:43.481 --> 00:05:48.794 - Network, an independent media collaborative supporting Indiana-focused progressive journalism, analysis, 00:05:48.794 --> 00:05:54.208 - and commentary. PIN provides a shared platform for writers, podcasters, and creators committed to covering 00:05:54.208 --> 00:05:59.166 - state and local politics with independence, solidarity, and accountability. The network exists to 00:05:59.394 --> 00:06:05.618 - build durable progressive media rooted in local communities and attentive to the decisions that shape 00:06:05.618 --> 00:06:11.781 - daily life across Indiana. You can learn more about us at progressiveindiana.net. But in addition to 00:06:11.781 --> 00:06:18.066 - that, I am also a DSA member in this chapter. Thank you. And so I am essentially here in that capacity 00:06:18.066 --> 00:06:24.230 - tonight. And so let's begin. I want to explain our format a little bit here. So we're going to start 00:06:24.230 --> 00:06:28.318 - with our statehouse candidates here in District 61 in Bloomington. 00:06:28.482 --> 00:06:34.090 - Candidates will be given four minutes each to introduce themselves to the audience. Then for the next, 00:06:34.090 --> 00:06:39.916 - I would say about 40 minutes, I, your moderator, will ask questions drawn from participating organizations 00:06:39.916 --> 00:06:45.741 - as well as from audience submissions. Now, to ensure we get through as many questions as possible, answers 00:06:45.741 --> 00:06:51.295 - should be kept under 90 seconds per question with the option for a brief 30 second response after the 00:06:51.295 --> 00:06:54.398 - other candidate speaks. There will be a timekeeper here. 00:06:55.298 --> 00:07:01.777 - to let you know when you've spoken for 60 seconds to help keep you on track. And we've planned for a 00:07:01.777 --> 00:07:08.320 - little padding, but we do want to get as many voices heard as possible. Now, I should mention that we 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:15.055 - already have some questions that have been submitted by DSA members and by our co-sponsor organizations. 00:07:15.055 --> 00:07:21.406 - But again, the audience can submit questions via the QR code right there. Very good. So with that, 00:07:21.506 --> 00:07:27.553 - Let's introduce our candidates here and let us start, I suppose, with the incumbent, Representative 00:07:27.553 --> 00:07:33.781 - Matt Pierce. Matt, thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. It's great to see such a nice crowd here. 00:07:33.781 --> 00:07:39.888 - It's really important for people to be involved in our democratic process and get educated about the 00:07:39.888 --> 00:07:46.116 - candidates. So I'm pleased to be able to participate tonight. I would very much like to continue being 00:07:46.116 --> 00:07:50.046 - a progressive voice for the values of our Bloomington community. 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:58.199 - And I think that those values for our community are first and foremost treating everyone with dignity 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:05.836 - and respect, creating an economy that works for everyone, not just a few, being able to afford reasonably 00:08:05.836 --> 00:08:13.186 - priced housing, accessible and affordable healthcare, supporting our public schools and not diverting 00:08:13.186 --> 00:08:19.454 - tax dollars away to private schools, academic freedom and free speech on our campuses, 00:08:20.898 --> 00:08:27.727 - And also, we want to make sure we continue to protect our environment and natural resources. And so 00:08:27.727 --> 00:08:34.897 - I think those are some of the core values of our community, and I like being a very strong and outspoken 00:08:34.897 --> 00:08:41.999 - person on behalf of those values. Now, the thing that I never thought I would have to say is that while 00:08:41.999 --> 00:08:48.350 - we focus on things like economic justice, we also have to focus on preserving our democracy. 00:08:49.026 --> 00:08:55.956 - because we're under very real threat right now. And I see it both on the national level and at the state 00:08:55.956 --> 00:09:02.557 - house. And the number one example of that was the attempt to redistrict our congressional seats, an 00:09:02.557 --> 00:09:09.355 - effort that started all the way back in the summer and lasted until December. And I was pleased to act 00:09:09.355 --> 00:09:16.088 - as the point person for the effort to combat that. And it seemed like insurmountable odds, but I knew 00:09:16.088 --> 00:09:18.398 - that if we got people involved and 00:09:18.690 --> 00:09:24.698 - made people understand what was at stake. We had a chance to perhaps win there. And so I was involved 00:09:24.698 --> 00:09:30.707 - with participating in many rallies, appeared on many national media, really going after Donald Trump, 00:09:30.707 --> 00:09:36.715 - calling him out for his attempt to cheat in the elections. And so it was an interesting experience to 00:09:36.715 --> 00:09:42.782 - be on MSNBC, Now MS Now, and CNN, and these other outlets saying, we do not stand for this in Indiana. 00:09:43.522 --> 00:09:49.338 - And by getting the people involved and working hard, we were able to push back on that. And we had a 00:09:49.338 --> 00:09:55.268 - tremendous victory when that effort was defeated. And so I think we can have other victories, too. But 00:09:55.268 --> 00:10:01.084 - obviously, there's a lot more work to do. And so one of the things that I've been pushing back on is 00:10:01.084 --> 00:10:07.015 - this kind of paramilitary police state that is attempting to be created throughout the country and the 00:10:07.015 --> 00:10:13.118 - horrible things we saw happening in Minnesota. And one of the things that I did is I offered an amendment 00:10:13.666 --> 00:10:20.403 - to unmask ICE, to make it illegal for law enforcement, whether federal or local, to wear masks when 00:10:20.403 --> 00:10:27.274 - they're doing their law enforcement. We should not be living in a world where people are operating in 00:10:27.274 --> 00:10:34.280 - disguise with no identification. I also opposed Governor Braun's desire to have his own military police 00:10:34.280 --> 00:10:40.478 - force be able to enforce laws against civilians, including arrests, searches, and seizures. 00:10:40.930 --> 00:10:48.162 - And I spoke out very strongly on that, and I tried to alert the public about the potential dangers of 00:10:48.162 --> 00:10:55.324 - that kind of situation. I've also been opposing voter suppression laws. The Republicans decided they 00:10:55.324 --> 00:11:02.698 - didn't want to make it easy for students to vote. So they specifically said student IDs no longer count 00:11:02.698 --> 00:11:08.158 - from state universities. And that's going to cause us to have to work harder 00:11:08.418 --> 00:11:15.871 - to make sure students who want to participate in the process can. And then just the unprecedented attacks 00:11:15.871 --> 00:11:23.044 - on higher education. I mean, the complete micromanaging of our universities and really the conversion 00:11:23.044 --> 00:11:30.075 - of the Commission for Higher Education into some kind of oversight regulatory body, which is really 00:11:30.075 --> 00:11:32.958 - bad. So I'll just in conclusion say that 00:11:33.314 --> 00:11:39.229 - The key thing that I do in Indianapolis is I look around and ask myself, who is not in the room now? 00:11:39.229 --> 00:11:45.204 - Who doesn't have a high-priced lobbyist to represent them? And then I make sure that their voices are 00:11:45.204 --> 00:11:51.295 - heard, because there are too many people who don't have the time to be at the state house and to defend 00:11:51.295 --> 00:11:57.210 - themselves in their own interests. And so that's my job, is to do it for them. Thank you. Thank you, 00:11:57.210 --> 00:12:01.310 - Representative Pierce. Let's hear from the challenger, Lillian Young. 00:12:04.322 --> 00:12:10.494 - Good evening, Bloomington. I'm Liliana Young. I am Matt's opponent this year. Some of you still don't 00:12:10.494 --> 00:12:16.545 - know who I am, so let me tell you a little about myself. For about the last year and a half, I have 00:12:16.545 --> 00:12:22.596 - served on the Bloomington Monroe County Human Rights Commission. Before that, and during that time, 00:12:22.596 --> 00:12:28.768 - I have also worked as a community organizer and activist in the local LGBTQ community. I'm very proud 00:12:28.768 --> 00:12:33.246 - to be one of the people responsible for Bloomington's Resolution 2024-26. 00:12:33.602 --> 00:12:41.295 - the Safe Haven Resolution for Gender Affirming Care, which has also been picked up by other groups around 00:12:41.295 --> 00:12:48.769 - the state who have been pushing their cities and municipalities into adopting similar resolutions, and 00:12:48.769 --> 00:12:56.027 - they all quote our work in Bloomington. Very proud to see that we've had a ripple effect here. I am 00:12:56.027 --> 00:12:58.494 - running for a very simple reason. 00:12:59.522 --> 00:13:08.612 - Politics has changed over the last 20 years and it's changed dramatically in the last decade. The older 00:13:08.612 --> 00:13:17.526 - ways of doing things of attempting to compromise with Republicans, it doesn't work anymore. It hasn't 00:13:17.526 --> 00:13:26.878 - worked in a very long time and this is not a personal attack on any standing Democrat, but I don't believe 00:13:27.106 --> 00:13:34.701 - that this old longstanding method serves anybody anymore because Republicans have become used to appeals 00:13:34.701 --> 00:13:41.935 - to their better nature, which they don't have, and they've become used to shrugging off attempts at 00:13:41.935 --> 00:13:49.747 - compromise. It is the exception and not the rule. On the rare occasion, you can get one of them to actually 00:13:49.747 --> 00:13:55.678 - come to the table in a good faith conversation. I am considerably more aggressive 00:13:55.778 --> 00:14:04.865 - and further left than my opponent in just about every conceivable way. I have very little interest in 00:14:04.865 --> 00:14:14.397 - attempting to compromise with people that I know won't try and listen. Beyond that, my primary legislative 00:14:14.397 --> 00:14:23.038 - platform that I champion is very much in line with the essay values. I'm looking for things like 00:14:23.266 --> 00:14:30.767 - fully funding the state Medicaid program, because we've got a quarter of the state that is on that program 00:14:30.767 --> 00:14:38.058 - in some capacity. I'm looking to use the state's muscle to force lower housing costs. State governments 00:14:38.058 --> 00:14:45.209 - have a lot of power that doesn't get used for the right reasons, and I don't have an issue with being 00:14:45.209 --> 00:14:51.518 - a new kind of Democrat that actually uses the power that we run to obtain. I'm looking to 00:14:51.778 --> 00:14:59.647 - completely dissolve the school voucher program and get public funds back into public schools. If people 00:14:59.647 --> 00:15:07.667 - want that private education experience, they gotta pay for that. I'm looking to codify basic human rights 00:15:07.667 --> 00:15:15.763 - into our state constitution. It's a long process, but somebody's gotta get that started. And this includes 00:15:15.763 --> 00:15:21.438 - bodily autonomy for everyone, women, trans people, everybody in the state. 00:15:21.922 --> 00:15:29.215 - This includes the right to marriage equality, not just for gay people, but for interracial couples as 00:15:29.215 --> 00:15:36.866 - well. These are very basic things that are constantly under attack, and we have to put it into our highest 00:15:36.866 --> 00:15:43.230 - laws in the state so that nobody has to worry about that anymore. And I think that's it. 00:15:47.298 --> 00:15:52.821 - Very good. Thank you, Liliana. So I think as we get into our questions with just the two of you, I'm 00:15:52.821 --> 00:15:58.344 - going to do this snake style, and we're going to start with Liliana and go to Representative Pierce, 00:15:58.344 --> 00:16:03.977 - and then for the next question, vice versa, if that works for everybody. So for Liliana, I want to ask 00:16:03.977 --> 00:16:09.445 - you, and this is a question from Bloomington DSA. So a 2025 Gallup poll found only 54% of Americans 00:16:09.445 --> 00:16:13.054 - have a positive view of capitalism. That's down from 60% in 2021. 00:16:13.730 --> 00:16:21.534 - DSA believes that capitalism is a driving force of inequity and stagnation around the world. Please 00:16:21.534 --> 00:16:29.807 - explain your views on capitalism as a system and how you expect to work within it as an elected official, 00:16:29.807 --> 00:16:37.845 - and you have 90 seconds. My view is simple. Capitalism will kill us all. I don't want to be restrained 00:16:37.845 --> 00:16:43.230 - to capitalism, but for the near future, we're going to have to work. 00:16:43.458 --> 00:16:50.991 - to make reforms to it before we can finally get to the socialist paradise Star Trek promised us. This 00:16:50.991 --> 00:16:58.375 - goes back to things that I mentioned from my primary legislative platform. I also didn't mention we 00:16:58.375 --> 00:17:05.982 - have to drastically raise wages in the state. I'm shooting for a $20 an hour state minimum wage, which 00:17:05.982 --> 00:17:10.782 - according to research doesn't even cover two bedroom apartments. 00:17:11.394 --> 00:17:19.398 - So even that is a compromised position. In theory, in a perfect world, I would be able to lay the foundation 00:17:19.398 --> 00:17:26.815 - to largely undo the effects of capitalism in Indiana. And if I were elected and if I were re-elected 00:17:26.815 --> 00:17:34.452 - after that, I swear to every god you can imagine, I would do everything possible to lay that foundation 00:17:34.452 --> 00:17:38.270 - to try and free us from that chain around our neck. 00:17:40.994 --> 00:17:45.735 - All right. Thank you. Mr. Pierce, do you need me to repeat the question or you got it? No, I think I 00:17:45.735 --> 00:17:50.476 - got it. Thank you. So the biggest problem we have is starting back in the 1980s, all the safeguards, 00:17:50.476 --> 00:17:55.169 - many of the safeguards and a lot of the protections for working class people have just been removed 00:17:55.169 --> 00:17:59.863 - and taken away. You remember the time when you could work at a job and you could have a pension? In 00:17:59.863 --> 00:18:03.102 - addition to Social Security, you could actually retire with dignity. 00:18:03.490 --> 00:18:09.596 - And somehow that turned into a 401k and it's up to you to go find the money and put it into the stock 00:18:09.596 --> 00:18:15.702 - market and hope you have enough when you come out the other end. And what that's done is it's totally 00:18:15.702 --> 00:18:22.227 - skewed it. We live in this weird situation where the richest, wealthiest people just keep getting wealthier. 00:18:22.227 --> 00:18:28.333 - And we ask less and less of them to contribute to society as they get wealthier and wealthier. At the 00:18:28.333 --> 00:18:31.326 - meantime, you have the people at the lowest rung, 00:18:32.130 --> 00:18:38.428 - really struggling just to survive, just to get by. And the middle class is shrinking in the middle. 00:18:38.428 --> 00:18:44.726 - And I've said that this society cannot be sustained with that kind of ongoing trend. And so it's up 00:18:44.726 --> 00:18:51.527 - to the government to have to step up and make sure that workers have rights. And one of those, for example, 00:18:51.527 --> 00:18:58.014 - is undermining labor unions. You know, that was done deliberately. When you have a strong labor union, 00:18:58.210 --> 00:19:03.958 - In your workplace, workers have a stronger voice, and they can collectively bargain. And that results 00:19:03.958 --> 00:19:09.706 - in better wages and benefits. And so we have to reverse these trends that have occurred over the last 00:19:09.706 --> 00:19:15.284 - 40 years or so that have undermined the workers and undermined equality in our economy. All right. 00:19:15.284 --> 00:19:20.920 - Thank you, Mr. Pearson. Now, we're going to start the next one with you. Now, this question is from 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:23.230 - the Monroe County Education Association. 00:19:24.514 --> 00:19:31.677 - Do you know how funding mechanisms work for school corporations, including rules put in place last year 00:19:31.677 --> 00:19:38.633 - requiring sharing of funds with charter schools? And what do you think about tax dollars being given 00:19:38.633 --> 00:19:45.520 - to private schools due to Indiana's quote unquote school choice laws? I've been fighting this trend 00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:50.686 - for more than a decade because what you had happen is people came to power 00:19:50.818 --> 00:19:55.834 - in the Republican Party who really just wanted to privatize our school system. They used to refer to 00:19:55.834 --> 00:20:00.900 - our public schools as government schools. But they knew that if they came out and they said, well, we 00:20:00.900 --> 00:20:06.064 - just want to basically abolish the public schools and have a private school system, and we'll just hand 00:20:06.064 --> 00:20:11.180 - out some money to families and let them go figure out where they're going to get their education, they 00:20:11.180 --> 00:20:15.550 - knew that people would reject that. So instead, they started out with a very deliberate 00:20:15.778 --> 00:20:21.545 - incremental system to divert money away from our public schools. And they started out by saying, oh, 00:20:21.545 --> 00:20:27.541 - we have people in underperforming inner city schools. And because they don't have the wealth, they can't 00:20:27.541 --> 00:20:33.251 - go to a private school like wealthier people. So it's a matter of civil rights. We must give them a 00:20:33.251 --> 00:20:39.018 - voucher to allow them the same opportunity as wealthier people. And that was appealing. But that was 00:20:39.018 --> 00:20:44.785 - just the first step. And they've expanded and expanded it. Now in the state of Indiana, you can be a 00:20:44.785 --> 00:20:45.470 - billionaire 00:20:45.602 --> 00:20:52.240 - and you can get a voucher to subsidize your kids' private school education. And we don't have the ability 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:58.689 - to support two systems at once. And so I'm doing everything I can to try to claw this back, to get rid 00:20:58.689 --> 00:21:05.014 - of these vouchers, and the charter schools also undermining it. We benefit as a society when we have 00:21:05.014 --> 00:21:11.776 - a strong public school system, when we have all of us in there together learning together. Not a stratified 00:21:11.776 --> 00:21:14.782 - system of wealthy people in one set of schools, 00:21:14.914 --> 00:21:20.534 - working families and other city schools. That does not work. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, same 00:21:20.534 --> 00:21:26.323 - question to you. Do you need me to repeat that or you got it? Please repeat. Thank you. So do you know 00:21:26.323 --> 00:21:32.056 - how funding mechanisms work for school corporations, including rules put in place last year requiring 00:21:32.056 --> 00:21:37.789 - sharing of funds with charter schools? And what do you think about tax dollars being given to private 00:21:37.789 --> 00:21:40.318 - schools due to Indiana's school choice laws? 00:21:41.986 --> 00:21:50.990 - Right, so fundamentally the idea of school choice is a myth to begin with, and I am nowhere near in 00:21:50.990 --> 00:22:00.354 - favor of sharing public funds with charter or private schools. As I said, I want to repeal and dissolve 00:22:00.354 --> 00:22:04.766 - that program entirely. I am sick to death of the 00:22:04.898 --> 00:22:12.625 - attacks on public education and this isn't just an Indiana problem, it's a nationwide problem. I grew 00:22:12.625 --> 00:22:20.427 - up in Texas and we have a lot of same issues there too so I've seen this my entire life. Fundamentally 00:22:20.427 --> 00:22:28.078 - I think we do have to treat education as a basic human right among other things and we're gonna have 00:22:28.078 --> 00:22:32.926 - to codify that into law in some capacity and make sure that our 00:22:33.250 --> 00:22:41.091 - a public education system is not just restored to what it was before we started getting all of this 00:22:41.091 --> 00:22:49.089 - funding drained out of it. Arguably, we have to make it even stronger than it was before then. Sorry, 00:22:49.089 --> 00:22:57.008 - thank you Ms. Young. So this is a question submitted by the audience and back to you on this one. So 00:22:57.008 --> 00:23:02.654 - disability rights are consistently left out of conversations like this. 00:23:02.754 --> 00:23:10.417 - In what ways will you commit to the rights of disabled people, especially given the fact that it's been 00:23:10.417 --> 00:23:17.932 - shown that supporting disabled people improves everyone's living condition? Disabilities, I think, is 00:23:17.932 --> 00:23:25.374 - a misunderstood thing. Most of the time you think of, for example, somebody in a wheelchair and your 00:23:25.374 --> 00:23:30.974 - imagination seems to cut off there, but this covers a pretty broad range of 00:23:31.170 --> 00:23:42.395 - physical and psychological impairments that people suffer. We have to address a increase in funding 00:23:42.395 --> 00:23:53.620 - and staffing for mental health and medical health services to address a lot of this. And I think we 00:23:53.620 --> 00:23:58.110 - have a very bad problem on our hands of 00:23:58.498 --> 00:24:06.182 - We just don't have enough legal protections for people with disabilities of any variety. One thing in 00:24:06.182 --> 00:24:14.017 - particular, people who suffer from anxiety disorders are treated really badly by workplaces. It's often 00:24:14.017 --> 00:24:21.551 - viewed as an excuse of, oh, you can't come into work because you're having an anxiety attack. Yeah, 00:24:21.551 --> 00:24:28.030 - we're going to write you up and dock your pay, and you might be fired tomorrow if you 00:24:28.258 --> 00:24:35.334 - don't get in here again. But that's as valid a disability as any other kind, and we've got to do a lot 00:24:35.334 --> 00:24:42.204 - better at protecting people who suffer these problems. Thank you, Ms. Young. Representative Pierce, 00:24:42.204 --> 00:24:49.623 - do you got that, or do you need a repeat? Yeah, I think that first you have an issue of just accessibility, 00:24:49.623 --> 00:24:57.112 - and I think that we could be doing better just on that baseline starting point. But what I've seen happening 00:24:57.112 --> 00:24:58.142 - is in erosion, 00:24:58.466 --> 00:25:04.296 - of support for the basic programs that are necessary for people to lead independent lives. Because I 00:25:04.296 --> 00:25:10.126 - think that's the number one thing. No matter what the nature of a disability someone might have, the 00:25:10.126 --> 00:25:16.072 - challenges they're facing, they want to lead independent, full lives. And a lot of times that requires 00:25:16.072 --> 00:25:21.960 - assistance, and that means relying upon things like Medicaid and other state programs. And those have 00:25:21.960 --> 00:25:23.230 - been funded properly. 00:25:24.130 --> 00:25:30.657 - And so that causes people to fight to have to get the assistance they need. And what's frustrating to 00:25:30.657 --> 00:25:37.056 - me is at the same time that we've been not funding those programs properly, we've been cutting back 00:25:37.056 --> 00:25:43.839 - the taxes that corporations and other people pay. The legislature has been slowly starving the government 00:25:43.839 --> 00:25:50.302 - to the point where it can't meet the basic needs of its people. And that's one of the things we have 00:25:50.302 --> 00:25:51.326 - to turn around. 00:25:51.490 --> 00:25:56.691 - Sadly, we have a budget process where the people in charge now, they just decide what is the bottom 00:25:56.691 --> 00:26:02.412 - line they're willing to spend, and then they drive everything backwards from that. They don't ask themselves, 00:26:02.412 --> 00:26:07.925 - what do we need to do to make sure we meet the needs of all the people, including those with disabilities 00:26:07.925 --> 00:26:13.178 - and people who have challenges that need help to lead full independent lives, and then finding a way 00:26:13.178 --> 00:26:15.934 - to fund those programs. And that's the approach that 00:26:16.066 --> 00:26:21.967 - I fight for in Indianapolis. Let's talk about what it takes to meet the needs of the people. Let's not 00:26:21.967 --> 00:26:27.697 - just look at a line on a page and say, this is the dollar amount we're willing to spend. Thank you, 00:26:27.697 --> 00:26:33.541 - Representative Pierce. So I want to move on to another question submitted by the audience. And unless 00:26:33.541 --> 00:26:39.385 - things change drastically this November, both of you would have to face the reality of the Republican 00:26:39.385 --> 00:26:43.166 - supermajority at the State House. Now, beyond policy differences, 00:26:43.490 --> 00:26:49.412 - How would you navigate these constraints as a legislator and a representative of Bloomington? 00:26:49.412 --> 00:26:55.963 - And furthermore, what is your theory of change? How will you use your office to disrupt the status quo? 00:26:55.963 --> 00:27:02.578 - And this one will start with Mr. Pierce. 90 seconds. Well, first of all, I do think we have a tremendous 00:27:02.578 --> 00:27:08.877 - opportunity this session to break the super majority. So that's the first step. If we can just pick 00:27:08.877 --> 00:27:09.822 - up four seats, 00:27:10.178 --> 00:27:15.930 - And we have an excellent opportunity with Amy Oliver running in the district next door. It's a 50-50 00:27:15.930 --> 00:27:21.626 - district. If we can pick that up, there's some opportunities up in Hamilton County. If we can break 00:27:21.626 --> 00:27:27.378 - that supermajority, that gives us another important tool. When a horrible piece of legislation comes 00:27:27.378 --> 00:27:33.415 - to the floor, we can deny a quorum to function. That gives us leverage to try to make something different 00:27:33.415 --> 00:27:37.630 - happen. And so that's the first key thing, which I think is within reach. 00:27:38.018 --> 00:27:44.074 - What I've always done is I've made sure, one, is to shine a spotlight on what they're doing, to try 00:27:44.074 --> 00:27:50.130 - to inform the public and tell them what's happening. One example of that was we had a bill in which 00:27:50.130 --> 00:27:56.307 - it opened it up. So on certain types of low-quality farmland, you could essentially put a data center 00:27:56.307 --> 00:28:02.605 - in with no oversight whatsoever from the government. It would be like a by-right use, which was insane. 00:28:02.605 --> 00:28:07.934 - And I quizzed the person on the floor, and I made them admit what this was going to do. 00:28:08.226 --> 00:28:14.070 - We got the word out over social media and other places, and the public then understood what was happening. 00:28:14.070 --> 00:28:19.750 - And they started calling in and saying, like, we don't want this. And within two days, the Senate said, 00:28:19.750 --> 00:28:25.539 - we are not going to touch that House bill with a 10-foot pole. So there are opportunities, whether you're 00:28:25.539 --> 00:28:31.164 - offering amendments to bills, you're quizzing the proponents of the bill, you're informing the public, 00:28:31.164 --> 00:28:34.878 - you can have an opportunity to keep things from happening that way. 00:28:36.290 --> 00:28:45.397 - Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to repeat the question or you got that? Yeah, so unless 00:28:45.397 --> 00:28:54.070 - things do change, which because of how many Democrats are running this year, we might actually have 00:28:54.070 --> 00:29:02.917 - a very real change come November. Cross your fingers on that one, everyone. But my plan to combat the 00:29:02.917 --> 00:29:04.478 - super majority is 00:29:04.898 --> 00:29:12.887 - partially in line with Matt's. It is continuing to do everything possible to shine a spotlight on the 00:29:12.887 --> 00:29:20.955 - goings on of Republicans in the state house. This will include things like engaging every social media 00:29:20.955 --> 00:29:28.866 - platform possible. This will include calling daily press conferences with every press outlet that'll 00:29:28.866 --> 00:29:31.294 - show up. I'm even very willing 00:29:31.618 --> 00:29:39.279 - to engage in calling out Republicans in committee or other legislative chambers. I've already done that 00:29:39.279 --> 00:29:46.645 - just as a private citizen. I've been to Indianapolis and have chewed out Republicans in committees, 00:29:46.645 --> 00:29:53.495 - told them to their faces the kinds of people that they are and the damage they're doing with 00:29:53.495 --> 00:30:01.598 - their legislation. And I've seen on their faces that it rattles them. They're not really ever expecting that. 00:30:02.402 --> 00:30:09.553 - And the great part is, as an elected representative, they can't fire me for doing that. So these are 00:30:09.553 --> 00:30:16.633 - ideas that I have in mind of how to combat them. Thank you, Ms. Young. And we're going to come back 00:30:16.633 --> 00:30:24.350 - to you on this one. This is a question submitted by YDSA. That's the Young Democratic Socialists of America. 00:30:24.706 --> 00:30:32.454 - What actions did you take to support the Palestine protests at Dun Meadow, and how would you support 00:30:32.454 --> 00:30:40.125 - any new student-led protests during your next term? You got 90 seconds. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't 00:30:40.125 --> 00:30:47.873 - show up to Dun Meadow, and I'm not gonna take credit for something I didn't do. As far as supporting 00:30:47.873 --> 00:30:50.558 - Palestinians as a state candidate, 00:30:50.754 --> 00:30:59.400 - There's not very much that we can do to legislate support for that, but I would be very happy to use 00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:08.216 - my position there to continue to raise awareness and organize attention on community organizations and 00:31:08.216 --> 00:31:16.862 - nonprofit organizations working to help our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Thank you. Mr. Peirce. 00:31:18.402 --> 00:31:23.881 - Yeah, I was appalled by what happened in Dunmetto, and I put out a strong statement criticizing President 00:31:23.881 --> 00:31:29.359 - Whitten and the whole way that was handled. That was completely unconstitutional, and anybody even paying 00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:34.683 - casual attention knew it. They tried to change the rules in the middle of the night to give themselves 00:31:34.683 --> 00:31:40.006 - a pretext to essentially arrest people and push them out of Dunmetto, which ever since the Vietnam War 00:31:40.006 --> 00:31:45.278 - has been known as the free speech location. And so that was outrageous. And then to put the sniper on 00:31:45.278 --> 00:31:47.294 - top of the Union building, even worse. 00:31:47.778 --> 00:31:52.871 - And so I got on the record that that was wrong, and I tried to push back. I wanted the university to 00:31:52.871 --> 00:31:57.914 - know that there are some people that were in elected offices that did not appreciate what they were 00:31:57.914 --> 00:32:03.159 - doing. Then I got on the phone with the superintendent of state police, and I asked them, what the hell 00:32:03.159 --> 00:32:08.252 - are you guys doing down here? Why are you here? Why are you taking peaceful protesters and trying to 00:32:08.252 --> 00:32:13.598 - arrest them? It's like, well, then you learn the story. Well, we were asked to come in by the university. 00:32:14.882 --> 00:32:20.489 - We have to fight back because it's only kind of gotten worse from there. Now, fortunately, the ACLU 00:32:20.489 --> 00:32:25.816 - and others got involved in litigation. We've had federal judges basically say what you've done 00:32:25.816 --> 00:32:31.591 - was unconstitutional. And so people who are declared trespassers have been, you know, had that erased. 00:32:31.591 --> 00:32:37.199 - People have got reprimanded for various things related to their speech rights. Those have had to be 00:32:37.199 --> 00:32:42.974 - expunged because of what the federal court said. And so I think in the short term, we have to continue 00:32:43.234 --> 00:32:49.171 - fighting through the court system to vindicate our rights. And then we really have to, in two years' 00:32:49.171 --> 00:32:55.226 - time, when we have the opportunity to elect another governor, we need to get a governor in place who's 00:32:55.226 --> 00:33:01.164 - going to appoint trustees who are going to respect our professors, our faculty, and academic freedom 00:33:01.164 --> 00:33:07.042 - on campus. And that's essential. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. So I want to come back to you for this one. 00:33:07.042 --> 00:33:12.862 - And this issue has been very contentious lately, getting a lot of media attention across the board 00:33:13.218 --> 00:33:19.388 - both sides of the aisle. So this question is from Bloomington DSA. How would you go about staving off 00:33:19.388 --> 00:33:25.558 - the increase in the amount of data centers that are hogging electricity and water in our state? Yeah, 00:33:25.558 --> 00:33:31.668 - it's interesting because the governor and the leadership of the legislature, they're really pro data 00:33:31.668 --> 00:33:35.902 - center and they want to get as many of them in the state as possible. 00:33:36.450 --> 00:33:41.951 - And I've been saying that you cannot run roughshod over the desires of local units of government, of 00:33:41.951 --> 00:33:47.507 - people to decide what they want to have happening in their backyard. And so the first thing is, which 00:33:47.507 --> 00:33:53.063 - I've done in the utilities committee, is I've worked very hard to try to prevent us, one, from having 00:33:53.063 --> 00:33:58.564 - to pay for the tremendous amount of electric generation necessary to run a data center. And so I had 00:33:58.564 --> 00:34:03.902 - an amendment that I got passed in the law, which pushes it up, which says that these data centers 00:34:04.098 --> 00:34:10.311 - are supposed to pay at least 85 percent of the cost of generating this power. Now, it ought to be 100 00:34:10.311 --> 00:34:16.402 - percent, but at least we got it up there and we need to do more on that. The other thing is we have 00:34:16.402 --> 00:34:22.797 - to have ironclad regulations about environmental impacts, whether that's water usage or noise pollution, 00:34:22.797 --> 00:34:26.878 - all these different things. I think that we have to make sure that 00:34:27.330 --> 00:34:32.241 - The data center people don't think that Indiana is where you come because it doesn't matter what the 00:34:32.241 --> 00:34:37.249 - people think or what your impacts on the environment are. They have to understand that if you're going 00:34:37.249 --> 00:34:42.111 - to come here, you're going to pay for your own power, you're going to operate in a way that doesn't 00:34:42.111 --> 00:34:47.070 - deplete our water supply, and you're going to be good neighbors to the people around you. And I think 00:34:47.070 --> 00:34:52.078 - that's the key thing. And I think when you do that and you preserve people's local autonomy to decide, 00:34:52.078 --> 00:34:55.870 - then we can have decisions made that are in the best interests of the people. 00:34:57.282 --> 00:35:03.537 - Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, 90 seconds to you on data centers. I'm sorry. Could you please repeat 00:35:03.537 --> 00:35:09.551 - it real quick? Absolutely. So how would you go about staving off the increase in the amount of data 00:35:09.551 --> 00:35:16.167 - centers in the state that are hogging all this electricity and water? If I had my way, my perfect legislation 00:35:16.167 --> 00:35:20.798 - would be to completely block them from being built in Indiana to begin with. 00:35:20.898 --> 00:35:28.171 - They don't bring any benefits. They're not bringing jobs. They're using up all of our resources, and 00:35:28.171 --> 00:35:34.940 - they're making us all pay two or three times as much in electricity as we otherwise would be. 00:35:34.940 --> 00:35:42.501 - Barring that, I will, like Matt, I would love to continue to offer amendments to bills, try and increase 00:35:42.501 --> 00:35:48.766 - the amount of electricity costs that they're paying for their own usage. I would also, 00:35:49.154 --> 00:35:58.930 - continue to organize and engage the public to show up at the state house as often as possible to speak 00:35:58.930 --> 00:36:08.611 - out and protest on bills that let the data centers continue to run rampant here in the state. I also, 00:36:08.611 --> 00:36:14.686 - I apologize, I cannot remember the bill name, but the bill that 00:36:15.330 --> 00:36:23.968 - was going to allow the state to completely usurp municipal decisions on land use, I would do everything 00:36:23.968 --> 00:36:32.439 - possible to make sure no bills like that ever get that far ever again. Thank you, Ms. Young. So we're 00:36:32.439 --> 00:36:39.582 - getting a lot of questions. Good to see it. Love the participation. Thank you all for 00:36:39.682 --> 00:36:45.969 - your thoughtful questions. We'll go to about seven o'clock here tonight. That's about 15, 20 minutes 00:36:45.969 --> 00:36:52.505 - from now. So I'm going to come back to you Ms. Young for this one. And this is a question from advocates 00:36:52.505 --> 00:36:58.917 - for the unhoused and home insecure at IU. Senate Bill 285 was passed this legislative session and will 00:36:58.917 --> 00:37:05.142 - make it a class C misdemeanor for people to sleep on public land. Bloomington already has a housing 00:37:05.142 --> 00:37:08.254 - crisis and under capacity in shelters. How do you 00:37:08.418 --> 00:37:18.330 - plan to respond to this bill at the State House and to this issue in our community. 90 seconds. My first 00:37:18.330 --> 00:37:27.958 - priority, if possible, is to try and repeal that bill immediately. It's heinous and inhumane in every 00:37:27.958 --> 00:37:36.926 - way possible. Barring that option, I will continue to try and amend any other bill possible to 00:37:37.250 --> 00:37:46.617 - lower those penalties or put limits on how those penalties and fines can be implemented. I will also 00:37:46.617 --> 00:37:56.170 - try and work with our Bloomington government here as a state representative to make sure that they are 00:37:56.170 --> 00:38:05.630 - doing everything that they can on the ground level here to combat that problem and make sure that our 00:38:05.954 --> 00:38:12.646 - municipal services, shelters are being funded and staffed properly to at least offer some short-term 00:38:12.646 --> 00:38:19.669 - relief while we're trying to solve this in the legislature. Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Pierce, 90 seconds. 00:38:19.669 --> 00:38:26.494 - Do you need me to repeat the question? No, I think I've got it. Yeah, that Senate Bill 285 was classic 00:38:26.494 --> 00:38:33.119 - Republican thought, right? It's really like we're concerned about a problem, so rather than solving 00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:35.902 - the problem, let's just hide the problem. 00:38:36.514 --> 00:38:43.461 - Let's just sweep the people off the streets, and they're going to end up in jail. Now, their argument 00:38:43.461 --> 00:38:50.340 - is this is the pathway to treatment. My argument is we already have sheriffs telling us that they're 00:38:50.340 --> 00:38:57.492 - tired of the jail being the number one mental health provider in the community. Many people in our jails 00:38:57.492 --> 00:39:04.780 - are suffering from substance use disorder or mental health challenges, and the jails are not in a position 00:39:04.780 --> 00:39:06.142 - to deal with those. 00:39:06.658 --> 00:39:12.297 - We kept beating them up and they've added in all kinds of little different theoretically escape routes 00:39:12.297 --> 00:39:17.771 - to avoid end up being charged with the misdemeanor. But at the end of the day, none of that's going 00:39:17.771 --> 00:39:23.355 - to work because the treatment facilities are not there. We need residential treatment facilities. And 00:39:23.355 --> 00:39:28.446 - so on second reading, that's the point where everyone can vote on an amendment in the House. 00:39:28.446 --> 00:39:30.526 - To that bill, I offered an amendment. 00:39:31.042 --> 00:39:38.429 - that said the bill could not become effective until such time as we had three regional residential mental 00:39:38.429 --> 00:39:45.607 - health and drug treatment facilities that had the capacity and staffing to serve every single unhoused 00:39:45.607 --> 00:39:47.070 - person in our state. 00:39:47.874 --> 00:39:53.044 - And I really wanted to push this because I know that there are some members in the Republican side who 00:39:53.044 --> 00:39:58.063 - are recognizing this is a significant need and a problem. And they've been telling me over and over 00:39:58.063 --> 00:40:03.082 - again for years now, we're going to get around to doing something about that. So I really wanted to 00:40:03.082 --> 00:40:08.102 - push them and say, if you're going to have a bill like this, you have to provide the treatment. And 00:40:08.102 --> 00:40:13.271 - so I'm hopeful that we'll make progress on that in the next session. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Let's come 00:40:13.271 --> 00:40:17.086 - back to you for this one. And this is a question submitted by the audience. 00:40:18.146 --> 00:40:24.232 - We're going to stay with housing. Housing in the US is treated primarily as an investment rather than 00:40:24.232 --> 00:40:30.318 - a necessity. A significant portion of Section 8 funding goes toward the profits of private landlords. 00:40:30.318 --> 00:40:36.345 - Do you support the construction of government-owned housing, not just for the poorest Americans, but 00:40:36.345 --> 00:40:42.610 - at a variety of price points in order to increase supply and undercut the private rental market? I think 00:40:42.610 --> 00:40:46.846 - probably to solve this tremendous problem, which has so many different 00:40:47.714 --> 00:40:53.327 - causes at multiple levels is you're gonna have to have multiple solutions. So I think you're gonna need 00:40:53.327 --> 00:40:58.615 - to have some government subsidized housing. I think we should be doing more through the tax code, 00:40:58.615 --> 00:41:04.012 - tax credits, other subsidies to help people afford down payments. Of course, if we can figure out a 00:41:04.012 --> 00:41:09.409 - way to get the interest rates lower, that's also helpful. So we just have to work on affordability. 00:41:09.409 --> 00:41:10.974 - I was very disappointed that 00:41:11.426 --> 00:41:17.421 - After the Republicans said we recognize that housing affordability is a real issue and we're going to 00:41:17.421 --> 00:41:23.534 - have a bill on it, I thought that we would have something, we'd have a mix of these types of solutions. 00:41:23.534 --> 00:41:29.999 - Instead, what we got was a home builder driven bill which essentially sought to deregulate their construction 00:41:29.999 --> 00:41:35.230 - industry. And the bill in its final form wasn't worth voting for. I mean, it essentially 00:41:35.906 --> 00:41:42.565 - said you couldn't do certain types of mitigation for water runoff. You couldn't have certain types of 00:41:42.565 --> 00:41:49.355 - safety requirements for homes. It didn't make any sense. And there was nothing in the bill that ensured 00:41:49.355 --> 00:41:55.949 - that whatever savings those home builders would get from not having to comply with a lot of planning 00:41:55.949 --> 00:42:01.694 - and zoning and building code regulations would actually be passed on to the home buyer. 00:42:02.466 --> 00:42:08.085 - So I thought it had the potential to really just pad the profits of the people building the homes. And 00:42:08.085 --> 00:42:13.541 - so I voted against that bill. It's a very weak bill. It really is just something that's designed to 00:42:13.541 --> 00:42:19.214 - have people put a brochure, a line on their campaign brochure saying, I voted for an affordable housing 00:42:19.214 --> 00:42:24.724 - bill. But it doesn't really accomplish anything. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to 00:42:24.724 --> 00:42:27.070 - repeat the question? All right, very good. 00:42:27.554 --> 00:42:34.376 - We mentioned that housing is treated primarily as an investment rather than a necessity, and a significant 00:42:34.376 --> 00:42:41.198 - portion of Section 8 funding goes toward the profits of private landlords. Do you support the construction 00:42:41.198 --> 00:42:47.638 - of government-owned housing, not just for the poorest Americans, but at a variety of price points in 00:42:47.638 --> 00:42:54.014 - order to increase supply and undercut the private rental market? Yes. No, fundamentally, we have to 00:42:54.146 --> 00:43:02.157 - move to decommodify housing on just about every level. I would like to see one bedroom, two bedroom, 00:43:02.157 --> 00:43:10.169 - three bedroom apartments subsidized by the state. I'd like to see smaller houses, two bedroom houses 00:43:10.169 --> 00:43:18.259 - maybe also subsidized by the state. That would be more of a short term solution, but it's part of the 00:43:18.259 --> 00:43:22.622 - way there. In the longer term, I want to see the state 00:43:22.786 --> 00:43:33.750 - take ownership of as much housing as possible so that we can remove the for-profit incentive that landlords 00:43:33.750 --> 00:43:43.903 - operate on. This is a fundamental human rights issue, and it has to stop being treated as something 00:43:43.903 --> 00:43:52.126 - else to exploit. Thank you, Ms. Young. So I want to move to the environment now. 00:43:52.290 --> 00:43:59.262 - Indiana's air, soil, water qualities are among the lowest in the nation. How will you lift our state 00:43:59.262 --> 00:44:06.441 - out of the bottom of these rankings and protect our air, water, soil, and natural areas? And Ms. Young, 00:44:06.441 --> 00:44:13.828 - you've got 90 seconds. I'm very sorry. I only caught part of that. Will you please repeat? Oh, absolutely. 00:44:13.828 --> 00:44:21.214 - So how will you lift our state out of the bottom of the rankings in terms of air, water, and soil quality? 00:44:22.722 --> 00:44:33.711 - As I have read the Indiana Department of Environmental Protection has had its teeth removed consistently 00:44:33.711 --> 00:44:44.281 - and we're gonna have to write some hard legislation that'll give it the teeth it needs back to start 00:44:44.281 --> 00:44:50.142 - enforcing environmental regulations, make sure that our 00:44:50.562 --> 00:44:57.482 - Corporations operating in the state are cleaning up their own messes, that they're not passing that 00:44:57.482 --> 00:45:05.026 - on to the rest of us to have to deal with. Our kids deserve to be growing up in a state that's not poisoning 00:45:05.026 --> 00:45:12.016 - them every day. I certainly want my daughter to have something better to grow up in, and I think all 00:45:12.016 --> 00:45:18.590 - the rest of you do as well. This will include things like increasing the staffing and funding. 00:45:18.754 --> 00:45:26.531 - in this department. But like I said, we have to legislate what it can do to make sure that the governor 00:45:26.531 --> 00:45:34.083 - can't keep trimming its powers on his own. Thank you, Ms. Young. And I want to ask the same question 00:45:34.083 --> 00:45:41.560 - to you, Mr. Pierce. Do you need me to repeat that? No, I'm good. So the environmental issues at the 00:45:41.560 --> 00:45:45.598 - legislature are probably the most frustrating of all. 00:45:46.050 --> 00:45:52.686 - It almost makes me kind of, it does make me sad because there is just no imperative within the General 00:45:52.686 --> 00:45:58.742 - Assembly to protect our environment. I mean, they've gutted our wetlands protections and it's 00:45:58.742 --> 00:46:05.378 - just frustrating. Now they just passed this bill, I think it's 277, which guts IDEM even more. I mean, 00:46:05.378 --> 00:46:11.821 - right now they told IDEM, you are not allowed to protect the environment in any way that's stricter 00:46:11.821 --> 00:46:14.462 - than federal law, right? So if Congress, 00:46:14.754 --> 00:46:20.338 - or the EPA is not willing to protect our environment in a significant way, the state isn't either. In 00:46:20.338 --> 00:46:25.812 - this bill, they added in this magic word that not only can you not be any stricter than the federal 00:46:25.812 --> 00:46:31.396 - law, you cannot be any more burdensome than the federal law. And I told them on the House floor, what 00:46:31.396 --> 00:46:34.462 - you've done is you've handed a weapon to the polluters. 00:46:34.850 --> 00:46:40.806 - So their lawyers can go into court and say, oh, you may not be any stricter than federal law, but the 00:46:40.806 --> 00:46:46.937 - effect is to be more burdensome. And no one will know what that word means, so it'll be up to the judges 00:46:46.937 --> 00:46:53.068 - to tell us what it means. And so what I did on the House floor with that bill is I got the fishing guide 00:46:53.068 --> 00:46:58.907 - for the Department of Natural Resources. If you ever look through that, it has a list of all of the 00:46:58.907 --> 00:47:03.870 - impaired waterways in the state in which you should not eat fish if you are fishing. 00:47:04.706 --> 00:47:10.452 - or you should limit your intake. And I read off every county that had an impaired waterway in which 00:47:10.452 --> 00:47:16.255 - you would put your life in danger if you ate fish that you actually fished out of those. And I said, 00:47:16.255 --> 00:47:22.058 - like, all of you that live in these counties, why are you gutting this agency? Its job is to protect 00:47:22.058 --> 00:47:27.861 - these waters and the environment. And again, this is a situation where we have to just make sure the 00:47:27.861 --> 00:47:33.722 - public understands what's happening and make it an issue in forums like this and when we get into the 00:47:33.722 --> 00:47:34.526 - voting booth. 00:47:35.362 --> 00:47:41.272 - All right. So Mr. Paris, I want to come back to you here for this one. This is a question submitted 00:47:41.272 --> 00:47:47.359 - by the audience. Now, Indiana is facing a critical shortage of health care professionals. Hoosiers are 00:47:47.359 --> 00:47:53.446 - facing months-long waiting times to see certain specialists. What are your ideas to encourage students 00:47:53.446 --> 00:47:59.473 - to enter into health care professions? And what are your ideas to entice health care professionals to 00:47:59.473 --> 00:48:00.478 - stay in Indiana? 00:48:02.178 --> 00:48:08.225 - Yeah this is really a difficult situation because again on the Medicaid front we have so many people 00:48:08.225 --> 00:48:14.452 - that are on Medicaid and if you don't fund Medicaid properly then the providers don't get paid properly 00:48:14.452 --> 00:48:20.738 - then they can't pay their workers properly and then you have people deciding to go work in another state 00:48:20.738 --> 00:48:26.845 - or some other place or just try a different occupation. So that goes back to your problem I mentioned 00:48:26.845 --> 00:48:28.222 - before where right now 00:48:28.962 --> 00:48:33.835 - The legislative leaders of the Republican Party are hell bent in trying to squeeze down Medicaid as 00:48:33.835 --> 00:48:38.853 - much as possible. And they don't want to admit that to you. They don't want to say, well, I don't care 00:48:38.853 --> 00:48:43.726 - about you and your health care. I just want to make this budget balanced. Or I just don't like this 00:48:43.726 --> 00:48:48.793 - program. So instead, they say, we are fighting waste, fraud, and abuse to preserve the program for you. 00:48:48.793 --> 00:48:53.666 - This is like George Orwell at work. And then just for a little extra sprinkle, all those immigrants 00:48:53.666 --> 00:48:58.782 - are taking your health care, and they shouldn't be getting it. And we're going to find out who they are. 00:48:58.882 --> 00:49:04.406 - and take care of them. And it's just ridiculous. What I've been trying to do is get the legislature 00:49:04.406 --> 00:49:10.318 - to decide that we have an insane health care system. We got these insurance companies stuck in the middle, 00:49:10.318 --> 00:49:16.229 - pharmacy benefit management. They're sucking all this money out of the system. They don't provide anything 00:49:16.229 --> 00:49:21.808 - of value to people. We need to get them out of the system. I'm a Medicare for all person. I think we 00:49:21.808 --> 00:49:23.742 - should have universal health care. 00:49:27.074 --> 00:49:32.308 - We had a big debate over the last couple years about hospitals. We found out our nonprofit hospitals 00:49:32.308 --> 00:49:37.698 - had huge billions of dollars of surplus. I voted for legislation that tells people, you better act like 00:49:37.698 --> 00:49:43.088 - a nonprofit and provide charity care, or we're going to take your tax exemption away. So we got to play 00:49:43.088 --> 00:49:48.322 - a little bit of hardball there. And we just got to get to a better system, ultimately. We can't just 00:49:48.322 --> 00:49:53.608 - keep putting Band-Aids on the one we have. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to repeat 00:49:53.608 --> 00:49:54.334 - the question? 00:49:55.618 --> 00:50:05.377 - So Matt is correct part of the problem is increasing our funding back into the Medicaid program Another 00:50:05.377 --> 00:50:15.418 - part of the solution to this is repealing seemingly unrelated legislation such as restrictions on abortion 00:50:15.418 --> 00:50:22.174 - care and trans health care what we've seen in other states when we have 00:50:22.306 --> 00:50:31.213 - these kinds of laws put in place, that has a negative impact on states where specialists will leave 00:50:31.213 --> 00:50:40.477 - those states because they're afraid of practicing anything adjacent to that specialty. And that impacts 00:50:40.477 --> 00:50:49.919 - thousands, tens of thousands of people at a time who can no longer get, for example, OB-GYNs leave states 00:50:49.919 --> 00:50:51.166 - when you have 00:50:51.298 --> 00:50:58.542 - abortion bans in place. So now it's not just a matter of you can't get abortion healthcare, you can't 00:50:58.542 --> 00:51:05.856 - get any OGBYN care unless you travel state lines because the specialists just aren't there. So we have 00:51:05.856 --> 00:51:13.029 - to make sure that we're not just funding our Medicaid programs properly, but we have to repeal these 00:51:13.029 --> 00:51:18.142 - restrictive laws that have targeted other healthcare adjacent problems. 00:51:18.754 --> 00:51:26.479 - And we are also going to, I think, need to try and work to expand what Medicaid can cover in the state. 00:51:26.479 --> 00:51:34.203 - Now, there's going to be some federal restrictions on that, but to the extent possible, we need to lift 00:51:34.203 --> 00:51:41.631 - those here in the state, too. All right. Very good. So I want to thank you both for your thoughtful 00:51:41.631 --> 00:51:45.790 - answers. And I want to thank all the audience for their 00:51:45.986 --> 00:51:52.892 - incredibly thoughtful questions. And as we're coming up on seven o'clock here, I do want to pivot to 00:51:52.892 --> 00:52:00.139 - closing statements. And so since I let Mr. Pierce open first, I will let Ms. Young have the first closing 00:52:00.139 --> 00:52:06.976 - statement. About two minutes, please. Things can't get better if they don't change. And this change 00:52:06.976 --> 00:52:13.950 - isn't just about voting out Republicans who have been driving the harm that we all have to live with. 00:52:14.274 --> 00:52:21.194 - It's going to have to require a complete shakeup of the current system that we have. It's not meant 00:52:21.194 --> 00:52:28.323 - as a personal attack against anybody, but politics has changed and we need to have people in our state 00:52:28.323 --> 00:52:35.382 - government that understand that change and know how to respond to it accordingly. And that is exactly 00:52:35.382 --> 00:52:42.302 - what I believe I am capable of doing. That's why I stepped up to run for this office to begin with. 00:52:45.826 --> 00:52:51.932 - Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Pierce, you can take up to two minutes if you'd like. Thank you very much. 00:52:51.932 --> 00:52:58.037 - I appreciate you for hosting the forum and the opportunity to talk to you about some of my ideas for 00:52:58.037 --> 00:53:04.385 - the legislature. You know, I know that people are extremely frustrated, frustrated and feeling powerless 00:53:04.385 --> 00:53:10.974 - and wanting to know how is our country, how is our state going down this path? How is it that we can reclaim 00:53:11.906 --> 00:53:19.773 - our ability to impact what actually happens in Indianapolis. And I see that and I feel that myself up 00:53:19.773 --> 00:53:27.717 - close. And I tell you that it's easy to get dispirited and to want to give up. But for me, I just kind 00:53:27.717 --> 00:53:35.507 - of get a little more anger each day. And I try to focus that anger into positive actions. And I very 00:53:35.507 --> 00:53:41.214 - much want to be returned to the legislature so I can continue this fight. 00:53:41.954 --> 00:53:48.514 - I've spent years learning how the legislature works, how the rules work, the personalities involved, 00:53:48.514 --> 00:53:55.203 - and I want to be able to continue putting that to work for the people of District 61 and do everything 00:53:55.203 --> 00:54:01.762 - I can to push back on this, to preserve our democracy, to have a fair voting and election system, to 00:54:01.762 --> 00:54:05.854 - have a government that actually serves the needs of the people 00:54:05.954 --> 00:54:12.214 - and doesn't continually cater to the wealthiest people in our state with the theory that it will all 00:54:12.214 --> 00:54:18.412 - trickle down and the rest of us will somehow benefit. I very much want to stay in the fight. And so 00:54:18.412 --> 00:54:24.796 - I'm asking you as the voters of District 61 to please give me a chance to continue the efforts to make 00:54:24.796 --> 00:54:31.117 - progress. And I'm hopeful that this election year and this election coming up in November, the people 00:54:31.117 --> 00:54:35.518 - will send a strong message. And I'll have a little more help up there. 00:54:35.938 --> 00:54:41.753 - and we'll have a little more power, and we can actually get some done, and we can start getting on offense 00:54:41.753 --> 00:54:47.351 - instead of having to be on defense all the time. And so I really much would like your support and hope 00:54:47.351 --> 00:54:52.786 - you all will get out to vote in the upcoming election. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Thank you, 00:54:52.786 --> 00:54:58.330 - both of you. We appreciate you being here with us tonight and answering our questions. And let's take 00:54:58.330 --> 00:55:04.254 - about a 10-minute break, and then we're going to invite our candidates up here for Congressional District 9. 00:55:08.258 --> 00:55:13.975 - everybody welcome back let's go ahead and welcome our candidates for the ninth congressional district 00:55:13.975 --> 00:55:19.749 - and we're going to go from left to right here we've got Floyd Taylor Kyle Rourke Dr. Tim Peck and Brad 00:55:19.749 --> 00:55:25.410 - Meyer now I should note mr. Taylor here is an independent candidate he will not be on your ballot on 00:55:25.410 --> 00:55:29.950 - May 5th you're still trying to secure ballot access for November is that correct 00:55:30.658 --> 00:55:36.285 - All right, very good. So once again, I want to reiterate the rules. We've got four minutes each for 00:55:36.285 --> 00:55:42.250 - our candidates to give an opening statement. And then once we get to our questions, we've got 90 seconds. 00:55:42.250 --> 00:55:47.934 - And I especially expect maybe a little bit more jostling in this section with the four of you there. 00:55:47.934 --> 00:55:52.830 - So if somebody is mentioned directly by name, I'll give you 30 seconds for a rebuttal. 00:55:53.538 --> 00:55:59.635 - if our QR code is still out there. So if you want to ask some questions from the audience, just scan 00:55:59.635 --> 00:56:05.731 - that and submit your questions there. We do have some already in the hopper from our Bloomington DSA 00:56:05.731 --> 00:56:11.949 - chapter and our co-sponsors. But for now, let us go ahead and start. And I'm going to go directly from 00:56:11.949 --> 00:56:17.985 - left to right here. And I'm going to start with Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor, you've got four minutes for 00:56:17.985 --> 00:56:22.814 - an opening statement. Good evening. I'm the independent candidate in this race. 00:56:23.010 --> 00:56:31.268 - I want to get right to the point. I have Republicans that are calling me a closet Democrat, and Democrats 00:56:31.268 --> 00:56:39.137 - that are calling me a closet Republican, and both sides are saying I'm trying to split the vote. And 00:56:39.137 --> 00:56:46.927 - I just want to state right up front that I'm not trying to split the vote. I want to take it all. I 00:56:46.927 --> 00:56:52.926 - want all of them. The truth is, I'm not in this campaign to... The truth is, 00:56:53.154 --> 00:57:00.839 - This campaign isn't a protest. It's a war against the way we do government. And I brought a weapon. 00:57:00.839 --> 00:57:08.600 - It's called the Congress App. With the Congress App, when a bill comes up for a vote, you get a text 00:57:08.600 --> 00:57:16.361 - on your phone. You get to read the full bill text, the plain English summary, and the fiscal impact. 00:57:16.361 --> 00:57:18.590 - And then you vote yes or no. 00:57:20.258 --> 00:57:28.545 - then my vote is bound to the will of the people of the ninth district. Not just the registered voters, 00:57:28.545 --> 00:57:36.590 - all the people. And that simple tool changes everything. Lobbyists and PACs can't buy my vote. They 00:57:36.590 --> 00:57:44.957 - have to persuade you. Money no longer flows to Washington to buy access. It has to flow right here into 00:57:44.957 --> 00:57:47.934 - your communities to earn your trust. 00:57:49.602 --> 00:57:56.434 - We can finally tackle the issues that no one dares to touch, not because they're unpopular, but because 00:57:56.434 --> 00:58:03.661 - they're unpopular with the big donors of the party leadership. Every other campaign starts with a candidate's 00:58:03.661 --> 00:58:10.361 - platform, their ideas, their goals, their concepts of a plan. My campaign starts with your positions, 00:58:10.361 --> 00:58:17.982 - your ideas, your goals, and writes the bills to make them law. I'm not asking for your trust. I'm designing for it. 00:58:18.690 --> 00:58:26.327 - And I'm the only one running on a plan that turns your phone into a weapon against the broken system. 00:58:26.327 --> 00:58:34.488 - Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke, four minutes for an opening statement. Good evening, everyone. 00:58:34.488 --> 00:58:42.049 - First and foremost, I want to send my deepest condolences and prayers for those service members that 00:58:42.049 --> 00:58:48.638 - have lost their lives in the Middle East in Iran bombing. Secondly, I just want to say, 00:58:49.154 --> 00:58:57.096 - My name is Kyle Rourke, and I'm running in Indiana's ninth congressional district. I believe that government 00:58:57.096 --> 00:59:04.892 - should work for the people. I am an electrical engineer, father of four veteran. I am running for Congress 00:59:04.892 --> 00:59:11.668 - because we have an affordability crisis. I am looking to put more money in people's pockets, 00:59:11.668 --> 00:59:17.278 - bottom line. I'm also working to provide affordable housing, increase wages, 00:59:18.050 --> 00:59:26.065 - But I'm also running to advance educational opportunities for our students, either in college, university, 00:59:26.065 --> 00:59:33.706 - or in tech schools that grant wide accessibility and affordability. And finally, I'm also running for 00:59:33.706 --> 00:59:41.346 - government accountability. Congress has oversight responsibilities to which they're designed for. And 00:59:41.346 --> 00:59:46.590 - I'm also running to return decency to Washington, if that's possible. 00:59:47.970 --> 00:59:54.361 - I also believe in honor, courage, and commitment. And I believe I'm the man to provide that, make that 00:59:54.361 --> 01:00:00.753 - happen. Okay? Of all of us up here today, I believe I am the only one that can beat Aaron Houchin. I'm 01:00:00.753 --> 01:00:07.144 - the only one who put himself through college working on the assembly line at Chrysler as a UAW worker. 01:00:07.144 --> 01:00:13.535 - And I'm the only one who swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution in the United 01:00:13.535 --> 01:00:16.638 - States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. 01:00:17.442 --> 01:00:24.707 - So I appreciate your vote and your support tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roark. Dr. Peck, you may 01:00:24.707 --> 01:00:31.901 - take up to four minutes for an opening statement. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it. Thank you to the 01:00:31.901 --> 01:00:39.306 - DSA. Thank you to all the co-sponsors, to my competitors here tonight. I appreciate it, to the audience. 01:00:39.306 --> 01:00:46.430 - My name is Dr. Tim Peck. I am an emergency physician down in rural southern Indiana. My father was a 01:00:46.722 --> 01:00:53.599 - a Vietnam veteran who came home and dedicated his life to building the first homeless shelter for veterans 01:00:53.599 --> 01:01:00.156 - of the United States. And that's how I grew up. I became a chief resident as a physician in emergency 01:01:00.156 --> 01:01:06.905 - medicine at Harvard Med School and left to live in a nursing home for three months. And there, I learned 01:01:06.905 --> 01:01:13.396 - everything I could about that world in order to bring them a new care model, which was telemedicine, 01:01:13.396 --> 01:01:15.646 - before telemedicine was a reality. 01:01:16.290 --> 01:01:24.360 - that turned into a very large physician practice in which we treated hundreds of thousands of patients 01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:32.194 - across the country. And we saved Medicare and taxpayers $100 million. And what that did was lead me 01:01:32.194 --> 01:01:40.186 - to DC. And there I became a leader of a bipartisan coalition that got Congress to pass multiple bills 01:01:40.186 --> 01:01:45.278 - and make telemedicine a reality right before the pandemic saving 01:01:45.698 --> 01:01:54.421 - the lives of millions of people. So now I live on a farm with my wife and my son and treating my rural 01:01:54.421 --> 01:02:02.975 - neighbors. So I wanted to quickly tell you about what I've been thinking about, which is Alex Preti, 01:02:02.975 --> 01:02:12.036 - and what it means to have border control and ICE on our streets, and that for ICE to act constitutionally, 01:02:12.036 --> 01:02:15.678 - it does not need to sow unnecessary terror 01:02:15.938 --> 01:02:22.574 - It needs to be dedicated to the honor of the Constitution, the nation, its people, and definitely not 01:02:22.574 --> 01:02:29.144 - its parties, not its leaders' whims or late night tweets, and not its billionaires putting its money 01:02:29.144 --> 01:02:35.650 - into their pockets or politicians' pockets. And so reflecting on Alex's death, it reminds me of the 01:02:35.650 --> 01:02:42.220 - people I see in the emergency department who just want to be safe. They just want to feel seen. They 01:02:42.220 --> 01:02:45.278 - just want to get home to the people they love, 01:02:45.666 --> 01:02:53.447 - Just like Alex did right before he had pepper spray in his face, five men on his back, one with his 01:02:53.447 --> 01:03:01.383 - own gun in their hand, and right before 11 bullets were put into his body. Alex's death shows us that 01:03:01.383 --> 01:03:09.163 - what's happening in America is not working today. We need a new way forward. Isn't it exhausting to 01:03:09.163 --> 01:03:13.598 - live this way? Does anyone actually like being this way? 01:03:14.594 --> 01:03:21.997 - Is this the America that you all dreamed of? We have to stop putting our energy into hate and otherness 01:03:21.997 --> 01:03:29.471 - and redirect it into patience and curiosity and community. And if our leaders aren't willing to do that, 01:03:29.471 --> 01:03:36.731 - then let's do that ourselves. Because after we hold power to account, and we will, the next step will 01:03:36.731 --> 01:03:43.422 - be the hard work of bringing people together, of lifting up the safety glass of social media, 01:03:43.682 --> 01:03:49.850 - taking down the cage of 24 hour news networks and making a democracy that works for all of 01:03:49.850 --> 01:03:56.763 - us. The opportunity of this election is not about politics. The opportunity of this election is about 01:03:56.763 --> 01:04:03.880 - humanity and remembering that all people deserve dignity no matter who they are and where they are from. 01:04:03.880 --> 01:04:10.590 - Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, you've got up to four minutes for an opening statement. 01:04:11.394 --> 01:04:18.331 - Thank you. I'd like to thank everybody for being here today. This is a great turnout. And I would like 01:04:18.331 --> 01:04:25.201 - to thank the DSA for hosting this. So I'm Brad Meyer. I'm running for the US House of Representatives 01:04:25.201 --> 01:04:32.071 - because this system that we live in truly is rigged. And I did want to rebut. I also swore an oath to 01:04:32.071 --> 01:04:39.076 - the Constitution to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that's part of why I left 01:04:39.076 --> 01:04:40.894 - my job, to run for office. 01:04:41.250 --> 01:04:48.892 - I also put myself through school. My wife and I got married when we turned 18 and went to school, college 01:04:48.892 --> 01:04:56.174 - together. I spent 25 years in industry and this is really not about me, it's about you, right? So my 01:04:56.174 --> 01:05:03.600 - time in industry, I saw ethical leadership where owners of the company cared about their employees and 01:05:03.600 --> 01:05:07.710 - treated them fairly and with dignity. I also saw leaders 01:05:07.938 --> 01:05:14.877 - that definitely did not, and their only purpose in life was to squeeze every penny out of everything 01:05:14.877 --> 01:05:22.161 - and every person that worked for them. And that selfish approach is the official policy of the government 01:05:22.161 --> 01:05:29.031 - today. It's been that way for a long time, but it is now the official policy and where we're going. 01:05:29.031 --> 01:05:33.566 - Instead of expanding opportunity for all of us, they are hoarding 01:05:33.826 --> 01:05:42.298 - opportunity and wealth and power for themselves while the rest of us struggle. Our priorities and our 01:05:42.298 --> 01:05:50.604 - values are not being reflected in what our government does. For example, the government found money 01:05:50.604 --> 01:05:58.910 - to add tens of billions of dollars to ICE funding, and they found enough money to give $40 billion, 01:05:58.910 --> 01:06:02.814 - $70 billion for ICE, $40 billion for tax cuts, 01:06:02.978 --> 01:06:09.601 - That's actually the amount of money we need for a child care program in the United States. If we just 01:06:09.601 --> 01:06:16.225 - flip those, we've got the money. They've already identified it. But they're not going to apply to our 01:06:16.225 --> 01:06:22.718 - values. To change this, we're going to have to get into power. And there are three ways that people 01:06:22.718 --> 01:06:27.134 - are talking about being able to do that. One of them is that we can 01:06:27.714 --> 01:06:34.543 - There's voters over here and they are conservative and we will slide over and snuggle up next to them 01:06:34.543 --> 01:06:41.706 - and we will try to talk like them and we'll try to get their votes. And we tried that in the last election 01:06:41.706 --> 01:06:49.003 - and it didn't work. And it's not gonna work this election either. The second strategy that's being discussed 01:06:49.003 --> 01:06:55.832 - is that we need to be more middle of the road, more reasonable. And that's not gonna work either. The 01:06:55.832 --> 01:06:56.702 - fact is that 01:06:56.866 --> 01:07:04.611 - The middle of the road isn't a policy. It's just a place to get run over. I say that we have given too 01:07:04.611 --> 01:07:12.206 - much ground now, as it is, and we need to stand up for our democratic principles and what we believe 01:07:12.206 --> 01:07:19.801 - in and start fighting for what we need as a country. People want leadership that delivers. They want 01:07:19.801 --> 01:07:26.494 - things that are going to improve their lives. The path forward isn't chasing politicians 01:07:26.626 --> 01:07:33.207 - and other people's ideas. The path forward is to find the people that have been underserved and cut 01:07:33.207 --> 01:07:39.788 - out of our society and show them that we have better ideas and better solutions and attract them to 01:07:39.788 --> 01:07:46.567 - our side. That's how we're going to win. If we want them to show up at the ballot box, we have to show 01:07:46.567 --> 01:07:53.148 - up for them first with policies that make a difference. I'm fighting for universal nonprofit single 01:07:53.148 --> 01:07:54.398 - payer health care. 01:07:54.850 --> 01:08:02.559 - Because no one should go broke just trying to stay alive. I'm fighting for economic policies that will 01:08:02.559 --> 01:08:10.193 - put more money in people's pockets so that they can earn and have independence in their economics. If 01:08:10.193 --> 01:08:17.752 - you're working 40 hours a week, you should be able to afford a house and food. And right now, that's 01:08:17.752 --> 01:08:20.446 - not the case. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. 01:08:20.834 --> 01:08:26.118 - All right, so I want to go ahead and get into our questions tonight. And I'm going to remind you folks 01:08:26.118 --> 01:08:31.352 - that we're going to have 90 seconds each for your answers. And then if somebody is mentioned by name, 01:08:31.352 --> 01:08:36.841 - I'll give you 30 seconds for rebuttal. I'm going to start over here with Mr. Taylor on the first question. 01:08:36.841 --> 01:08:42.126 - Then I will start the second question with Mr. Rourke, the third question with Dr. Peck, and so on and 01:08:42.126 --> 01:08:43.870 - so forth. So for you, Mr. Taylor. 01:08:44.226 --> 01:08:51.094 - This question comes from Bloomington DSA. After seeing the recent success and popularity of socialist 01:08:51.094 --> 01:08:58.165 - candidates like Zoran Mondani in New York and Senator Bernie Sanders, both locally and nationally, would 01:08:58.165 --> 01:09:04.966 - you work with and advocate for some socialist positions and policies while in office? And you've got 01:09:04.966 --> 01:09:11.834 - 90 seconds. Well, I will advocate for whatever the people want me to advocate for. I use the Congress 01:09:11.834 --> 01:09:13.854 - app. They tell me what to do. 01:09:13.954 --> 01:09:21.959 - I do it. I don't need a personal position of my own. If they want socialists in office, they get socialists 01:09:21.959 --> 01:09:29.520 - in office. If they want socialist policies, they get socialist policies. Other than that, it's pretty 01:09:29.520 --> 01:09:37.154 - much up to the people how it goes. That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke, 01:09:37.154 --> 01:09:40.638 - 90 seconds for you, sir. Excellent. Thank you. 01:09:40.834 --> 01:09:48.405 - So first step is ACA subsidies. I would advocate strongly to re-institute ACA subsidies. Obviously, 01:09:48.405 --> 01:09:56.127 - they expired. We're seeing across the board in the ninth congressional district on average 25% to 30% 01:09:56.127 --> 01:10:03.925 - increase in premiums. So I would advocate strongly to re-institute those. Also, a billionaire tax. Our 01:10:03.925 --> 01:10:07.710 - billionaire friends have been living large on the 01:10:07.874 --> 01:10:14.235 - tax code for 25 years now, and they've been profiting from it. There's major inequalities between the 01:10:14.235 --> 01:10:20.472 - middle class, the millionaire class, and the billionaire class, and then obviously I would advocate 01:10:20.472 --> 01:10:27.082 - for those policies. And then secondly, I just wanted to make one point clear. I swore an oath to preserve 01:10:27.082 --> 01:10:33.755 - and protect, to defend the Constitution of the United States. My oath is clearly different than Bradley's. 01:10:33.755 --> 01:10:37.310 - I was in the military, he was not, just to make a point. 01:10:38.178 --> 01:10:45.333 - Well, before I get to you, Dr. Peck, I'm gonna give 30 seconds to Mr. Meyer to rebut that. I was not 01:10:45.333 --> 01:10:52.913 - a uniformed officer in the Navy. I was a civilian employee in the Navy. I worked on systems that protected 01:10:52.913 --> 01:11:00.139 - ships from missile attack. Same oath. Thank you. All right, Dr. Peck, back to you for 90 seconds, and 01:11:00.139 --> 01:11:05.310 - I will reiterate, the question is whether you would advocate and support 01:11:05.474 --> 01:11:13.241 - some socialist positions and policies while in office. Housing subsidies are an enormous part. So we're 01:11:13.241 --> 01:11:20.859 - sitting here in Bloomington where there's been recent national attention to the housing shortage that 01:11:20.859 --> 01:11:28.328 - we have, but that's everywhere throughout Indiana 9. A 30-year-old nurse who graduated 10 years ago 01:11:28.328 --> 01:11:31.614 - from school can't afford a home where there 01:11:32.482 --> 01:11:39.446 - Mother and father could afford a home and their grandparents could afford a home. That's backwards. 01:11:39.446 --> 01:11:46.480 - And so we need to do something to level the playing field and supporting people to get into housing. 01:11:46.480 --> 01:11:53.583 - Certainly first time housing is something that I'm advocating for. Union rights, worker rights, being 01:11:53.583 --> 01:11:59.294 - able to restore collective bargaining across the entire country is another piece. 01:11:59.586 --> 01:12:07.114 - We talked about it, the billionaire tax just makes sense. Billionaires do not pay their fair share of 01:12:07.114 --> 01:12:14.716 - taxes. The tax loopholes can be closed. And we would be able to solve a lot of the issues that we have 01:12:14.716 --> 01:12:22.096 - in this country if only we had more revenue from the people who take revenue from us. So thank you. 01:12:22.096 --> 01:12:23.646 - Thank you, Dr. Peck. 01:12:24.034 --> 01:12:30.623 - And finally, Mr. Meyer, 90 seconds on what, if any, socialist policies you would advocate for while 01:12:30.623 --> 01:12:37.279 - in Congress. So again, I'm advocating for universal, non-profit, single-payer health care. I want to 01:12:37.279 --> 01:12:44.066 - be very clear about that. And if you need to understand what the difference in the candidates are, ask 01:12:44.066 --> 01:12:50.919 - them about single-payer. That is the difference, I believe. I have struggled, frankly. I've gotten some 01:12:50.919 --> 01:12:52.830 - questions in the past about, 01:12:52.994 --> 01:12:59.685 - What should we do about daycare? And the thing that I struggled with, frankly, is that how do we pay 01:12:59.685 --> 01:13:06.309 - for it? And I was going through the numbers, and like I said, the Republicans have found the money. 01:13:06.309 --> 01:13:13.198 - They just applied it to things that were important to them instead of important to us. And we just need 01:13:13.198 --> 01:13:17.438 - to reappropriate that money. I am a strong advocate for unions. 01:13:17.666 --> 01:13:25.367 - I have been behind closed doors with management. I know why unions are important. Unions represent about 01:13:25.367 --> 01:13:33.068 - a 25 to 30 percent increase in earnings. And these right to work are really right to work for less laws, 01:13:33.068 --> 01:13:40.843 - and they are trying to push all of earnings down. It suppresses earnings for union and non-union workers. 01:13:40.843 --> 01:13:44.510 - And there are a lot of housing policies that were 01:13:44.674 --> 01:13:50.753 - in the 50s and 60s and early 70s that help to keep housing prices fair and level. And they need to be 01:13:50.753 --> 01:13:56.891 - restored. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. And since you mentioned it, I actually want to go ahead and 01:13:56.891 --> 01:14:03.328 - dig into health care a little bit. You mentioned you support single payer universal health care or Medicare 01:14:03.328 --> 01:14:09.287 - for all, if you want to call it that. And I'm going to come to Mr. Work and ask what your positions 01:14:09.287 --> 01:14:14.174 - are on single payer health care. Is that something you would support? 90 seconds. 01:14:14.594 --> 01:14:22.229 - So my position is I'm in favor of private health care, but with the ability for universal health care 01:14:22.229 --> 01:14:30.013 - as a supplement for those low income families of 250% above the poverty line, which on average is about 01:14:30.013 --> 01:14:37.797 - 78,000. Kentucky and Maryland have a similar policy, and it works very effective because it supplements 01:14:37.797 --> 01:14:43.710 - the existing private health care policy. So that's my position. And then also, 01:14:44.418 --> 01:14:50.125 - With that plan, with the private health care and the limited universal policy, you have the best of 01:14:50.125 --> 01:14:56.230 - both worlds. You have the ability of choice, because I think that's one of the difficulties with universal 01:14:56.230 --> 01:15:01.937 - health care is choice. You want to be able to go to the doctor and keep your doctor. You don't want 01:15:01.937 --> 01:15:07.872 - to go to a doctor you're not used to going to. So that's my plan. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, your 01:15:07.872 --> 01:15:14.206 - position on single payer universal health care. Apparently, everyone deserves health care. It's a human right. 01:15:14.626 --> 01:15:22.082 - I'm part of the AMA, which says right on their front page, it's a human right. It's not a constitutional 01:15:22.082 --> 01:15:29.253 - right right now. And that's the struggle that we have in this country, which means that there's real 01:15:29.253 --> 01:15:36.567 - work that needs to get done to get there. Single payer Medicare for all is one way of doing that. That 01:15:36.567 --> 01:15:41.182 - way is not a reality that we can get done in the next two years. 01:15:41.506 --> 01:15:48.886 - or even the next four years or maybe further than that. So what's the hard work that has to happen and 01:15:48.886 --> 01:15:56.338 - the hard work that I've done and will continue to do with all of your support? We need costs to be down 01:15:56.338 --> 01:16:03.646 - from where they are right now. We cannot pay for our healthcare as it is. Medicaid does not cover the 01:16:03.646 --> 01:16:10.238 - cost of care. Medicare does not cover the full cost of care. I live in a healthcare desert. 01:16:10.338 --> 01:16:16.818 - rural Clark County where my local hospital is closed. I have to drive past it to get to my hospital 01:16:16.818 --> 01:16:23.558 - where I work. The 911 system is in shambles and that's because 20 to 30% of the people who walk through 01:16:23.558 --> 01:16:30.232 - that door do not have insurance. We need a public option tomorrow and we need to be able to pay it and 01:16:30.232 --> 01:16:36.842 - I'm sure we'll talk more about how we can take costs out of the system and I'd love to tell you about 01:16:36.842 --> 01:16:38.462 - it in our next question. 01:16:39.170 --> 01:16:45.753 - Thank you Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer you know you brought up this position so I want to come back to you. You 01:16:45.753 --> 01:16:51.889 - know we see where you stand on single payer health care but you've got 90 seconds to elaborate. 01:16:51.889 --> 01:16:58.791 - Thank you. So the first thing that we have to do and I mean right now is to stabilize hospital and provider 01:16:58.791 --> 01:17:05.822 - pay. We're seeing hospitals close. We're seeing services be cut back. Something has to be done immediately in 01:17:06.050 --> 01:17:13.163 - days and weeks, not weeks and months. This is a health care crisis, and it has to be addressed. 01:17:13.163 --> 01:17:20.720 - Medium term, we need universal, non-profit, single payer health care. The UK implemented their system 01:17:20.720 --> 01:17:28.351 - in six years, and the first three years they were fighting the Germans, so they really did it in three 01:17:28.351 --> 01:17:33.982 - years. We implemented Medicare in one year using three by five index cards. 01:17:34.114 --> 01:17:40.914 - Surely we can do this in three years. And that is the plan that has been put forward. It is achievable. 01:17:40.914 --> 01:17:47.453 - It is the only thing that is holding us back is all this talk about we can't do it and wringing our 01:17:47.453 --> 01:17:54.187 - hands and saying it's just too complicated. Every other country has already done it. There are answers 01:17:54.187 --> 01:18:00.987 - and solutions. We have to stop worrying about can we, can't we, shall we, shall we. These half measures 01:18:00.987 --> 01:18:02.622 - are never going to work. 01:18:02.882 --> 01:18:09.702 - We put a half measure in place with the ACA and then they spent a decade undercutting and undermining 01:18:09.702 --> 01:18:16.655 - and trying 100 times in the House and 60 times in the Senate to kill it. You want to put a half measure 01:18:16.655 --> 01:18:23.408 - in place. It's not going to work. The long term answer is a constitutional amendment that gives it a 01:18:23.408 --> 01:18:30.562 - guarantee and you can see that on my website. Thank you Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor 90 seconds and your position 01:18:30.562 --> 01:18:31.966 - on Medicare for all. 01:18:33.218 --> 01:18:40.889 - Well, I've actually written legislation, draft legislation, you can read it on my website. It gives 01:18:40.889 --> 01:18:48.790 - everybody healthcare by default. There is no more uninsured people. There's both the government funded 01:18:48.790 --> 01:18:56.614 - healthcare and there's private funded healthcare. You can have insurance, you can not have insurance, 01:18:56.614 --> 01:19:03.134 - but there are no more uninsured people. You don't get denied coverage, you don't get 01:19:03.586 --> 01:19:12.583 - denied anything, and most everything is covered, and it costs less. I mean, it costs less than the ACA, 01:19:12.583 --> 01:19:21.754 - and it is easy to do. I mean, the legislation was simple. I wrote it, it's there, it works. The financial 01:19:21.754 --> 01:19:30.232 - breakdown's on my website. You can go to read the bill today, and it's a solution to the problem. 01:19:30.232 --> 01:19:32.222 - Thank you, Mr. Taylor. 01:19:32.514 --> 01:19:40.058 - So I want to come to Dr. Peck to begin this next segment. And this is a question from Bloomington DSA, 01:19:40.058 --> 01:19:47.529 - and it is about Israel. And this is a very sticky subject for many folks. So given that the US was an 01:19:47.529 --> 01:19:54.853 - active participant and enabler of Israel's genocide in Gaza, many Americans, DSA especially, are in 01:19:54.853 --> 01:19:56.318 - favor of ending all 01:19:56.482 --> 01:20:03.177 - military, political, and economic support to Israel in response to its flagrant violations of international 01:20:03.177 --> 01:20:09.687 - law. However, most congressional Democrats in Washington are wildly out of step with the American public 01:20:09.687 --> 01:20:14.398 - and the international consensus and pledge unconditional support to Israel. 01:20:15.202 --> 01:20:21.863 - What are your views on Israel? Have they shifted during the genocide of the Palestinians? How do you 01:20:21.863 --> 01:20:28.590 - plan to fight back against the establishment and work toward ending our participation in genocide and 01:20:28.590 --> 01:20:35.317 - apartheid? And can you even agree with the statements that I just mentioned that Israel is committing 01:20:35.317 --> 01:20:41.978 - genocide and is an apartheid state? That's a lot, but you got 90 seconds. Thank you. We're laughing, 01:20:41.978 --> 01:20:44.286 - but this is not a laughing matter. 01:20:44.482 --> 01:20:51.793 - People are dying. Innocent people have died and will continue to die because we're giving weapons to 01:20:51.793 --> 01:20:59.395 - an ally that is not using them responsibly. We need to hold them accountable. We have the purse strings. 01:20:59.395 --> 01:21:06.055 - We have the weapons ourselves. And we need Israel as a partner, but we don't need a partner 01:21:06.055 --> 01:21:10.398 - that indiscriminately sends bombs into children's bedrooms. 01:21:11.522 --> 01:21:19.661 - And so we have the power to say we're not giving you weapons unless you use those weapons responsibly. 01:21:19.661 --> 01:21:27.800 - And that includes around as well with what we've just seen. Words matter to many people. And genocide, 01:21:27.800 --> 01:21:35.781 - I know, is a word that matters to many people in this room as DSA members and as Americans. And I do 01:21:35.781 --> 01:21:38.942 - believe that the definition of genocide 01:21:39.138 --> 01:21:47.319 - of some people's definition of genocide has been met by Israel's actions. And I do believe that we'll 01:21:47.319 --> 01:21:55.581 - see an international court that we are in play right now with Israel tell us if this truly is genocide 01:21:55.581 --> 01:22:03.682 - or not, and we'll go with what they say if this is a... If it's a fair trial, which I'm sure it will 01:22:03.682 --> 01:22:08.094 - be. And so, yes, I'm willing to say the word genocide. 01:22:08.802 --> 01:22:16.087 - And thank you for this question, because it's extremely important. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, 01:22:16.087 --> 01:22:23.373 - 90 seconds. So the videos and the pictures of what's happening in Palestine is just gut wrenching. 01:22:23.373 --> 01:22:30.952 - And we, the United States, our position needs to be that there needs to be a long-term, durable peace. 01:22:30.952 --> 01:22:36.766 - And the only way that I believe that is possible is with a two-state solution. 01:22:37.154 --> 01:22:45.565 - And we need to be advocating and pushing for a two-state solution. And we need to be working to bring 01:22:45.565 --> 01:22:54.140 - our ally Israel to the table on that. And we need to be very thoughtful about what support we're giving 01:22:54.140 --> 01:23:02.798 - to Israel. And Biden actually tried to pull back a little bit of support, and even a very small pullback 01:23:02.798 --> 01:23:06.014 - of support, to try to bring our allies 01:23:06.466 --> 01:23:15.207 - to get their attention was wildly unpopular, in some cases because people felt that it was too weak, 01:23:15.207 --> 01:23:24.035 - and in other people that anything except 100 percent support for Israel is not acceptable. We have to 01:23:24.035 --> 01:23:32.690 - act in our interest and in alignment with our values, and we really need to be applying pressure to 01:23:32.690 --> 01:23:34.334 - Israel. Thank you. 01:23:35.746 --> 01:23:44.116 - Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, can we get 90 seconds on your thoughts on Israel and whether it committed 01:23:44.116 --> 01:23:52.409 - a genocide and is an apartheid state? Well, this is one of the things that I would put up for the Congress 01:23:52.409 --> 01:24:00.159 - app. And I would do something like this. Everybody in this room who believes that it's an apartheid 01:24:00.159 --> 01:24:05.662 - state and we should end our relationship with it, raise your hand. OK. 01:24:05.922 --> 01:24:14.344 - The Congress app says that I think it's an apartheid state and we should end our relationship with it. 01:24:14.344 --> 01:24:22.357 - That's it. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. And finally, Mr. Rourke to you. Yeah. You know, I believe that, 01:24:22.357 --> 01:24:30.861 - you know, I'm a supporter of Israel, but I'm also a supporter of having a peace agreement. I want peace 01:24:30.861 --> 01:24:34.622 - in the region. I want us to work with Israel. 01:24:35.138 --> 01:24:42.555 - develop peace. And I want to be able to provide support for that peace agreement. And if armaments are 01:24:42.555 --> 01:24:50.044 - needed to do that, I'm willing to do that. But we need to continue to work through peace. Israel's been 01:24:50.044 --> 01:24:57.462 - our ally in that region for some time now, right? And for whatever reason, they keep having, you know, 01:24:57.462 --> 01:25:00.126 - we keep struggling with this, right? 01:25:00.610 --> 01:25:06.624 - I just want to reaffirm my support for Israel and the relationship we have with him. And I do agree 01:25:06.624 --> 01:25:12.758 - with the two-state solution. I think that's the best path forward. And that's my position. Thank you. 01:25:12.758 --> 01:25:18.892 - Thank you, Mr. Rourke. I'm going to call a quick audible right here and just ask for a show of hands. 01:25:18.892 --> 01:25:25.327 - The United States is currently not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal 01:25:25.327 --> 01:25:30.078 - Court, the organization that could hold Israel accountable. So, show of hands. 01:25:30.882 --> 01:25:37.830 - agree with maintaining that position of keeping the U.S. out of the International Criminal Court? 01:25:37.830 --> 01:25:45.133 - All right, that looks like four notes. All right, thank you. So this next one is to Mr. Meyer to begin 01:25:45.133 --> 01:25:52.223 - with, and the question is from Mask Block Bloomington. Public health guidance has often prioritized 01:25:52.223 --> 01:25:54.846 - political convenience over accuracy. 01:25:55.298 --> 01:26:02.769 - How would you use congressional oversight to respond when federal agencies or officials disseminate 01:26:02.769 --> 01:26:10.390 - misleading or politically motivated public health guidance? So this is exactly why I said in the long 01:26:10.390 --> 01:26:17.935 - run, we have to have a constitutional amendment on public health, that it is a constitutional right. 01:26:17.935 --> 01:26:24.510 - Because we have more leverage. If it's a constitutional right and they are undercutting 01:26:24.930 --> 01:26:31.692 - the information and the systems and the services, then that is more actionable. And we have seen in 01:26:31.692 --> 01:26:38.521 - this government, in particular, that they can lie and undercut, and then every once in a while, they 01:26:38.521 --> 01:26:45.554 - bump up against the Constitution. And that is the only thing that is going to protect us for our health 01:26:45.554 --> 01:26:52.586 - care. Otherwise, they're going to undercut and undermine and destroy anything and any progress we make, 01:26:52.586 --> 01:26:54.750 - and they are going to misinform 01:26:56.994 --> 01:27:04.899 - Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, how would you respond to federal agencies that disseminate misleading 01:27:04.899 --> 01:27:12.728 - or politically motivated public health guidance? Well, I've spent some time working in the government, 01:27:12.728 --> 01:27:20.405 - and I would treat it like I would treat anybody else who gave false information in a government job. 01:27:20.405 --> 01:27:25.726 - You're fired. That's it. End of story. Terminate therapy. That's all. 01:27:27.010 --> 01:27:35.543 - OK, well, I guess, and if I may follow up since we didn't use a whole heck of a lot of time there, these 01:27:35.543 --> 01:27:43.751 - folks are largely appointed by the president. How can you as Congress hold them accountable when you 01:27:43.751 --> 01:27:52.122 - don't necessarily have the power to fire folks like, say, RFK Junior? Well, maybe Congress should have 01:27:52.122 --> 01:27:55.454 - the power to fire folks like RFK Junior. 01:27:56.514 --> 01:28:05.951 - we could publicly cite him and tell everybody that he is spinning yarns, so to speak. But I'm, for the 01:28:05.951 --> 01:28:15.662 - firing squad aspect of it, I'd rather get them out of there. All right, thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Roark, 01:28:15.662 --> 01:28:25.374 - I want to come to you on what the Congress should be doing about government agencies spreading misleading 01:28:26.434 --> 01:28:32.972 - false, politically motivated medical information. Yeah, so obviously you want to have congressional 01:28:32.972 --> 01:28:39.510 - oversight, right? So you want to have congressional oversight with RFK Junior and staff, but at the 01:28:39.510 --> 01:28:46.505 - same time you also have to have subject matter experts, virologists and such there to support what they're 01:28:46.505 --> 01:28:53.239 - saying, trust but verify. And if you're from a great state of Indiana, you need to have folks from the 01:28:53.239 --> 01:28:55.070 - state government who are in 01:28:55.554 --> 01:29:02.551 - or SMEs, subject matter experts in the medical field who can back up what they're saying relative to 01:29:02.551 --> 01:29:09.478 - the data they're providing. Unfortunately, that's where we're at in society. We're getting a lot of 01:29:09.478 --> 01:29:16.613 - misinformation from HHS, and we need to trust but verify on every turn from now on, unfortunately. And 01:29:16.613 --> 01:29:23.818 - from a congressional perspective, we also need to vet appointments to that department a little bit more 01:29:23.818 --> 01:29:24.926 - closely, right? 01:29:25.314 --> 01:29:32.699 - but we also need to vet the undersecretary and all the respective appointments and making sure that 01:29:32.699 --> 01:29:40.305 - they're not misinformation type folks, right? That we have doctors who verify on data that is accurate 01:29:40.305 --> 01:29:47.838 - and it can be trusted. Okay? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, I suspect this one's in your 01:29:47.838 --> 01:29:52.638 - wheelhouse. Yes. The government does not belong in my exam room. 01:29:53.218 --> 01:30:00.375 - And that comes to women's rights, that comes to trans rights, that comes to anybody's rights. And the 01:30:00.375 --> 01:30:07.532 - way that we've done public health for so long is that the academic societies that I'm a member of put 01:30:07.532 --> 01:30:14.548 - together guidelines. And then the government has these in-betweens of people who are physicians and 01:30:14.548 --> 01:30:21.635 - scientists and public health experts that are hired by the government to make up national guidelines 01:30:21.635 --> 01:30:23.038 - to follow, of which 01:30:23.170 --> 01:30:29.738 - When I don't know what to do, I go onto the national guidelines and I look at them. Now when I look 01:30:29.738 --> 01:30:36.437 - at them, I go, I'm not doing that. And so what I do do is go back to the academic societies that have 01:30:36.437 --> 01:30:43.268 - put these guidelines together. And that's what we're doing as a physician community right now. And that 01:30:43.268 --> 01:30:50.230 - should be the way, actually, when you think about it, for all of our medical decisions. Medical decisions 01:30:50.230 --> 01:30:51.806 - are between a physician 01:30:52.482 --> 01:31:01.533 - for a provider between their patient, especially when a woman is in the situation of making an impossible 01:31:01.533 --> 01:31:10.242 - choice, and their family and their faith. The government has no role in that. Thank you, Dr. Peck. So 01:31:10.242 --> 01:31:18.865 - I'm going to start this next one. I think we're back to Mr. Taylor here. So this question comes from 01:31:18.865 --> 01:31:22.366 - the Monroe County Education Association. 01:31:22.818 --> 01:31:30.604 - has experienced a shortage of qualified teachers, especially in the STEM fields for many years now. 01:31:30.604 --> 01:31:38.390 - This situation has been especially difficult for rural districts and for districts in less affluent 01:31:38.390 --> 01:31:46.487 - areas. What can you do from Washington that would improve this situation? Well, I actually wrote a bill 01:31:46.487 --> 01:31:52.638 - to improve. It's an education reform bill. I call it Make America Smart Again. 01:31:52.962 --> 01:32:02.127 - It funds teachers, rural classrooms, rural education. It funds, makes sure that everybody has the same 01:32:02.127 --> 01:32:11.381 - funding, gets the same education, gets quality education, and gets it on the government's dime. I mean, 01:32:11.381 --> 01:32:20.190 - nobody should have to fight for education. And that's just the bottom line. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. 01:32:21.090 --> 01:32:28.196 - Mr. Rourke, what can Washington do to stem this tide of teachers, especially STEM teachers, flowing 01:32:28.196 --> 01:32:35.232 - out of Indiana, or just getting folks in here in the first place? Pay them more. It's that simple. 01:32:35.232 --> 01:32:42.622 - I mean, the reality is you've got folks, chemists, engineers, electrical engineers, mathematics, right? 01:32:42.622 --> 01:32:48.094 - Most of the math folks, they go into actuarial sciences, not most, but some. 01:32:48.546 --> 01:32:55.087 - You got engineers. You got chemists. They all make well over $100,000 a year. You're not going to get 01:32:55.087 --> 01:33:01.628 - some of those folks into the classroom to ask them to take a $60,000 pay cut or $50,000 pay cut. This 01:33:01.628 --> 01:33:08.362 - is not going to happen. But they're some of the brightest people I know. So what we have to do is simply 01:33:08.362 --> 01:33:14.903 - pay them more. Maybe they get a designation, right? They have their degree. We need to pay them more. 01:33:14.903 --> 01:33:18.430 - But we need to improve the licensing process a little. 01:33:18.594 --> 01:33:24.385 - We need to improve the licensing process as well because there's a lot of barriers to entries there 01:33:24.385 --> 01:33:30.291 - as well. You gotta take the praxis. There's a lot of barriers to entries there as well. So we need to 01:33:30.291 --> 01:33:36.140 - look at improving those processes, make them more efficient, making it easier. But at the same time, 01:33:36.140 --> 01:33:41.930 - we need to also look at loan forgiveness, right? Folks who go to Purdue or Rose-Hulman, they get an 01:33:41.930 --> 01:33:44.478 - engineering degree. Most of them have debt. 01:33:44.994 --> 01:33:50.266 - So we've got to look at loan forgiveness. Hey, you come work in this school system for five or 10 years, 01:33:50.266 --> 01:33:55.387 - we'll pay off your loan. So that's another attractive feature. Instead of pay compensation, it's just 01:33:55.387 --> 01:34:00.760 - another benefit to help get rid of that debt. So those are my solutions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. 01:34:00.760 --> 01:34:05.831 - Dr. Peck, what do we do about the teacher shortage, and can we do anything about it from Washington? 01:34:05.831 --> 01:34:10.952 - Can you just give me the full question again? Yeah, absolutely. So Indiana has experienced a shortage 01:34:10.952 --> 01:34:14.718 - of qualified teachers, particularly in the STEM fields for many years now. 01:34:14.882 --> 01:34:21.884 - And this situation is especially difficult for rural districts and for districts in less affluent areas. 01:34:21.884 --> 01:34:29.153 - What policies would you propose to improve this situation? And I do live in a rural district. New Washington 01:34:29.153 --> 01:34:35.822 - High School struggles to get people in there to teach. Some of the local high schools around us are 01:34:35.822 --> 01:34:42.558 - looking to close. It's a real problem that affects my family and people around me. Government money. 01:34:42.754 --> 01:34:51.271 - comes from the Department of Education. It's been cut, but it is there. And just as many in this room 01:34:51.271 --> 01:34:59.620 - might be familiar with the PRO Act, which is something that essentially says if you have government 01:34:59.620 --> 01:35:08.638 - money coming into infrastructure, that money should only go to companies that meet the standard and quality 01:35:08.834 --> 01:35:15.295 - of payment to their employees, of conditions to their employees that a union would meet. It doesn't 01:35:15.295 --> 01:35:22.079 - mean you have to be a union shop, but you have to be as good as a union shop. We could do the same thing 01:35:22.079 --> 01:35:28.864 - with the money from the Department of Education. We're not giving you the money until you as a district, 01:35:28.864 --> 01:35:35.519 - as a state, get your payment rates up and start to pay people what they're actually worth. In the very 01:35:35.519 --> 01:35:38.814 - short amount of time I have, I think that as well, 01:35:39.106 --> 01:35:46.945 - Schooling for teachers should be next to free, if not free, and we can fund that. Thank you. Thank you, 01:35:46.945 --> 01:35:54.558 - Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, 90 seconds. Do you need me to repeat the question? No, I think I got it. So the 01:35:54.558 --> 01:36:02.095 - question included the caveat, what would you do from the federal position? And the vast majority of 01:36:02.095 --> 01:36:07.070 - policy, like 90% to 95% of policy, actually comes from the state. 01:36:07.970 --> 01:36:14.589 - There's a lot of things that can be and should be done from the state. And paying the teachers more 01:36:14.589 --> 01:36:21.207 - is something that's going to have to be addressed at the state level. And the way we currently fund 01:36:21.207 --> 01:36:27.892 - that is not going to be popular. That's a state problem that has to be addressed. Teaching is a very 01:36:27.892 --> 01:36:34.974 - difficult job. About 50% of people that start out in teaching leave, I think, within the first five years. 01:36:35.330 --> 01:36:41.796 - So there's a lot of retention problems that also need to be addressed through the state. But one of 01:36:41.796 --> 01:36:48.521 - the issues that we have when you talk about what can the federal government do, the role of the federal 01:36:48.521 --> 01:36:54.599 - government constitutionally is limited. And the Department of Education, one of their primary 01:36:54.599 --> 01:37:01.517 - responsibilities that they are able to support is by giving good information about what's really happening 01:37:01.517 --> 01:37:03.134 - in school effectiveness. 01:37:03.426 --> 01:37:09.890 - So when local politicians want to privatize the state schools and it's not working well, the only way 01:37:09.890 --> 01:37:16.355 - they can do that is by gutting the Department of Education so you won't have an independent review of 01:37:16.355 --> 01:37:22.883 - what's really going on in your school systems. And then you have to go to them, and of course, they're 01:37:22.883 --> 01:37:29.221 - going to tell you it's working. So the gutting of the Department of Education is a serious problem, 01:37:29.221 --> 01:37:33.150 - and it needs to be refunded. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. 01:37:33.410 --> 01:37:39.441 - A couple of you mentioned student loans sort of in passing during your last answer, and I want to follow 01:37:39.441 --> 01:37:45.356 - up and stay on this education question in that regard. During former President Biden's administration, 01:37:45.356 --> 01:37:51.215 - he attempted to forgive vast amounts of student loans, ran into some problems with the Supreme Court. 01:37:51.215 --> 01:37:57.015 - I think many of us as socialists don't even believe that such a thing as student loans should exist, 01:37:57.015 --> 01:37:59.198 - and we should have universally funded 01:37:59.298 --> 01:38:07.005 - higher education as well. So I want to start with Mr. Rourke and get you to elaborate a little bit on 01:38:07.005 --> 01:38:14.562 - your stance on how we should be paying for higher education as a society. I tend to believe I got a 01:38:14.562 --> 01:38:22.496 - student loan when I'm with the college. Low interest student loan. It helped me through college. I still 01:38:22.496 --> 01:38:24.158 - believe student loans 01:38:24.674 --> 01:38:31.706 - I think it really needs, with how things changed the last 30 to 40 years, I think student loans need 01:38:31.706 --> 01:38:38.877 - to be pared back relative to what field you're going into, right? AHAI has changed the landscape quite 01:38:38.877 --> 01:38:45.840 - a bit. And so folks who actually want to go into school for, let's say, for example, a music degree 01:38:45.840 --> 01:38:53.150 - versus folks who want to go into school for electrical engineering. So obviously, those outcomes they're 01:38:53.150 --> 01:38:54.334 - going to pay are 01:38:54.722 --> 01:39:01.684 - grossly different in terms of incomes. So they need to be commensurate with the plausibility of outcomes 01:39:01.684 --> 01:39:08.513 - relative to employment, right? So it's well known if you go into and you get a computer science degree 01:39:08.513 --> 01:39:15.210 - versus an engineering degree, you're going to make a lot more money coming out of college, right? So 01:39:15.210 --> 01:39:21.310 - therefore, you should have a higher likelihood or those loan terms should be much better if 01:39:21.602 --> 01:39:28.356 - you have, if you're pursuing a degree, has a lower income, maybe you need to reconsider that loan because 01:39:28.356 --> 01:39:34.790 - it's not gonna pay off, right? It's not gonna pay back. So that's kinda my position. But in critical 01:39:34.790 --> 01:39:41.289 - need areas, I will say this, in critical need areas, so obviously we talked about doctor shortage, we 01:39:41.289 --> 01:39:47.660 - also talked about skill trades, we need to really consider free education for those fields that are 01:39:47.660 --> 01:39:50.846 - critical in need. All right, thank you, Mr. Work. 01:39:50.978 --> 01:39:58.425 - Dr. Peck, student loans, what are we doing? I think Biden and the Democrats made a mistake on how they 01:39:58.425 --> 01:40:05.799 - went about it by trying to use the executive branch and executive powers. Congress sets the rates for 01:40:05.799 --> 01:40:13.029 - student loans. Congress sets the rates for student loans. We could set a zero percent rate or prime 01:40:13.029 --> 01:40:19.102 - rate or under prime rate. It's a very easy fix to make these loans more affordable. 01:40:19.554 --> 01:40:26.593 - Now, can we go further than that? There's a lot of resistance on the right to do so. But what could 01:40:26.593 --> 01:40:33.632 - we do today is set rates that actually make sense and aren't usury. I myself have experienced this. 01:40:33.632 --> 01:40:41.023 - I paid $540,000 for all of my education that I've done. That's ridiculous. And I'm still paying it back. 01:40:41.023 --> 01:40:46.302 - And the reason I'm paying it back is because of the interest rate, because 01:40:46.658 --> 01:40:54.138 - I am always behind because of that interest rate. And I know there are so many other people in this 01:40:54.138 --> 01:41:01.917 - room that struggle with getting their finances, getting paid the money that you need to pay your loans, 01:41:01.917 --> 01:41:09.846 - not to mention all of your other costs beyond what I experience. But it's an easy fix if we have Congress 01:41:09.846 --> 01:41:14.110 - just lower that rate. So thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. 01:41:14.786 --> 01:41:22.796 - Mr. Meyer, how should we be paying for higher education as a society? So let's start with what is in 01:41:22.796 --> 01:41:31.124 - the best interest of our society. Education is a great benefit. And there's been an attack on education. 01:41:31.124 --> 01:41:39.213 - Since 1970, the cost of education, a college education, has gone up in today's dollars by a factor of 01:41:39.213 --> 01:41:44.606 - 10. This is not an accidental thing. This is an intentional attempt 01:41:44.738 --> 01:41:52.213 - to restore what we had in the quote unquote good old days when education was for the wealthy. And we've 01:41:52.213 --> 01:41:59.544 - got to get past that. We've got to look past how do we tinker around the edges and how do we minimize 01:41:59.544 --> 01:42:06.731 - the interest rate and say what do we want as a society? What is in the best interest of society? We 01:42:06.731 --> 01:42:14.206 - need to start funding education like we fund roads and bridges and water treatment plants. It is a core 01:42:14.690 --> 01:42:20.880 - of our future and our infrastructure. And one of the struggles that people have is that when you get 01:42:20.880 --> 01:42:27.316 - into college, a lot of people get into, some people get into college, they go for a year, they struggle, 01:42:27.316 --> 01:42:33.506 - they end up with debt, and then they carry that debt, and they get out, and then they have the debt, 01:42:33.506 --> 01:42:39.635 - and they don't have the benefit of the education, right? So the first year of college education for 01:42:39.635 --> 01:42:43.742 - qualified people should be free, okay? And then we need to restore 01:42:43.842 --> 01:42:50.739 - You know, at the state level, the state has cut from about 75% to 80% of the funding that used to be 01:42:50.739 --> 01:42:57.773 - for the universities. It's now down to like 30%. This is why we have to have loans, because the states 01:42:57.773 --> 01:43:04.670 - and the government's not paying for education like they used to. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, I 01:43:04.670 --> 01:43:11.294 - believe that you are the last one on the student loan question. Well, when I got a student loan, 01:43:12.002 --> 01:43:19.907 - It was like an $800 student loan for books. I paid on it for five years. That is unacceptable. 01:43:19.907 --> 01:43:28.477 - Beyond that, I've written an education reform bill. It doesn't address higher education, but I'm going 01:43:28.477 --> 01:43:36.881 - to pull the Congress app trick and say, how many people here believe that I should write a bill that 01:43:36.881 --> 01:43:39.294 - makes higher education free? 01:43:43.682 --> 01:43:50.857 - Looks like we got a majority. I think I can write a bill that will make higher education free for all 01:43:50.857 --> 01:43:57.892 - people who want it. I'll write it tomorrow. All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. So I believe we start 01:43:57.892 --> 01:44:05.137 - this next section with Dr. Peck. And this question comes from Bloomington DSA. So a recent Marist poll 01:44:05.137 --> 01:44:12.172 - showed that 65% of Americans believe that ICE has gone too far. And there have been recent calls to 01:44:12.172 --> 01:44:13.086 - abolish ICE. 01:44:13.634 --> 01:44:22.414 - Do you believe immigration and customs enforcement can be reformed, or must it be abolished? What are 01:44:22.414 --> 01:44:31.538 - your thoughts? You've got 90 seconds. I think it can be reformed, and it's going to need a lot of reform. 01:44:31.538 --> 01:44:40.318 - The first piece is to restore funding to Homeland Security, to ICE, to pre-Trump levels. That's easy. 01:44:40.514 --> 01:44:46.473 - just infused so much cash into ICE, and what are they gonna do with it? They have to spend it. We had 01:44:46.473 --> 01:44:52.432 - a government shutdown and they didn't care because they have so much cash and they're so flush. So we 01:44:52.432 --> 01:44:58.275 - need to go back to that. Second is fire, Kristi Noem, and I don't know if anyone else is looking at 01:44:58.275 --> 01:45:04.175 - their phone, it looks like she might be getting fired. She already got fired. She already got fired. 01:45:04.175 --> 01:45:07.038 - She already got fired. Raise your fist for that. 01:45:08.578 --> 01:45:17.997 - And then thirdly is to make ICE work like any other police force that we have in this country, which 01:45:17.997 --> 01:45:27.417 - means body cameras, which means no masks, which means just the basic pieces of law enforcement, such 01:45:27.417 --> 01:45:36.930 - as training that puts you out on the street in a responsible way, but even more so, making it so that 01:45:36.930 --> 01:45:38.142 - you can have 01:45:38.818 --> 01:45:45.608 - that you need a warrant to actually arrest and detain citizens, residents, and otherwise. So, 01:45:45.608 --> 01:45:52.976 - thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, I suspect most of us are going to agree that it's going to 01:45:52.976 --> 01:46:00.416 - take more than deposing Ms. Noem to reform that organization. What do you think we should do with ICE? 01:46:00.416 --> 01:46:04.894 - So, expressions of outrage for good and pretty are justified. 01:46:05.378 --> 01:46:11.390 - But the hard work that we have to do in Congress is to actually fix the problem instead of tinkering 01:46:11.390 --> 01:46:17.878 - around the edges. And the core problem is that we have a logjam in what we're going to do about immigration. 01:46:17.878 --> 01:46:23.890 - And I have a detailed description of what I think needs to be done with immigration. I think we need 01:46:23.890 --> 01:46:30.021 - to reframe it around economics. And we need to dramatically increase legal immigration into the United 01:46:30.021 --> 01:46:34.366 - States. This is the reason that we have the illegal immigration, because 01:46:34.466 --> 01:46:42.336 - We make it so doggone hard to get the workers into the country that we need. And it dehumanizes them, 01:46:42.336 --> 01:46:50.283 - and it's disrespectful to them, and it depresses wages for all of us. We have to fix the root problem. 01:46:50.283 --> 01:46:58.384 - And the root problem is that we don't have a good immigration policy that even serves our own interests. 01:46:58.384 --> 01:47:02.782 - The other problem is that we have an administration that 01:47:03.042 --> 01:47:13.880 - that wants to use brutality to force a change. And if we get rid of ICE, if we waved a magic wand, sorry, 01:47:13.880 --> 01:47:24.514 - waved a magic wand and ICE was gone tomorrow, they'd move that work to the FBI. We have to get... Their 01:47:24.514 --> 01:47:31.774 - policy, the only way they'll be able to... They're gonna switch people 01:47:37.474 --> 01:47:50.599 - Kind of both. Ice used to be a nice, friendly little unit of people wearing windbreakers and carrying 01:47:50.599 --> 01:48:03.724 - badges and not the stormtroopers we see today. And there's no reason we can't return to that. But ice 01:48:03.724 --> 01:48:07.198 - should be a subset of INS. 01:48:08.994 --> 01:48:15.750 - There's no reason for ICE to be out on the street unless they get a complaint from IIS or they have 01:48:15.750 --> 01:48:22.777 - to be out. That's it. Reform them completely, but I don't think you'll ever be able to get rid of them. 01:48:22.777 --> 01:48:29.803 - All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Wharf, finally to you on the ICE question, what should we do with 01:48:29.803 --> 01:48:36.830 - this organization? So I do not agree that we need to abolish ICE. I think that would be the wrong move. 01:48:37.282 --> 01:48:43.232 - We do have to remember ICE was developed post 9-11, okay? They do a lot of good work to get a lot of 01:48:43.232 --> 01:48:49.181 - scared people out of this country. However, I do agree they're out of control, right? They're acting 01:48:49.181 --> 01:48:54.837 - like a paramilitary organization. They're not doing the right things, right? Take the mask off, 01:48:54.837 --> 01:49:00.963 - body cams, judicial signs, search warrants, and then we also need to look at recruiting standards. What 01:49:00.963 --> 01:49:06.206 - folks are going into that organization, you know, what background checks have been done, 01:49:06.594 --> 01:49:15.068 - had they been thoroughly done. One positive step is they got rid of Christie. That's a good move. It's 01:49:15.068 --> 01:49:23.789 - about time. But I'll kind of echo what Tim just said. I don't think that's going to change their posture, 01:49:23.789 --> 01:49:31.358 - the way they do things. So going forward, as a congressional rep, we need to hold hearings. 01:49:31.938 --> 01:49:38.331 - to basically make sure that everybody coming in to DHS is held accountable and they're thoroughly vetted. 01:49:38.331 --> 01:49:44.783 - And we need to understand how they operate, right? Change the way they do things in terms of investigative 01:49:44.783 --> 01:49:51.236 - tactics, techniques, and procedures, and making sure they're doing the right thing by the American people. 01:49:51.236 --> 01:49:57.086 - All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wark. This next question, we're gonna start with Mr. Meyer. 01:49:57.282 --> 01:50:03.422 - And, you know, we've seen this authoritarian regime and authoritarianism thrives on always having an 01:50:03.422 --> 01:50:09.501 - enemy, having an other. And immigrants, that community has certainly been one of the targets of the 01:50:09.501 --> 01:50:15.762 - administration's ire. The trans community has been another target. What will you do to prevent further 01:50:15.762 --> 01:50:21.598 - harm to our trans neighbors and to protect your constituents from attacks like those in Kansas? 01:50:21.762 --> 01:50:29.504 - where they've recently invalidated every gender-affirming driver's license that has been issued over 01:50:29.504 --> 01:50:37.553 - the last several years and made them invalid, effective immediately, or, for example, threats to medical 01:50:37.553 --> 01:50:45.831 - care. How are you going to protect some of our most vulnerable Americans? 90 seconds. So I try scrupulously 01:50:45.831 --> 01:50:50.814 - not to agree with Dr. Peck, but I'm going to have to do it here. 01:50:51.618 --> 01:50:59.386 - The government shouldn't be in a doctor's office. They shouldn't be in the decision-making process. 01:50:59.386 --> 01:51:07.154 - The decisions with trans, the patients, the families, the doctor, they're all involved in that. And 01:51:07.154 --> 01:51:15.077 - I need to stay out of it. And I guess the bottom line is that everybody has a God-given right to mind 01:51:15.077 --> 01:51:20.126 - their own damn business. And I think we need to do more of that. 01:51:24.258 --> 01:51:31.939 - We need to understand, I guess, it isn't necessary that everybody in the United States understand the 01:51:31.939 --> 01:51:39.620 - trans community, but they need to respect their right to live their life the way everybody else does, 01:51:39.620 --> 01:51:47.150 - right? They make their choices and we need to respect and understand that. It's not about trying to 01:51:47.150 --> 01:51:51.518 - force people to live like us or think like us, it's about 01:51:52.130 --> 01:51:59.200 - freedom for everybody to make their own decisions about how they want to lead their life. And we need 01:51:59.200 --> 01:52:06.131 - to support that in Congress. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, now, if the folks in your 01:52:06.131 --> 01:52:13.131 - Congress app don't necessarily understand the trans community and aren't quite evolved there yet and 01:52:13.131 --> 01:52:20.132 - they want to bring out the pitchforks, how are you still going to protect their rights? Well, I have 01:52:20.132 --> 01:52:21.310 - relatives on the 01:52:22.338 --> 01:52:32.364 - Should we say the alternative lifestyles? Communities. I don't believe they should be persecuted. How 01:52:32.364 --> 01:52:42.882 - I can protect them is just to not persecute them. I think we need to do a lot more of just not persecuting 01:52:42.882 --> 01:52:49.566 - people. It would be really helpful. I remember back in the day when 01:52:51.362 --> 01:53:03.772 - Your funny Uncle Bob didn't come over because his roommate wasn't liked by the family. But, you know, 01:53:03.772 --> 01:53:16.060 - we don't need to go back to those days. Those days are over and they're over for a reason. And yeah, 01:53:16.060 --> 01:53:19.102 - I don't know what to do. 01:53:19.650 --> 01:53:28.829 - I don't have a good answer for it, but just no bigotry would be nice. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke 01:53:28.829 --> 01:53:38.097 - from Washington, what can you do to protect our trans friends and neighbors? So just a point of clarity, 01:53:38.097 --> 01:53:45.246 - are we talking for trans under 18 or over 18? Well, maybe you can elaborate. OK. 01:53:46.050 --> 01:53:52.977 - So I believe from a traditional perspective, if you're under 18, I don't believe that there should be 01:53:52.977 --> 01:53:59.767 - gender affirming care under 18. I believe once you're over the 18 of years of age, then if you want 01:53:59.767 --> 01:54:06.694 - to transition, you're more welcome to do that. And at that particular point in time, I'd be more than 01:54:06.694 --> 01:54:12.670 - happy to understand that individual's issue and try to support them in any way I could. 01:54:13.474 --> 01:54:20.212 - But if you're under 18 and you're in high school and you have a trans issue relative to transition, 01:54:20.212 --> 01:54:27.018 - I would want them to wait till at least they're 18 years old and they're leading their life before I 01:54:27.018 --> 01:54:33.756 - can support in terms of their transition. But in terms of a public policy, as a human, I would just 01:54:33.756 --> 01:54:40.966 - want to sit down and try to understand what's going on with them and support them any way I could. Whether 01:54:40.966 --> 01:54:42.718 - it's a health care issue, 01:54:43.234 --> 01:54:49.195 - an employment issue, I would do whatever I can to help them. Because that's just kind of the person 01:54:49.195 --> 01:54:55.275 - I am. And that's the leader I will be. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, this is 01:54:55.275 --> 01:55:01.355 - a human rights question, but in many ways, it's also a medical question. How are you going to protect 01:55:01.355 --> 01:55:07.315 - trans rights in Washington? I respect so much. And we've been together at so many different things. 01:55:07.315 --> 01:55:12.382 - I respect you so much. Thank you for serving. Thank you for stepping up and running. 01:55:12.738 --> 01:55:19.476 - to really disagree with something that you just said there. And the fact is you are inserting yourself, 01:55:19.476 --> 01:55:26.149 - and I'm sorry to make an example of what you said, but it's a perfect example of the government trying 01:55:26.149 --> 01:55:32.628 - to insert itself into a medical decision. It don't need you to say 18 or not. I have the guidelines 01:55:32.628 --> 01:55:39.301 - that I would look up right here. I printed them out before this because you knew you were getting this 01:55:39.301 --> 01:55:41.374 - question. And it's so detailed. 01:55:41.890 --> 01:55:48.324 - The government cannot write a bill that tells us what to do as clinicians in terms of our counseling 01:55:48.324 --> 01:55:54.885 - with the patient. It just can't happen because this is going to change tomorrow when the evidence gets 01:55:54.885 --> 01:56:01.318 - better and then we'll learn other evidence and other evidence. Government shouldn't be writing these 01:56:01.318 --> 01:56:07.752 - bills and in fact they should be writing these bills to say the government cannot insert its opinion 01:56:07.752 --> 01:56:09.790 - into our health care decisions. 01:56:10.754 --> 01:56:17.488 - Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Rourke, I'm going to give you 30 seconds since Dr. Peck did mention you by 01:56:17.488 --> 01:56:24.289 - name here. Sure, sure. I mean, Tim, I appreciate you. I like you. You're very respectful. But I just 01:56:24.289 --> 01:56:30.416 - kind of have to disagree. If you're under 18 years old and you want to transition, I think 01:56:30.416 --> 01:56:37.554 - that's irresponsible. Because there's so much change going on with children at those ages. And to suggest 01:56:37.554 --> 01:56:40.382 - that they want to get a transition before 01:56:40.642 --> 01:56:47.397 - 16 or 17 before they fully grown. I think that's irresponsible and that flies in this in the face of 01:56:47.397 --> 01:56:54.085 - medical history and psychology, right? I've heard many cases where Folks have transitioned at 16 17 01:56:54.085 --> 01:57:01.107 - years old five years later next, you know, they want to transition back So there's situations in medical 01:57:01.107 --> 01:57:07.929 - history where that's actually happened so we have to be very careful about who are letting transition 01:57:07.929 --> 01:57:08.798 - that's why I 01:57:08.930 --> 01:57:14.758 - I always ask the question, let's wait until at least 18 before they make that call. All right, 01:57:14.758 --> 01:57:21.077 - thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Work. So, boy, this thing is really flying, and there are so many 01:57:21.077 --> 01:57:27.212 - other things I really hope we can get a chance to talk to tonight, but we do only have time for one 01:57:27.212 --> 01:57:33.530 - more question, and then we will do closing remarks. So I want to stay on this topic of bodily autonomy 01:57:33.530 --> 01:57:37.886 - and whether we support adding a right to abortion to the Constitution. 01:57:38.018 --> 01:57:48.043 - And that, I believe, we start this question with Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor, 90 seconds. Adding it to the 01:57:48.043 --> 01:57:58.659 - Constitution, I don't know. It's a health care thing. It's not a government thing. The government shouldn't 01:57:58.659 --> 01:58:01.214 - be involved in it at all. 01:58:03.586 --> 01:58:13.035 - It's a medical decision, and I would leave the medical decisions to medical professionals. I'm not one. 01:58:13.035 --> 01:58:22.121 - I'm not a woman. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a god. So I'm pretty much unqualified to answer that 01:58:22.121 --> 01:58:31.934 - question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rort, should we enshrine a person's right to their own body 01:58:32.162 --> 01:58:39.036 - in the Constitution of the United States? So, you know, I'm a supporter of Roe, reinstating Roe. 01:58:39.036 --> 01:58:46.122 - With that, obviously, we have to get that work done, right? You need 67 votes, right? Two-thirds of 01:58:46.122 --> 01:58:53.209 - the vote in the Senate and in the House, so it's going to be a tall order. But I believe with those 01:58:53.209 --> 01:59:00.862 - votes, I think you could do it, and I would support that endeavor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roe. Dr. Peck? 01:59:01.826 --> 01:59:11.542 - I've treated a lot of women who've been raped. I've treated girls who've been raped this week. And when 01:59:11.542 --> 01:59:21.352 - giving my counsel, I never once thought about what the government had to say until recently. And I still 01:59:21.352 --> 01:59:29.854 - don't accept what they have to say. Again, the government does not belong in my exam room. 01:59:32.770 --> 01:59:40.880 - In Kentucky, you have to sign a death certificate when you have a miscarriage. There are 67 votes we 01:59:40.880 --> 01:59:49.392 - need to change this whole thing, but there are issues like that that occur that we can make laws tomorrow 01:59:49.392 --> 01:59:57.503 - if we don't have the 67 votes, if we educate the public to say how terrible that is to do to a woman 01:59:57.503 --> 02:00:01.598 - and their family. And so we can make strides today 02:00:02.082 --> 02:00:10.091 - while we get those 67 votes to make the change that we need. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Packwell. Mr. 02:00:10.091 --> 02:00:18.100 - Meyer. So I think that the assertion that we need 67 votes is overly optimistic. If you look at what 02:00:18.100 --> 02:00:26.267 - the Supreme Court did, they explicitly said that this has to go back to the states. They've explicitly 02:00:26.267 --> 02:00:27.774 - worded it in a way 02:00:27.970 --> 02:00:35.615 - that they have tried to intentionally deal out the federal government to keep it at the state level, 02:00:35.615 --> 02:00:43.183 - to keep it fractured, to keep us broken. The only way that we will be able to overcome this and end 02:00:43.183 --> 02:00:51.433 - it is a constitutional amendment. I have a draft, which is actually very long, of a constitutional amendment 02:00:51.433 --> 02:00:56.126 - for universal health care, and it should be included in that. 02:00:57.730 --> 02:01:06.270 - Yes, we need a constitutional amendment, or we're going to be fighting over this forever. Roe v. Wade, 02:01:06.270 --> 02:01:14.894 - I think, should be restored, but the way they did it, it's going to be very hard. Thank you. Thank you, 02:01:14.894 --> 02:01:15.806 - Mr. Meyer. 02:01:15.970 --> 02:01:22.068 - I do believe we have to be wrapping up, but I want to give everybody an opportunity to make closing 02:01:22.068 --> 02:01:28.166 - statements. And I will give you up to 90 seconds. And because we started with Mr. Taylor, I'm going 02:01:28.166 --> 02:01:34.325 - to start closing statements with Mr. Rourke. Mr. Rourke, 90 seconds to you, sir. Well, good evening, 02:01:34.325 --> 02:01:40.606 - everyone. Thanks, DSA, for giving me an opportunity to speak here this evening. I appreciate the time. 02:01:40.706 --> 02:01:47.645 - I just wanted to say, you know, I'm a former UAW assembly line worker, put myself through college with 02:01:47.645 --> 02:01:54.718 - little or no help. I went in the Navy, spent 11 years in the Navy. And the reason why I say those things 02:01:54.718 --> 02:02:01.590 - is I believe I bring to the race crossover appeal, right? Those independent and those disenfranchised 02:02:01.590 --> 02:02:08.461 - Republicans who we desperately need to win. Because remember, this is about winning. If we keep doing 02:02:08.461 --> 02:02:10.078 - what we've always done, 02:02:10.306 --> 02:02:17.163 - We're going to lose. It's that simple. And I really believe we kind of have to change things a little. 02:02:17.163 --> 02:02:23.888 - I know my colleagues disagree with my approach a little, but that's kind of the reality. We need 25% 02:02:23.888 --> 02:02:30.878 - to 30% of the independents and Republicans to either not vote or vote for us. And I truly believe that's 02:02:30.878 --> 02:02:37.736 - the path forward. And I just wanted to say, I appreciate your time, appreciate the opportunity to have 02:02:37.736 --> 02:02:39.134 - this debate tonight. 02:02:39.874 --> 02:02:46.696 - Please look me up on HTTPS colon backslash backslash Kyle Roark dot com and also please remember the 02:02:46.696 --> 02:02:53.991 - vote on May 5th. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Roark. Dr. Peck closing statements from you. Thank you everybody. 02:02:53.991 --> 02:03:00.881 - Thank you Scott. This has been great. We have seven more on the books six more on the books and we'll 02:03:00.881 --> 02:03:07.838 - probably have more put on there and there'll be a lot more discussion. I really encourage everybody to 02:03:07.970 --> 02:03:16.461 - Tune in if you can't be there for it to get the full breadth of what all of these candidates have to 02:03:16.461 --> 02:03:24.868 - say about the issues. I hope I earned your trust tonight. That's what's most important to me. And I 02:03:24.868 --> 02:03:33.275 - hope that that trust turns into a vote. I hope that you saw that tonight I not only am progressive, 02:03:33.275 --> 02:03:37.310 - not only am someone who wants to make progress, 02:03:37.794 --> 02:03:45.667 - But I'm a realist in that these ideas that we are fighting for have solutions for today. And sometimes 02:03:45.667 --> 02:03:53.617 - those solutions are smaller because we need to run and hit and do what we can during this next two-year 02:03:53.617 --> 02:04:01.413 - cycle so that we can make the bigger changes. And if we get to the point where we can make the bigger 02:04:01.413 --> 02:04:05.694 - changes, great. I think my colleague, Brad, to my left, 02:04:06.562 --> 02:04:14.954 - You know, has said things like we need to make education free. We need to pass constitutional amendments. 02:04:14.954 --> 02:04:22.949 - But today's solution, I hope in the next six sessions that we'll get more down to talking about what 02:04:22.949 --> 02:04:30.866 - we do today. And I hope that I gave you a flavor of that as well. Thank you all for your trust. And 02:04:30.866 --> 02:04:34.270 - please vote May 5th, but also in November. 02:04:34.466 --> 02:04:40.845 - We need a big turnout from Democrats. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, closing statements 02:04:40.845 --> 02:04:47.351 - from you. You've got 90 seconds. So I'd like to thank everybody again for being here. The first thing 02:04:47.351 --> 02:04:53.985 - that I did publicly was a couple of universal health care forums, because that was important. It wasn't 02:04:53.985 --> 02:05:00.427 - meet and greets, and it wasn't fundraising. And then the next thing I did was an ICE protest at Camp 02:05:00.427 --> 02:05:04.446 - Atterbury last August that had about 550 people there, because 02:05:04.578 --> 02:05:12.062 - I am more activist, and we need to stand up and speak out. I've been listening a lot to the app, and 02:05:12.062 --> 02:05:20.139 - there's a couple things that came to mind. I don't have any strong feelings, frankly, about the legalization 02:05:20.139 --> 02:05:27.623 - of cannabis. And I decided that I would leave it up to the people of the district. And it's popular, 02:05:27.623 --> 02:05:32.958 - and I'm for legalization of cannabis. But we do need to be careful that 02:05:33.602 --> 02:05:40.691 - You know, it was popular opinion in California that actually destroyed their education system or undercut 02:05:40.691 --> 02:05:47.646 - their education system, and it was popular opinion in Germany that led to the Nazis. So we need to have 02:05:47.646 --> 02:05:54.602 - leaders that have responsibility and some sense of what they want to do. I know we need crossover, but, 02:05:54.602 --> 02:06:01.022 - you know, I am a practical problem-solving person. This is what I'm about, is solving problems. 02:06:01.346 --> 02:06:08.158 - And I know that there is short term, but if we don't start with where we want, sorry that's yours, where 02:06:08.158 --> 02:06:14.711 - we want to be, we're never going to get there. We have to state, we have to screw our courage to the 02:06:14.711 --> 02:06:21.394 - sticking place and say this is where we're going and this session we're going to try to get this piece 02:06:21.394 --> 02:06:27.038 - of it. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, final word goes to you tonight sir. 02:06:29.154 --> 02:06:38.338 - I want to thank all of you for having me here. It will be me and one of these three against Aaron on 02:06:38.338 --> 02:06:47.431 - your November election. I will not be in the primary. I need 4,500 signatures to get on the ballot. 02:06:47.431 --> 02:06:57.342 - My petitions are back there. You can visit my website at floyd2026.com. I've got a demo of the Congress app. 02:07:02.658 --> 02:07:08.978 - Thanks for having me. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Thanks again to all of our candidates tonight. Thank all 02:07:08.978 --> 02:07:15.298 - of you for being here, and thank you for your questions. Thanks to First United for the facility, and 02:07:15.298 --> 02:07:21.495 - thanks to the entire DSA team. You guys have done a great job putting this thing together two weeks 02:07:21.495 --> 02:07:26.142 - in a row. So hats off to everybody here in this room, from Bryce, Rebecca. 02:07:26.274 --> 02:07:33.104 - Our sound and audio and video team here are doing phenomenal work, so thank you guys so much. Again, 02:07:33.104 --> 02:07:36.350 - thanks everybody tonight. Be safe getting home.