- That's good. Thank you all so much for coming. I'm Bryce Green. I am a DSA member, and I helped to organize
- this. Thank you. Yeah. So first of all, I'd like to give a big thanks to all the DSA members and people
- who helped make this event happen. If you helped make this event happen in some way by being a co-sponsor,
- someone who helped set up a DSA member, could you raise your hand? Well, thank you all so much.
- Yes, and of course, we'd like to give a big thanks to First United for being a pillar of the community
- and letting their space be used by important community organizations and doing good work. So thank you
- to First United, of course. And we'd also like to thank co-sponsors for this event, people who helped
- promote and make this happen and give us some good questions. We'd like to thank the Indiana 5051 people
- Actually, let's hold the applause, because there's a few. The Monroe County Education Association, Mask
- Block Bloomington, the Monroe County Young Dems, the IU Bloomington College Dems, and the IU Bloomington
- Young Democratic Socialist of America. Thank you all so much. All right.
- The reason that we have this candidate forum is because we believe that fighting fascism starts at home.
- And if you're going to be serious about fighting fascism, one way to do that is to ensure that the people
- who are representing us in the halls of government genuinely represent the people here. And so DSA got
- together these co-sponsors and other people, other people of the community, and we solicited questions
- from them because we want them to be able to have a line to the people who are representing us.
- And so we have a broad range of viewpoints, a broad range of questions here. But, of course, at the
- 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
- tell you a little bit about us. First and foremost, we're an organization that believes that capitalism
- is the problem. That much of the issues that are facing our country, our state, our city, and us as
- individuals come from this relentless drive for capital to accumulate,
- to consolidate and to exploit. And if you're not addressing that system, then you're really not fighting
- for anything, really. You're fighting to maintain an exploitative system. We believe that we need a
- Green New Deal to combat climate change and reinvigorate the industrial base in this country. We believe
- that healthcare is a human right and that the best way to implement that right is single-payer system,
- Medicare for all.
- We believe that housing is a human right and that we believe that housing should not be speculative
- asset but should be used to house people. We believe that trans rights are human rights and bodily autonomy
- for all. We believe in immigrant rights. We believe in abolishing ICE. We believe in ending America's
- involvement in the oppression of Palestinians and in the imperial project writ large, including especially
- this unprovoked attack on Iran.
- And we are in favor of supporting unions, of course. All the workers have the right to organize and
- to get better conditions. That's a good platform, I think, right? So over the last six months, our DSA
- chapter has experienced a dramatic increase in activity and growth. We have done a lot. Let's see. We
- raised $6,000 for Hoosier All Options
- at the, what was it called, the Bread and Roses Bash. Another one will be coming soon. We supported
- materially Starbucks workers striking in town. We organized volunteer work days at food banks. We organized
- a cut the contract anti-ice rally, which yesterday seems to have borne some fruit at the city council.
- And we continue to do anti-ice work, anti-flock work in the community.
- And of course, we're doing a candidate forum so that the public can be more informed in our fight against
- fascism. So we work with a lot of different organizations to put on a lot of different events. But tonight,
- we have the candidate forum. And your host for the candidate forum is the host of the Who's Left podcast
- and the founder of the Progressive Indiana Network. Did I say that right? Yes. Scott Aaron Rogers. If
- you don't know him, you should really get a card and find out more about him.
- He's great. And managing our time and, you know, keeping our candidates in check is our co-chair of
- DSA Brent. All right. And my final announcement, my final ask is that if you are not, well, how many
- of you are DSA members right now? Oh, that's pretty good. That seems like a lot of you aren't.
- And so I would definitely encourage you guys to join DSA. Please get involved. Bring your ideas. Bring
- your motivations. And we can change the world. So without any further ado, I will hand it off to Scott.
- Thank you, Bryce, for the warm introduction. Again, my name is Scott Aaron Rogers. I am the host of
- the Who's Left podcast. That's H-O-O-S, Left Like Who's Your Left, and founder of the Progressive Indiana
- Network, an independent media collaborative supporting Indiana-focused progressive journalism, analysis,
- and commentary. PIN provides a shared platform for writers, podcasters, and creators committed to covering
- state and local politics with independence, solidarity, and accountability. The network exists to
- build durable progressive media rooted in local communities and attentive to the decisions that shape
- daily life across Indiana. You can learn more about us at progressiveindiana.net. But in addition to
- that, I am also a DSA member in this chapter. Thank you. And so I am essentially here in that capacity
- tonight. And so let's begin. I want to explain our format a little bit here. So we're going to start
- with our statehouse candidates here in District 61 in Bloomington.
- Candidates will be given four minutes each to introduce themselves to the audience. Then for the next,
- I would say about 40 minutes, I, your moderator, will ask questions drawn from participating organizations
- as well as from audience submissions. Now, to ensure we get through as many questions as possible, answers
- should be kept under 90 seconds per question with the option for a brief 30 second response after the
- other candidate speaks. There will be a timekeeper here.
- to let you know when you've spoken for 60 seconds to help keep you on track. And we've planned for a
- little padding, but we do want to get as many voices heard as possible. Now, I should mention that we
- already have some questions that have been submitted by DSA members and by our co-sponsor organizations.
- But again, the audience can submit questions via the QR code right there. Very good. So with that,
- Let's introduce our candidates here and let us start, I suppose, with the incumbent, Representative
- Matt Pierce. Matt, thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. It's great to see such a nice crowd here.
- It's really important for people to be involved in our democratic process and get educated about the
- candidates. So I'm pleased to be able to participate tonight. I would very much like to continue being
- a progressive voice for the values of our Bloomington community.
- And I think that those values for our community are first and foremost treating everyone with dignity
- and respect, creating an economy that works for everyone, not just a few, being able to afford reasonably
- priced housing, accessible and affordable healthcare, supporting our public schools and not diverting
- tax dollars away to private schools, academic freedom and free speech on our campuses,
- And also, we want to make sure we continue to protect our environment and natural resources. And so
- I think those are some of the core values of our community, and I like being a very strong and outspoken
- person on behalf of those values. Now, the thing that I never thought I would have to say is that while
- we focus on things like economic justice, we also have to focus on preserving our democracy.
- because we're under very real threat right now. And I see it both on the national level and at the state
- house. And the number one example of that was the attempt to redistrict our congressional seats, an
- effort that started all the way back in the summer and lasted until December. And I was pleased to act
- as the point person for the effort to combat that. And it seemed like insurmountable odds, but I knew
- that if we got people involved and
- made people understand what was at stake. We had a chance to perhaps win there. And so I was involved
- with participating in many rallies, appeared on many national media, really going after Donald Trump,
- calling him out for his attempt to cheat in the elections. And so it was an interesting experience to
- be on MSNBC, Now MS Now, and CNN, and these other outlets saying, we do not stand for this in Indiana.
- And by getting the people involved and working hard, we were able to push back on that. And we had a
- tremendous victory when that effort was defeated. And so I think we can have other victories, too. But
- obviously, there's a lot more work to do. And so one of the things that I've been pushing back on is
- this kind of paramilitary police state that is attempting to be created throughout the country and the
- horrible things we saw happening in Minnesota. And one of the things that I did is I offered an amendment
- to unmask ICE, to make it illegal for law enforcement, whether federal or local, to wear masks when
- they're doing their law enforcement. We should not be living in a world where people are operating in
- disguise with no identification. I also opposed Governor Braun's desire to have his own military police
- force be able to enforce laws against civilians, including arrests, searches, and seizures.
- And I spoke out very strongly on that, and I tried to alert the public about the potential dangers of
- that kind of situation. I've also been opposing voter suppression laws. The Republicans decided they
- didn't want to make it easy for students to vote. So they specifically said student IDs no longer count
- from state universities. And that's going to cause us to have to work harder
- to make sure students who want to participate in the process can. And then just the unprecedented attacks
- on higher education. I mean, the complete micromanaging of our universities and really the conversion
- of the Commission for Higher Education into some kind of oversight regulatory body, which is really
- bad. So I'll just in conclusion say that
- The key thing that I do in Indianapolis is I look around and ask myself, who is not in the room now?
- Who doesn't have a high-priced lobbyist to represent them? And then I make sure that their voices are
- heard, because there are too many people who don't have the time to be at the state house and to defend
- themselves in their own interests. And so that's my job, is to do it for them. Thank you. Thank you,
- Representative Pierce. Let's hear from the challenger, Lillian Young.
- Good evening, Bloomington. I'm Liliana Young. I am Matt's opponent this year. Some of you still don't
- know who I am, so let me tell you a little about myself. For about the last year and a half, I have
- served on the Bloomington Monroe County Human Rights Commission. Before that, and during that time,
- I have also worked as a community organizer and activist in the local LGBTQ community. I'm very proud
- to be one of the people responsible for Bloomington's Resolution 2024-26.
- the Safe Haven Resolution for Gender Affirming Care, which has also been picked up by other groups around
- the state who have been pushing their cities and municipalities into adopting similar resolutions, and
- they all quote our work in Bloomington. Very proud to see that we've had a ripple effect here. I am
- running for a very simple reason.
- Politics has changed over the last 20 years and it's changed dramatically in the last decade. The older
- ways of doing things of attempting to compromise with Republicans, it doesn't work anymore. It hasn't
- worked in a very long time and this is not a personal attack on any standing Democrat, but I don't believe
- that this old longstanding method serves anybody anymore because Republicans have become used to appeals
- to their better nature, which they don't have, and they've become used to shrugging off attempts at
- compromise. It is the exception and not the rule. On the rare occasion, you can get one of them to actually
- come to the table in a good faith conversation. I am considerably more aggressive
- and further left than my opponent in just about every conceivable way. I have very little interest in
- attempting to compromise with people that I know won't try and listen. Beyond that, my primary legislative
- platform that I champion is very much in line with the essay values. I'm looking for things like
- fully funding the state Medicaid program, because we've got a quarter of the state that is on that program
- in some capacity. I'm looking to use the state's muscle to force lower housing costs. State governments
- have a lot of power that doesn't get used for the right reasons, and I don't have an issue with being
- a new kind of Democrat that actually uses the power that we run to obtain. I'm looking to
- completely dissolve the school voucher program and get public funds back into public schools. If people
- want that private education experience, they gotta pay for that. I'm looking to codify basic human rights
- into our state constitution. It's a long process, but somebody's gotta get that started. And this includes
- bodily autonomy for everyone, women, trans people, everybody in the state.
- This includes the right to marriage equality, not just for gay people, but for interracial couples as
- well. These are very basic things that are constantly under attack, and we have to put it into our highest
- laws in the state so that nobody has to worry about that anymore. And I think that's it.
- Very good. Thank you, Liliana. So I think as we get into our questions with just the two of you, I'm
- going to do this snake style, and we're going to start with Liliana and go to Representative Pierce,
- and then for the next question, vice versa, if that works for everybody. So for Liliana, I want to ask
- you, and this is a question from Bloomington DSA. So a 2025 Gallup poll found only 54% of Americans
- have a positive view of capitalism. That's down from 60% in 2021.
- DSA believes that capitalism is a driving force of inequity and stagnation around the world. Please
- explain your views on capitalism as a system and how you expect to work within it as an elected official,
- and you have 90 seconds. My view is simple. Capitalism will kill us all. I don't want to be restrained
- to capitalism, but for the near future, we're going to have to work.
- to make reforms to it before we can finally get to the socialist paradise Star Trek promised us. This
- goes back to things that I mentioned from my primary legislative platform. I also didn't mention we
- have to drastically raise wages in the state. I'm shooting for a $20 an hour state minimum wage, which
- according to research doesn't even cover two bedroom apartments.
- So even that is a compromised position. In theory, in a perfect world, I would be able to lay the foundation
- to largely undo the effects of capitalism in Indiana. And if I were elected and if I were re-elected
- after that, I swear to every god you can imagine, I would do everything possible to lay that foundation
- to try and free us from that chain around our neck.
- All right. Thank you. Mr. Pierce, do you need me to repeat the question or you got it? No, I think I
- got it. Thank you. So the biggest problem we have is starting back in the 1980s, all the safeguards,
- many of the safeguards and a lot of the protections for working class people have just been removed
- and taken away. You remember the time when you could work at a job and you could have a pension? In
- addition to Social Security, you could actually retire with dignity.
- And somehow that turned into a 401k and it's up to you to go find the money and put it into the stock
- market and hope you have enough when you come out the other end. And what that's done is it's totally
- skewed it. We live in this weird situation where the richest, wealthiest people just keep getting wealthier.
- And we ask less and less of them to contribute to society as they get wealthier and wealthier. At the
- meantime, you have the people at the lowest rung,
- really struggling just to survive, just to get by. And the middle class is shrinking in the middle.
- And I've said that this society cannot be sustained with that kind of ongoing trend. And so it's up
- to the government to have to step up and make sure that workers have rights. And one of those, for example,
- is undermining labor unions. You know, that was done deliberately. When you have a strong labor union,
- In your workplace, workers have a stronger voice, and they can collectively bargain. And that results
- in better wages and benefits. And so we have to reverse these trends that have occurred over the last
- 40 years or so that have undermined the workers and undermined equality in our economy. All right.
- Thank you, Mr. Pearson. Now, we're going to start the next one with you. Now, this question is from
- the Monroe County Education Association.
- Do you know how funding mechanisms work for school corporations, including rules put in place last year
- requiring sharing of funds with charter schools? And what do you think about tax dollars being given
- to private schools due to Indiana's quote unquote school choice laws? I've been fighting this trend
- for more than a decade because what you had happen is people came to power
- in the Republican Party who really just wanted to privatize our school system. They used to refer to
- our public schools as government schools. But they knew that if they came out and they said, well, we
- just want to basically abolish the public schools and have a private school system, and we'll just hand
- out some money to families and let them go figure out where they're going to get their education, they
- knew that people would reject that. So instead, they started out with a very deliberate
- incremental system to divert money away from our public schools. And they started out by saying, oh,
- we have people in underperforming inner city schools. And because they don't have the wealth, they can't
- go to a private school like wealthier people. So it's a matter of civil rights. We must give them a
- voucher to allow them the same opportunity as wealthier people. And that was appealing. But that was
- just the first step. And they've expanded and expanded it. Now in the state of Indiana, you can be a
- billionaire
- and you can get a voucher to subsidize your kids' private school education. And we don't have the ability
- to support two systems at once. And so I'm doing everything I can to try to claw this back, to get rid
- of these vouchers, and the charter schools also undermining it. We benefit as a society when we have
- a strong public school system, when we have all of us in there together learning together. Not a stratified
- system of wealthy people in one set of schools,
- working families and other city schools. That does not work. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, same
- question to you. Do you need me to repeat that or you got it? Please repeat. Thank you. So do you know
- how funding mechanisms work for school corporations, including rules put in place last year requiring
- sharing of funds with charter schools? And what do you think about tax dollars being given to private
- schools due to Indiana's school choice laws?
- Right, so fundamentally the idea of school choice is a myth to begin with, and I am nowhere near in
- favor of sharing public funds with charter or private schools. As I said, I want to repeal and dissolve
- that program entirely. I am sick to death of the
- attacks on public education and this isn't just an Indiana problem, it's a nationwide problem. I grew
- up in Texas and we have a lot of same issues there too so I've seen this my entire life. Fundamentally
- I think we do have to treat education as a basic human right among other things and we're gonna have
- to codify that into law in some capacity and make sure that our
- a public education system is not just restored to what it was before we started getting all of this
- funding drained out of it. Arguably, we have to make it even stronger than it was before then. Sorry,
- thank you Ms. Young. So this is a question submitted by the audience and back to you on this one. So
- disability rights are consistently left out of conversations like this.
- In what ways will you commit to the rights of disabled people, especially given the fact that it's been
- shown that supporting disabled people improves everyone's living condition? Disabilities, I think, is
- a misunderstood thing. Most of the time you think of, for example, somebody in a wheelchair and your
- imagination seems to cut off there, but this covers a pretty broad range of
- physical and psychological impairments that people suffer. We have to address a increase in funding
- and staffing for mental health and medical health services to address a lot of this. And I think we
- have a very bad problem on our hands of
- We just don't have enough legal protections for people with disabilities of any variety. One thing in
- particular, people who suffer from anxiety disorders are treated really badly by workplaces. It's often
- viewed as an excuse of, oh, you can't come into work because you're having an anxiety attack. Yeah,
- we're going to write you up and dock your pay, and you might be fired tomorrow if you
- 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
- better at protecting people who suffer these problems. Thank you, Ms. Young. Representative Pierce,
- do you got that, or do you need a repeat? Yeah, I think that first you have an issue of just accessibility,
- and I think that we could be doing better just on that baseline starting point. But what I've seen happening
- is in erosion,
- of support for the basic programs that are necessary for people to lead independent lives. Because I
- think that's the number one thing. No matter what the nature of a disability someone might have, the
- challenges they're facing, they want to lead independent, full lives. And a lot of times that requires
- assistance, and that means relying upon things like Medicaid and other state programs. And those have
- been funded properly.
- And so that causes people to fight to have to get the assistance they need. And what's frustrating to
- me is at the same time that we've been not funding those programs properly, we've been cutting back
- the taxes that corporations and other people pay. The legislature has been slowly starving the government
- to the point where it can't meet the basic needs of its people. And that's one of the things we have
- to turn around.
- Sadly, we have a budget process where the people in charge now, they just decide what is the bottom
- line they're willing to spend, and then they drive everything backwards from that. They don't ask themselves,
- what do we need to do to make sure we meet the needs of all the people, including those with disabilities
- and people who have challenges that need help to lead full independent lives, and then finding a way
- to fund those programs. And that's the approach that
- I fight for in Indianapolis. Let's talk about what it takes to meet the needs of the people. Let's not
- just look at a line on a page and say, this is the dollar amount we're willing to spend. Thank you,
- Representative Pierce. So I want to move on to another question submitted by the audience. And unless
- things change drastically this November, both of you would have to face the reality of the Republican
- supermajority at the State House. Now, beyond policy differences,
- How would you navigate these constraints as a legislator and a representative of Bloomington?
- And furthermore, what is your theory of change? How will you use your office to disrupt the status quo?
- And this one will start with Mr. Pierce. 90 seconds. Well, first of all, I do think we have a tremendous
- opportunity this session to break the super majority. So that's the first step. If we can just pick
- up four seats,
- And we have an excellent opportunity with Amy Oliver running in the district next door. It's a 50-50
- district. If we can pick that up, there's some opportunities up in Hamilton County. If we can break
- that supermajority, that gives us another important tool. When a horrible piece of legislation comes
- to the floor, we can deny a quorum to function. That gives us leverage to try to make something different
- happen. And so that's the first key thing, which I think is within reach.
- What I've always done is I've made sure, one, is to shine a spotlight on what they're doing, to try
- to inform the public and tell them what's happening. One example of that was we had a bill in which
- it opened it up. So on certain types of low-quality farmland, you could essentially put a data center
- in with no oversight whatsoever from the government. It would be like a by-right use, which was insane.
- And I quizzed the person on the floor, and I made them admit what this was going to do.
- We got the word out over social media and other places, and the public then understood what was happening.
- And they started calling in and saying, like, we don't want this. And within two days, the Senate said,
- we are not going to touch that House bill with a 10-foot pole. So there are opportunities, whether you're
- offering amendments to bills, you're quizzing the proponents of the bill, you're informing the public,
- you can have an opportunity to keep things from happening that way.
- Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to repeat the question or you got that? Yeah, so unless
- things do change, which because of how many Democrats are running this year, we might actually have
- a very real change come November. Cross your fingers on that one, everyone. But my plan to combat the
- super majority is
- partially in line with Matt's. It is continuing to do everything possible to shine a spotlight on the
- goings on of Republicans in the state house. This will include things like engaging every social media
- platform possible. This will include calling daily press conferences with every press outlet that'll
- show up. I'm even very willing
- to engage in calling out Republicans in committee or other legislative chambers. I've already done that
- just as a private citizen. I've been to Indianapolis and have chewed out Republicans in committees,
- told them to their faces the kinds of people that they are and the damage they're doing with
- their legislation. And I've seen on their faces that it rattles them. They're not really ever expecting that.
- And the great part is, as an elected representative, they can't fire me for doing that. So these are
- ideas that I have in mind of how to combat them. Thank you, Ms. Young. And we're going to come back
- to you on this one. This is a question submitted by YDSA. That's the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
- What actions did you take to support the Palestine protests at Dun Meadow, and how would you support
- any new student-led protests during your next term? You got 90 seconds. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't
- show up to Dun Meadow, and I'm not gonna take credit for something I didn't do. As far as supporting
- Palestinians as a state candidate,
- There's not very much that we can do to legislate support for that, but I would be very happy to use
- my position there to continue to raise awareness and organize attention on community organizations and
- nonprofit organizations working to help our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Thank you. Mr. Peirce.
- Yeah, I was appalled by what happened in Dunmetto, and I put out a strong statement criticizing President
- Whitten and the whole way that was handled. That was completely unconstitutional, and anybody even paying
- casual attention knew it. They tried to change the rules in the middle of the night to give themselves
- a pretext to essentially arrest people and push them out of Dunmetto, which ever since the Vietnam War
- has been known as the free speech location. And so that was outrageous. And then to put the sniper on
- top of the Union building, even worse.
- And so I got on the record that that was wrong, and I tried to push back. I wanted the university to
- know that there are some people that were in elected offices that did not appreciate what they were
- doing. Then I got on the phone with the superintendent of state police, and I asked them, what the hell
- are you guys doing down here? Why are you here? Why are you taking peaceful protesters and trying to
- arrest them? It's like, well, then you learn the story. Well, we were asked to come in by the university.
- We have to fight back because it's only kind of gotten worse from there. Now, fortunately, the ACLU
- and others got involved in litigation. We've had federal judges basically say what you've done
- was unconstitutional. And so people who are declared trespassers have been, you know, had that erased.
- People have got reprimanded for various things related to their speech rights. Those have had to be
- expunged because of what the federal court said. And so I think in the short term, we have to continue
- fighting through the court system to vindicate our rights. And then we really have to, in two years'
- time, when we have the opportunity to elect another governor, we need to get a governor in place who's
- going to appoint trustees who are going to respect our professors, our faculty, and academic freedom
- on campus. And that's essential. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. So I want to come back to you for this one.
- And this issue has been very contentious lately, getting a lot of media attention across the board
- both sides of the aisle. So this question is from Bloomington DSA. How would you go about staving off
- the increase in the amount of data centers that are hogging electricity and water in our state? Yeah,
- it's interesting because the governor and the leadership of the legislature, they're really pro data
- center and they want to get as many of them in the state as possible.
- And I've been saying that you cannot run roughshod over the desires of local units of government, of
- people to decide what they want to have happening in their backyard. And so the first thing is, which
- I've done in the utilities committee, is I've worked very hard to try to prevent us, one, from having
- to pay for the tremendous amount of electric generation necessary to run a data center. And so I had
- an amendment that I got passed in the law, which pushes it up, which says that these data centers
- are supposed to pay at least 85 percent of the cost of generating this power. Now, it ought to be 100
- percent, but at least we got it up there and we need to do more on that. The other thing is we have
- to have ironclad regulations about environmental impacts, whether that's water usage or noise pollution,
- all these different things. I think that we have to make sure that
- The data center people don't think that Indiana is where you come because it doesn't matter what the
- people think or what your impacts on the environment are. They have to understand that if you're going
- to come here, you're going to pay for your own power, you're going to operate in a way that doesn't
- deplete our water supply, and you're going to be good neighbors to the people around you. And I think
- that's the key thing. And I think when you do that and you preserve people's local autonomy to decide,
- then we can have decisions made that are in the best interests of the people.
- Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, 90 seconds to you on data centers. I'm sorry. Could you please repeat
- it real quick? Absolutely. So how would you go about staving off the increase in the amount of data
- centers in the state that are hogging all this electricity and water? If I had my way, my perfect legislation
- would be to completely block them from being built in Indiana to begin with.
- They don't bring any benefits. They're not bringing jobs. They're using up all of our resources, and
- they're making us all pay two or three times as much in electricity as we otherwise would be.
- Barring that, I will, like Matt, I would love to continue to offer amendments to bills, try and increase
- the amount of electricity costs that they're paying for their own usage. I would also,
- continue to organize and engage the public to show up at the state house as often as possible to speak
- out and protest on bills that let the data centers continue to run rampant here in the state. I also,
- I apologize, I cannot remember the bill name, but the bill that
- was going to allow the state to completely usurp municipal decisions on land use, I would do everything
- possible to make sure no bills like that ever get that far ever again. Thank you, Ms. Young. So we're
- getting a lot of questions. Good to see it. Love the participation. Thank you all for
- your thoughtful questions. We'll go to about seven o'clock here tonight. That's about 15, 20 minutes
- from now. So I'm going to come back to you Ms. Young for this one. And this is a question from advocates
- for the unhoused and home insecure at IU. Senate Bill 285 was passed this legislative session and will
- make it a class C misdemeanor for people to sleep on public land. Bloomington already has a housing
- crisis and under capacity in shelters. How do you
- plan to respond to this bill at the State House and to this issue in our community. 90 seconds. My first
- priority, if possible, is to try and repeal that bill immediately. It's heinous and inhumane in every
- way possible. Barring that option, I will continue to try and amend any other bill possible to
- lower those penalties or put limits on how those penalties and fines can be implemented. I will also
- try and work with our Bloomington government here as a state representative to make sure that they are
- doing everything that they can on the ground level here to combat that problem and make sure that our
- municipal services, shelters are being funded and staffed properly to at least offer some short-term
- relief while we're trying to solve this in the legislature. Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Pierce, 90 seconds.
- Do you need me to repeat the question? No, I think I've got it. Yeah, that Senate Bill 285 was classic
- Republican thought, right? It's really like we're concerned about a problem, so rather than solving
- the problem, let's just hide the problem.
- Let's just sweep the people off the streets, and they're going to end up in jail. Now, their argument
- is this is the pathway to treatment. My argument is we already have sheriffs telling us that they're
- tired of the jail being the number one mental health provider in the community. Many people in our jails
- are suffering from substance use disorder or mental health challenges, and the jails are not in a position
- to deal with those.
- We kept beating them up and they've added in all kinds of little different theoretically escape routes
- to avoid end up being charged with the misdemeanor. But at the end of the day, none of that's going
- to work because the treatment facilities are not there. We need residential treatment facilities. And
- so on second reading, that's the point where everyone can vote on an amendment in the House.
- To that bill, I offered an amendment.
- that said the bill could not become effective until such time as we had three regional residential mental
- health and drug treatment facilities that had the capacity and staffing to serve every single unhoused
- person in our state.
- And I really wanted to push this because I know that there are some members in the Republican side who
- are recognizing this is a significant need and a problem. And they've been telling me over and over
- again for years now, we're going to get around to doing something about that. So I really wanted to
- push them and say, if you're going to have a bill like this, you have to provide the treatment. And
- so I'm hopeful that we'll make progress on that in the next session. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Let's come
- back to you for this one. And this is a question submitted by the audience.
- We're going to stay with housing. Housing in the US is treated primarily as an investment rather than
- a necessity. A significant portion of Section 8 funding goes toward the profits of private landlords.
- Do you support the construction of government-owned housing, not just for the poorest Americans, but
- at a variety of price points in order to increase supply and undercut the private rental market? I think
- probably to solve this tremendous problem, which has so many different
- causes at multiple levels is you're gonna have to have multiple solutions. So I think you're gonna need
- to have some government subsidized housing. I think we should be doing more through the tax code,
- tax credits, other subsidies to help people afford down payments. Of course, if we can figure out a
- way to get the interest rates lower, that's also helpful. So we just have to work on affordability.
- I was very disappointed that
- After the Republicans said we recognize that housing affordability is a real issue and we're going to
- have a bill on it, I thought that we would have something, we'd have a mix of these types of solutions.
- Instead, what we got was a home builder driven bill which essentially sought to deregulate their construction
- industry. And the bill in its final form wasn't worth voting for. I mean, it essentially
- said you couldn't do certain types of mitigation for water runoff. You couldn't have certain types of
- safety requirements for homes. It didn't make any sense. And there was nothing in the bill that ensured
- that whatever savings those home builders would get from not having to comply with a lot of planning
- and zoning and building code regulations would actually be passed on to the home buyer.
- So I thought it had the potential to really just pad the profits of the people building the homes. And
- so I voted against that bill. It's a very weak bill. It really is just something that's designed to
- have people put a brochure, a line on their campaign brochure saying, I voted for an affordable housing
- bill. But it doesn't really accomplish anything. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to
- repeat the question? All right, very good.
- We mentioned that housing is treated primarily as an investment rather than a necessity, and a significant
- portion of Section 8 funding goes toward the profits of private landlords. Do you support the construction
- of government-owned housing, not just for the poorest Americans, but at a variety of price points in
- order to increase supply and undercut the private rental market? Yes. No, fundamentally, we have to
- move to decommodify housing on just about every level. I would like to see one bedroom, two bedroom,
- three bedroom apartments subsidized by the state. I'd like to see smaller houses, two bedroom houses
- maybe also subsidized by the state. That would be more of a short term solution, but it's part of the
- way there. In the longer term, I want to see the state
- take ownership of as much housing as possible so that we can remove the for-profit incentive that landlords
- operate on. This is a fundamental human rights issue, and it has to stop being treated as something
- else to exploit. Thank you, Ms. Young. So I want to move to the environment now.
- Indiana's air, soil, water qualities are among the lowest in the nation. How will you lift our state
- out of the bottom of these rankings and protect our air, water, soil, and natural areas? And Ms. Young,
- you've got 90 seconds. I'm very sorry. I only caught part of that. Will you please repeat? Oh, absolutely.
- So how will you lift our state out of the bottom of the rankings in terms of air, water, and soil quality?
- As I have read the Indiana Department of Environmental Protection has had its teeth removed consistently
- and we're gonna have to write some hard legislation that'll give it the teeth it needs back to start
- enforcing environmental regulations, make sure that our
- Corporations operating in the state are cleaning up their own messes, that they're not passing that
- 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
- them every day. I certainly want my daughter to have something better to grow up in, and I think all
- the rest of you do as well. This will include things like increasing the staffing and funding.
- in this department. But like I said, we have to legislate what it can do to make sure that the governor
- can't keep trimming its powers on his own. Thank you, Ms. Young. And I want to ask the same question
- to you, Mr. Pierce. Do you need me to repeat that? No, I'm good. So the environmental issues at the
- legislature are probably the most frustrating of all.
- It almost makes me kind of, it does make me sad because there is just no imperative within the General
- Assembly to protect our environment. I mean, they've gutted our wetlands protections and it's
- just frustrating. Now they just passed this bill, I think it's 277, which guts IDEM even more. I mean,
- right now they told IDEM, you are not allowed to protect the environment in any way that's stricter
- than federal law, right? So if Congress,
- or the EPA is not willing to protect our environment in a significant way, the state isn't either. In
- this bill, they added in this magic word that not only can you not be any stricter than the federal
- law, you cannot be any more burdensome than the federal law. And I told them on the House floor, what
- you've done is you've handed a weapon to the polluters.
- So their lawyers can go into court and say, oh, you may not be any stricter than federal law, but the
- effect is to be more burdensome. And no one will know what that word means, so it'll be up to the judges
- to tell us what it means. And so what I did on the House floor with that bill is I got the fishing guide
- for the Department of Natural Resources. If you ever look through that, it has a list of all of the
- impaired waterways in the state in which you should not eat fish if you are fishing.
- or you should limit your intake. And I read off every county that had an impaired waterway in which
- you would put your life in danger if you ate fish that you actually fished out of those. And I said,
- like, all of you that live in these counties, why are you gutting this agency? Its job is to protect
- these waters and the environment. And again, this is a situation where we have to just make sure the
- public understands what's happening and make it an issue in forums like this and when we get into the
- voting booth.
- All right. So Mr. Paris, I want to come back to you here for this one. This is a question submitted
- by the audience. Now, Indiana is facing a critical shortage of health care professionals. Hoosiers are
- facing months-long waiting times to see certain specialists. What are your ideas to encourage students
- to enter into health care professions? And what are your ideas to entice health care professionals to
- stay in Indiana?
- Yeah this is really a difficult situation because again on the Medicaid front we have so many people
- that are on Medicaid and if you don't fund Medicaid properly then the providers don't get paid properly
- then they can't pay their workers properly and then you have people deciding to go work in another state
- or some other place or just try a different occupation. So that goes back to your problem I mentioned
- before where right now
- The legislative leaders of the Republican Party are hell bent in trying to squeeze down Medicaid as
- much as possible. And they don't want to admit that to you. They don't want to say, well, I don't care
- about you and your health care. I just want to make this budget balanced. Or I just don't like this
- program. So instead, they say, we are fighting waste, fraud, and abuse to preserve the program for you.
- This is like George Orwell at work. And then just for a little extra sprinkle, all those immigrants
- are taking your health care, and they shouldn't be getting it. And we're going to find out who they are.
- and take care of them. And it's just ridiculous. What I've been trying to do is get the legislature
- to decide that we have an insane health care system. We got these insurance companies stuck in the middle,
- pharmacy benefit management. They're sucking all this money out of the system. They don't provide anything
- of value to people. We need to get them out of the system. I'm a Medicare for all person. I think we
- should have universal health care.
- We had a big debate over the last couple years about hospitals. We found out our nonprofit hospitals
- had huge billions of dollars of surplus. I voted for legislation that tells people, you better act like
- a nonprofit and provide charity care, or we're going to take your tax exemption away. So we got to play
- a little bit of hardball there. And we just got to get to a better system, ultimately. We can't just
- keep putting Band-Aids on the one we have. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Ms. Young, do you need me to repeat
- the question?
- So Matt is correct part of the problem is increasing our funding back into the Medicaid program Another
- part of the solution to this is repealing seemingly unrelated legislation such as restrictions on abortion
- care and trans health care what we've seen in other states when we have
- these kinds of laws put in place, that has a negative impact on states where specialists will leave
- those states because they're afraid of practicing anything adjacent to that specialty. And that impacts
- thousands, tens of thousands of people at a time who can no longer get, for example, OB-GYNs leave states
- when you have
- abortion bans in place. So now it's not just a matter of you can't get abortion healthcare, you can't
- get any OGBYN care unless you travel state lines because the specialists just aren't there. So we have
- to make sure that we're not just funding our Medicaid programs properly, but we have to repeal these
- restrictive laws that have targeted other healthcare adjacent problems.
- And we are also going to, I think, need to try and work to expand what Medicaid can cover in the state.
- Now, there's going to be some federal restrictions on that, but to the extent possible, we need to lift
- those here in the state, too. All right. Very good. So I want to thank you both for your thoughtful
- answers. And I want to thank all the audience for their
- incredibly thoughtful questions. And as we're coming up on seven o'clock here, I do want to pivot to
- closing statements. And so since I let Mr. Pierce open first, I will let Ms. Young have the first closing
- statement. About two minutes, please. Things can't get better if they don't change. And this change
- isn't just about voting out Republicans who have been driving the harm that we all have to live with.
- It's going to have to require a complete shakeup of the current system that we have. It's not meant
- as a personal attack against anybody, but politics has changed and we need to have people in our state
- government that understand that change and know how to respond to it accordingly. And that is exactly
- what I believe I am capable of doing. That's why I stepped up to run for this office to begin with.
- Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Pierce, you can take up to two minutes if you'd like. Thank you very much.
- I appreciate you for hosting the forum and the opportunity to talk to you about some of my ideas for
- the legislature. You know, I know that people are extremely frustrated, frustrated and feeling powerless
- and wanting to know how is our country, how is our state going down this path? How is it that we can reclaim
- our ability to impact what actually happens in Indianapolis. And I see that and I feel that myself up
- close. And I tell you that it's easy to get dispirited and to want to give up. But for me, I just kind
- of get a little more anger each day. And I try to focus that anger into positive actions. And I very
- much want to be returned to the legislature so I can continue this fight.
- I've spent years learning how the legislature works, how the rules work, the personalities involved,
- and I want to be able to continue putting that to work for the people of District 61 and do everything
- I can to push back on this, to preserve our democracy, to have a fair voting and election system, to
- have a government that actually serves the needs of the people
- and doesn't continually cater to the wealthiest people in our state with the theory that it will all
- trickle down and the rest of us will somehow benefit. I very much want to stay in the fight. And so
- I'm asking you as the voters of District 61 to please give me a chance to continue the efforts to make
- progress. And I'm hopeful that this election year and this election coming up in November, the people
- will send a strong message. And I'll have a little more help up there.
- and we'll have a little more power, and we can actually get some done, and we can start getting on offense
- instead of having to be on defense all the time. And so I really much would like your support and hope
- you all will get out to vote in the upcoming election. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Thank you,
- both of you. We appreciate you being here with us tonight and answering our questions. And let's take
- about a 10-minute break, and then we're going to invite our candidates up here for Congressional District 9.
- everybody welcome back let's go ahead and welcome our candidates for the ninth congressional district
- and we're going to go from left to right here we've got Floyd Taylor Kyle Rourke Dr. Tim Peck and Brad
- Meyer now I should note mr. Taylor here is an independent candidate he will not be on your ballot on
- May 5th you're still trying to secure ballot access for November is that correct
- All right, very good. So once again, I want to reiterate the rules. We've got four minutes each for
- our candidates to give an opening statement. And then once we get to our questions, we've got 90 seconds.
- And I especially expect maybe a little bit more jostling in this section with the four of you there.
- So if somebody is mentioned directly by name, I'll give you 30 seconds for a rebuttal.
- if our QR code is still out there. So if you want to ask some questions from the audience, just scan
- that and submit your questions there. We do have some already in the hopper from our Bloomington DSA
- chapter and our co-sponsors. But for now, let us go ahead and start. And I'm going to go directly from
- left to right here. And I'm going to start with Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor, you've got four minutes for
- an opening statement. Good evening. I'm the independent candidate in this race.
- I want to get right to the point. I have Republicans that are calling me a closet Democrat, and Democrats
- that are calling me a closet Republican, and both sides are saying I'm trying to split the vote. And
- I just want to state right up front that I'm not trying to split the vote. I want to take it all. I
- want all of them. The truth is, I'm not in this campaign to... The truth is,
- This campaign isn't a protest. It's a war against the way we do government. And I brought a weapon.
- It's called the Congress App. With the Congress App, when a bill comes up for a vote, you get a text
- on your phone. You get to read the full bill text, the plain English summary, and the fiscal impact.
- And then you vote yes or no.
- then my vote is bound to the will of the people of the ninth district. Not just the registered voters,
- all the people. And that simple tool changes everything. Lobbyists and PACs can't buy my vote. They
- have to persuade you. Money no longer flows to Washington to buy access. It has to flow right here into
- your communities to earn your trust.
- We can finally tackle the issues that no one dares to touch, not because they're unpopular, but because
- they're unpopular with the big donors of the party leadership. Every other campaign starts with a candidate's
- platform, their ideas, their goals, their concepts of a plan. My campaign starts with your positions,
- your ideas, your goals, and writes the bills to make them law. I'm not asking for your trust. I'm designing for it.
- And I'm the only one running on a plan that turns your phone into a weapon against the broken system.
- Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke, four minutes for an opening statement. Good evening, everyone.
- First and foremost, I want to send my deepest condolences and prayers for those service members that
- have lost their lives in the Middle East in Iran bombing. Secondly, I just want to say,
- My name is Kyle Rourke, and I'm running in Indiana's ninth congressional district. I believe that government
- should work for the people. I am an electrical engineer, father of four veteran. I am running for Congress
- because we have an affordability crisis. I am looking to put more money in people's pockets,
- bottom line. I'm also working to provide affordable housing, increase wages,
- But I'm also running to advance educational opportunities for our students, either in college, university,
- or in tech schools that grant wide accessibility and affordability. And finally, I'm also running for
- government accountability. Congress has oversight responsibilities to which they're designed for. And
- I'm also running to return decency to Washington, if that's possible.
- I also believe in honor, courage, and commitment. And I believe I'm the man to provide that, make that
- happen. Okay? Of all of us up here today, I believe I am the only one that can beat Aaron Houchin. I'm
- the only one who put himself through college working on the assembly line at Chrysler as a UAW worker.
- And I'm the only one who swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution in the United
- States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
- So I appreciate your vote and your support tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roark. Dr. Peck, you may
- take up to four minutes for an opening statement. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it. Thank you to the
- DSA. Thank you to all the co-sponsors, to my competitors here tonight. I appreciate it, to the audience.
- My name is Dr. Tim Peck. I am an emergency physician down in rural southern Indiana. My father was a
- a Vietnam veteran who came home and dedicated his life to building the first homeless shelter for veterans
- of the United States. And that's how I grew up. I became a chief resident as a physician in emergency
- medicine at Harvard Med School and left to live in a nursing home for three months. And there, I learned
- everything I could about that world in order to bring them a new care model, which was telemedicine,
- before telemedicine was a reality.
- that turned into a very large physician practice in which we treated hundreds of thousands of patients
- across the country. And we saved Medicare and taxpayers $100 million. And what that did was lead me
- to DC. And there I became a leader of a bipartisan coalition that got Congress to pass multiple bills
- and make telemedicine a reality right before the pandemic saving
- the lives of millions of people. So now I live on a farm with my wife and my son and treating my rural
- neighbors. So I wanted to quickly tell you about what I've been thinking about, which is Alex Preti,
- and what it means to have border control and ICE on our streets, and that for ICE to act constitutionally,
- it does not need to sow unnecessary terror
- It needs to be dedicated to the honor of the Constitution, the nation, its people, and definitely not
- its parties, not its leaders' whims or late night tweets, and not its billionaires putting its money
- into their pockets or politicians' pockets. And so reflecting on Alex's death, it reminds me of the
- people I see in the emergency department who just want to be safe. They just want to feel seen. They
- just want to get home to the people they love,
- Just like Alex did right before he had pepper spray in his face, five men on his back, one with his
- own gun in their hand, and right before 11 bullets were put into his body. Alex's death shows us that
- what's happening in America is not working today. We need a new way forward. Isn't it exhausting to
- live this way? Does anyone actually like being this way?
- Is this the America that you all dreamed of? We have to stop putting our energy into hate and otherness
- and redirect it into patience and curiosity and community. And if our leaders aren't willing to do that,
- then let's do that ourselves. Because after we hold power to account, and we will, the next step will
- be the hard work of bringing people together, of lifting up the safety glass of social media,
- taking down the cage of 24 hour news networks and making a democracy that works for all of
- us. The opportunity of this election is not about politics. The opportunity of this election is about
- humanity and remembering that all people deserve dignity no matter who they are and where they are from.
- Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, you've got up to four minutes for an opening statement.
- Thank you. I'd like to thank everybody for being here today. This is a great turnout. And I would like
- to thank the DSA for hosting this. So I'm Brad Meyer. I'm running for the US House of Representatives
- because this system that we live in truly is rigged. And I did want to rebut. I also swore an oath to
- the Constitution to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And that's part of why I left
- my job, to run for office.
- I also put myself through school. My wife and I got married when we turned 18 and went to school, college
- together. I spent 25 years in industry and this is really not about me, it's about you, right? So my
- time in industry, I saw ethical leadership where owners of the company cared about their employees and
- treated them fairly and with dignity. I also saw leaders
- that definitely did not, and their only purpose in life was to squeeze every penny out of everything
- and every person that worked for them. And that selfish approach is the official policy of the government
- today. It's been that way for a long time, but it is now the official policy and where we're going.
- Instead of expanding opportunity for all of us, they are hoarding
- opportunity and wealth and power for themselves while the rest of us struggle. Our priorities and our
- values are not being reflected in what our government does. For example, the government found money
- to add tens of billions of dollars to ICE funding, and they found enough money to give $40 billion,
- $70 billion for ICE, $40 billion for tax cuts,
- That's actually the amount of money we need for a child care program in the United States. If we just
- flip those, we've got the money. They've already identified it. But they're not going to apply to our
- values. To change this, we're going to have to get into power. And there are three ways that people
- are talking about being able to do that. One of them is that we can
- There's voters over here and they are conservative and we will slide over and snuggle up next to them
- and we will try to talk like them and we'll try to get their votes. And we tried that in the last election
- and it didn't work. And it's not gonna work this election either. The second strategy that's being discussed
- is that we need to be more middle of the road, more reasonable. And that's not gonna work either. The
- fact is that
- 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
- much ground now, as it is, and we need to stand up for our democratic principles and what we believe
- in and start fighting for what we need as a country. People want leadership that delivers. They want
- things that are going to improve their lives. The path forward isn't chasing politicians
- and other people's ideas. The path forward is to find the people that have been underserved and cut
- out of our society and show them that we have better ideas and better solutions and attract them to
- 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
- up for them first with policies that make a difference. I'm fighting for universal nonprofit single
- payer health care.
- Because no one should go broke just trying to stay alive. I'm fighting for economic policies that will
- put more money in people's pockets so that they can earn and have independence in their economics. If
- you're working 40 hours a week, you should be able to afford a house and food. And right now, that's
- not the case. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
- All right, so I want to go ahead and get into our questions tonight. And I'm going to remind you folks
- that we're going to have 90 seconds each for your answers. And then if somebody is mentioned by name,
- I'll give you 30 seconds for rebuttal. I'm going to start over here with Mr. Taylor on the first question.
- Then I will start the second question with Mr. Rourke, the third question with Dr. Peck, and so on and
- so forth. So for you, Mr. Taylor.
- This question comes from Bloomington DSA. After seeing the recent success and popularity of socialist
- candidates like Zoran Mondani in New York and Senator Bernie Sanders, both locally and nationally, would
- you work with and advocate for some socialist positions and policies while in office? And you've got
- 90 seconds. Well, I will advocate for whatever the people want me to advocate for. I use the Congress
- app. They tell me what to do.
- I do it. I don't need a personal position of my own. If they want socialists in office, they get socialists
- in office. If they want socialist policies, they get socialist policies. Other than that, it's pretty
- much up to the people how it goes. That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke,
- 90 seconds for you, sir. Excellent. Thank you.
- So first step is ACA subsidies. I would advocate strongly to re-institute ACA subsidies. Obviously,
- they expired. We're seeing across the board in the ninth congressional district on average 25% to 30%
- increase in premiums. So I would advocate strongly to re-institute those. Also, a billionaire tax. Our
- billionaire friends have been living large on the
- tax code for 25 years now, and they've been profiting from it. There's major inequalities between the
- middle class, the millionaire class, and the billionaire class, and then obviously I would advocate
- for those policies. And then secondly, I just wanted to make one point clear. I swore an oath to preserve
- and protect, to defend the Constitution of the United States. My oath is clearly different than Bradley's.
- I was in the military, he was not, just to make a point.
- Well, before I get to you, Dr. Peck, I'm gonna give 30 seconds to Mr. Meyer to rebut that. I was not
- a uniformed officer in the Navy. I was a civilian employee in the Navy. I worked on systems that protected
- ships from missile attack. Same oath. Thank you. All right, Dr. Peck, back to you for 90 seconds, and
- I will reiterate, the question is whether you would advocate and support
- some socialist positions and policies while in office. Housing subsidies are an enormous part. So we're
- sitting here in Bloomington where there's been recent national attention to the housing shortage that
- we have, but that's everywhere throughout Indiana 9. A 30-year-old nurse who graduated 10 years ago
- from school can't afford a home where there
- Mother and father could afford a home and their grandparents could afford a home. That's backwards.
- And so we need to do something to level the playing field and supporting people to get into housing.
- Certainly first time housing is something that I'm advocating for. Union rights, worker rights, being
- able to restore collective bargaining across the entire country is another piece.
- We talked about it, the billionaire tax just makes sense. Billionaires do not pay their fair share of
- taxes. The tax loopholes can be closed. And we would be able to solve a lot of the issues that we have
- in this country if only we had more revenue from the people who take revenue from us. So thank you.
- Thank you, Dr. Peck.
- And finally, Mr. Meyer, 90 seconds on what, if any, socialist policies you would advocate for while
- in Congress. So again, I'm advocating for universal, non-profit, single-payer health care. I want to
- be very clear about that. And if you need to understand what the difference in the candidates are, ask
- them about single-payer. That is the difference, I believe. I have struggled, frankly. I've gotten some
- questions in the past about,
- What should we do about daycare? And the thing that I struggled with, frankly, is that how do we pay
- for it? And I was going through the numbers, and like I said, the Republicans have found the money.
- They just applied it to things that were important to them instead of important to us. And we just need
- to reappropriate that money. I am a strong advocate for unions.
- I have been behind closed doors with management. I know why unions are important. Unions represent about
- a 25 to 30 percent increase in earnings. And these right to work are really right to work for less laws,
- and they are trying to push all of earnings down. It suppresses earnings for union and non-union workers.
- And there are a lot of housing policies that were
- in the 50s and 60s and early 70s that help to keep housing prices fair and level. And they need to be
- restored. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. And since you mentioned it, I actually want to go ahead and
- dig into health care a little bit. You mentioned you support single payer universal health care or Medicare
- for all, if you want to call it that. And I'm going to come to Mr. Work and ask what your positions
- are on single payer health care. Is that something you would support? 90 seconds.
- So my position is I'm in favor of private health care, but with the ability for universal health care
- as a supplement for those low income families of 250% above the poverty line, which on average is about
- 78,000. Kentucky and Maryland have a similar policy, and it works very effective because it supplements
- the existing private health care policy. So that's my position. And then also,
- With that plan, with the private health care and the limited universal policy, you have the best of
- both worlds. You have the ability of choice, because I think that's one of the difficulties with universal
- health care is choice. You want to be able to go to the doctor and keep your doctor. You don't want
- to go to a doctor you're not used to going to. So that's my plan. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, your
- position on single payer universal health care. Apparently, everyone deserves health care. It's a human right.
- I'm part of the AMA, which says right on their front page, it's a human right. It's not a constitutional
- right right now. And that's the struggle that we have in this country, which means that there's real
- work that needs to get done to get there. Single payer Medicare for all is one way of doing that. That
- way is not a reality that we can get done in the next two years.
- or even the next four years or maybe further than that. So what's the hard work that has to happen and
- the hard work that I've done and will continue to do with all of your support? We need costs to be down
- from where they are right now. We cannot pay for our healthcare as it is. Medicaid does not cover the
- cost of care. Medicare does not cover the full cost of care. I live in a healthcare desert.
- rural Clark County where my local hospital is closed. I have to drive past it to get to my hospital
- where I work. The 911 system is in shambles and that's because 20 to 30% of the people who walk through
- that door do not have insurance. We need a public option tomorrow and we need to be able to pay it and
- 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
- it in our next question.
- Thank you Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer you know you brought up this position so I want to come back to you. You
- know we see where you stand on single payer health care but you've got 90 seconds to elaborate.
- Thank you. So the first thing that we have to do and I mean right now is to stabilize hospital and provider
- pay. We're seeing hospitals close. We're seeing services be cut back. Something has to be done immediately in
- days and weeks, not weeks and months. This is a health care crisis, and it has to be addressed.
- Medium term, we need universal, non-profit, single payer health care. The UK implemented their system
- in six years, and the first three years they were fighting the Germans, so they really did it in three
- years. We implemented Medicare in one year using three by five index cards.
- Surely we can do this in three years. And that is the plan that has been put forward. It is achievable.
- It is the only thing that is holding us back is all this talk about we can't do it and wringing our
- hands and saying it's just too complicated. Every other country has already done it. There are answers
- and solutions. We have to stop worrying about can we, can't we, shall we, shall we. These half measures
- are never going to work.
- We put a half measure in place with the ACA and then they spent a decade undercutting and undermining
- and trying 100 times in the House and 60 times in the Senate to kill it. You want to put a half measure
- in place. It's not going to work. The long term answer is a constitutional amendment that gives it a
- guarantee and you can see that on my website. Thank you Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor 90 seconds and your position
- on Medicare for all.
- Well, I've actually written legislation, draft legislation, you can read it on my website. It gives
- everybody healthcare by default. There is no more uninsured people. There's both the government funded
- healthcare and there's private funded healthcare. You can have insurance, you can not have insurance,
- but there are no more uninsured people. You don't get denied coverage, you don't get
- denied anything, and most everything is covered, and it costs less. I mean, it costs less than the ACA,
- and it is easy to do. I mean, the legislation was simple. I wrote it, it's there, it works. The financial
- breakdown's on my website. You can go to read the bill today, and it's a solution to the problem.
- Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
- So I want to come to Dr. Peck to begin this next segment. And this is a question from Bloomington DSA,
- and it is about Israel. And this is a very sticky subject for many folks. So given that the US was an
- active participant and enabler of Israel's genocide in Gaza, many Americans, DSA especially, are in
- favor of ending all
- military, political, and economic support to Israel in response to its flagrant violations of international
- law. However, most congressional Democrats in Washington are wildly out of step with the American public
- and the international consensus and pledge unconditional support to Israel.
- What are your views on Israel? Have they shifted during the genocide of the Palestinians? How do you
- plan to fight back against the establishment and work toward ending our participation in genocide and
- apartheid? And can you even agree with the statements that I just mentioned that Israel is committing
- genocide and is an apartheid state? That's a lot, but you got 90 seconds. Thank you. We're laughing,
- but this is not a laughing matter.
- People are dying. Innocent people have died and will continue to die because we're giving weapons to
- an ally that is not using them responsibly. We need to hold them accountable. We have the purse strings.
- We have the weapons ourselves. And we need Israel as a partner, but we don't need a partner
- that indiscriminately sends bombs into children's bedrooms.
- And so we have the power to say we're not giving you weapons unless you use those weapons responsibly.
- And that includes around as well with what we've just seen. Words matter to many people. And genocide,
- I know, is a word that matters to many people in this room as DSA members and as Americans. And I do
- believe that the definition of genocide
- of some people's definition of genocide has been met by Israel's actions. And I do believe that we'll
- see an international court that we are in play right now with Israel tell us if this truly is genocide
- 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
- be. And so, yes, I'm willing to say the word genocide.
- And thank you for this question, because it's extremely important. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer,
- 90 seconds. So the videos and the pictures of what's happening in Palestine is just gut wrenching.
- And we, the United States, our position needs to be that there needs to be a long-term, durable peace.
- And the only way that I believe that is possible is with a two-state solution.
- And we need to be advocating and pushing for a two-state solution. And we need to be working to bring
- our ally Israel to the table on that. And we need to be very thoughtful about what support we're giving
- to Israel. And Biden actually tried to pull back a little bit of support, and even a very small pullback
- of support, to try to bring our allies
- to get their attention was wildly unpopular, in some cases because people felt that it was too weak,
- and in other people that anything except 100 percent support for Israel is not acceptable. We have to
- act in our interest and in alignment with our values, and we really need to be applying pressure to
- Israel. Thank you.
- Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, can we get 90 seconds on your thoughts on Israel and whether it committed
- a genocide and is an apartheid state? Well, this is one of the things that I would put up for the Congress
- app. And I would do something like this. Everybody in this room who believes that it's an apartheid
- state and we should end our relationship with it, raise your hand. OK.
- The Congress app says that I think it's an apartheid state and we should end our relationship with it.
- That's it. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. And finally, Mr. Rourke to you. Yeah. You know, I believe that,
- you know, I'm a supporter of Israel, but I'm also a supporter of having a peace agreement. I want peace
- in the region. I want us to work with Israel.
- develop peace. And I want to be able to provide support for that peace agreement. And if armaments are
- needed to do that, I'm willing to do that. But we need to continue to work through peace. Israel's been
- our ally in that region for some time now, right? And for whatever reason, they keep having, you know,
- we keep struggling with this, right?
- I just want to reaffirm my support for Israel and the relationship we have with him. And I do agree
- with the two-state solution. I think that's the best path forward. And that's my position. Thank you.
- Thank you, Mr. Rourke. I'm going to call a quick audible right here and just ask for a show of hands.
- The United States is currently not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal
- Court, the organization that could hold Israel accountable. So, show of hands.
- agree with maintaining that position of keeping the U.S. out of the International Criminal Court?
- All right, that looks like four notes. All right, thank you. So this next one is to Mr. Meyer to begin
- with, and the question is from Mask Block Bloomington. Public health guidance has often prioritized
- political convenience over accuracy.
- How would you use congressional oversight to respond when federal agencies or officials disseminate
- misleading or politically motivated public health guidance? So this is exactly why I said in the long
- run, we have to have a constitutional amendment on public health, that it is a constitutional right.
- Because we have more leverage. If it's a constitutional right and they are undercutting
- the information and the systems and the services, then that is more actionable. And we have seen in
- this government, in particular, that they can lie and undercut, and then every once in a while, they
- bump up against the Constitution. And that is the only thing that is going to protect us for our health
- care. Otherwise, they're going to undercut and undermine and destroy anything and any progress we make,
- and they are going to misinform
- Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, how would you respond to federal agencies that disseminate misleading
- or politically motivated public health guidance? Well, I've spent some time working in the government,
- and I would treat it like I would treat anybody else who gave false information in a government job.
- You're fired. That's it. End of story. Terminate therapy. That's all.
- 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
- folks are largely appointed by the president. How can you as Congress hold them accountable when you
- don't necessarily have the power to fire folks like, say, RFK Junior? Well, maybe Congress should have
- the power to fire folks like RFK Junior.
- we could publicly cite him and tell everybody that he is spinning yarns, so to speak. But I'm, for the
- firing squad aspect of it, I'd rather get them out of there. All right, thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Roark,
- I want to come to you on what the Congress should be doing about government agencies spreading misleading
- false, politically motivated medical information. Yeah, so obviously you want to have congressional
- oversight, right? So you want to have congressional oversight with RFK Junior and staff, but at the
- same time you also have to have subject matter experts, virologists and such there to support what they're
- saying, trust but verify. And if you're from a great state of Indiana, you need to have folks from the
- state government who are in
- or SMEs, subject matter experts in the medical field who can back up what they're saying relative to
- the data they're providing. Unfortunately, that's where we're at in society. We're getting a lot of
- misinformation from HHS, and we need to trust but verify on every turn from now on, unfortunately. And
- from a congressional perspective, we also need to vet appointments to that department a little bit more
- closely, right?
- but we also need to vet the undersecretary and all the respective appointments and making sure that
- they're not misinformation type folks, right? That we have doctors who verify on data that is accurate
- and it can be trusted. Okay? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, I suspect this one's in your
- wheelhouse. Yes. The government does not belong in my exam room.
- And that comes to women's rights, that comes to trans rights, that comes to anybody's rights. And the
- way that we've done public health for so long is that the academic societies that I'm a member of put
- together guidelines. And then the government has these in-betweens of people who are physicians and
- scientists and public health experts that are hired by the government to make up national guidelines
- to follow, of which
- When I don't know what to do, I go onto the national guidelines and I look at them. Now when I look
- at them, I go, I'm not doing that. And so what I do do is go back to the academic societies that have
- put these guidelines together. And that's what we're doing as a physician community right now. And that
- should be the way, actually, when you think about it, for all of our medical decisions. Medical decisions
- are between a physician
- for a provider between their patient, especially when a woman is in the situation of making an impossible
- choice, and their family and their faith. The government has no role in that. Thank you, Dr. Peck. So
- I'm going to start this next one. I think we're back to Mr. Taylor here. So this question comes from
- the Monroe County Education Association.
- has experienced a shortage of qualified teachers, especially in the STEM fields for many years now.
- This situation has been especially difficult for rural districts and for districts in less affluent
- areas. What can you do from Washington that would improve this situation? Well, I actually wrote a bill
- to improve. It's an education reform bill. I call it Make America Smart Again.
- It funds teachers, rural classrooms, rural education. It funds, makes sure that everybody has the same
- funding, gets the same education, gets quality education, and gets it on the government's dime. I mean,
- nobody should have to fight for education. And that's just the bottom line. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.
- Mr. Rourke, what can Washington do to stem this tide of teachers, especially STEM teachers, flowing
- out of Indiana, or just getting folks in here in the first place? Pay them more. It's that simple.
- I mean, the reality is you've got folks, chemists, engineers, electrical engineers, mathematics, right?
- Most of the math folks, they go into actuarial sciences, not most, but some.
- You got engineers. You got chemists. They all make well over $100,000 a year. You're not going to get
- some of those folks into the classroom to ask them to take a $60,000 pay cut or $50,000 pay cut. This
- is not going to happen. But they're some of the brightest people I know. So what we have to do is simply
- pay them more. Maybe they get a designation, right? They have their degree. We need to pay them more.
- But we need to improve the licensing process a little.
- We need to improve the licensing process as well because there's a lot of barriers to entries there
- as well. You gotta take the praxis. There's a lot of barriers to entries there as well. So we need to
- look at improving those processes, make them more efficient, making it easier. But at the same time,
- we need to also look at loan forgiveness, right? Folks who go to Purdue or Rose-Hulman, they get an
- engineering degree. Most of them have debt.
- So we've got to look at loan forgiveness. Hey, you come work in this school system for five or 10 years,
- we'll pay off your loan. So that's another attractive feature. Instead of pay compensation, it's just
- another benefit to help get rid of that debt. So those are my solutions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rourke.
- Dr. Peck, what do we do about the teacher shortage, and can we do anything about it from Washington?
- Can you just give me the full question again? Yeah, absolutely. So Indiana has experienced a shortage
- of qualified teachers, particularly in the STEM fields for many years now.
- And this situation is especially difficult for rural districts and for districts in less affluent areas.
- What policies would you propose to improve this situation? And I do live in a rural district. New Washington
- High School struggles to get people in there to teach. Some of the local high schools around us are
- looking to close. It's a real problem that affects my family and people around me. Government money.
- comes from the Department of Education. It's been cut, but it is there. And just as many in this room
- might be familiar with the PRO Act, which is something that essentially says if you have government
- money coming into infrastructure, that money should only go to companies that meet the standard and quality
- of payment to their employees, of conditions to their employees that a union would meet. It doesn't
- 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
- with the money from the Department of Education. We're not giving you the money until you as a district,
- as a state, get your payment rates up and start to pay people what they're actually worth. In the very
- short amount of time I have, I think that as well,
- Schooling for teachers should be next to free, if not free, and we can fund that. Thank you. Thank you,
- Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, 90 seconds. Do you need me to repeat the question? No, I think I got it. So the
- question included the caveat, what would you do from the federal position? And the vast majority of
- policy, like 90% to 95% of policy, actually comes from the state.
- There's a lot of things that can be and should be done from the state. And paying the teachers more
- is something that's going to have to be addressed at the state level. And the way we currently fund
- that is not going to be popular. That's a state problem that has to be addressed. Teaching is a very
- difficult job. About 50% of people that start out in teaching leave, I think, within the first five years.
- So there's a lot of retention problems that also need to be addressed through the state. But one of
- the issues that we have when you talk about what can the federal government do, the role of the federal
- government constitutionally is limited. And the Department of Education, one of their primary
- responsibilities that they are able to support is by giving good information about what's really happening
- in school effectiveness.
- So when local politicians want to privatize the state schools and it's not working well, the only way
- they can do that is by gutting the Department of Education so you won't have an independent review of
- what's really going on in your school systems. And then you have to go to them, and of course, they're
- going to tell you it's working. So the gutting of the Department of Education is a serious problem,
- and it needs to be refunded. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer.
- A couple of you mentioned student loans sort of in passing during your last answer, and I want to follow
- up and stay on this education question in that regard. During former President Biden's administration,
- he attempted to forgive vast amounts of student loans, ran into some problems with the Supreme Court.
- I think many of us as socialists don't even believe that such a thing as student loans should exist,
- and we should have universally funded
- higher education as well. So I want to start with Mr. Rourke and get you to elaborate a little bit on
- your stance on how we should be paying for higher education as a society. I tend to believe I got a
- student loan when I'm with the college. Low interest student loan. It helped me through college. I still
- believe student loans
- I think it really needs, with how things changed the last 30 to 40 years, I think student loans need
- to be pared back relative to what field you're going into, right? AHAI has changed the landscape quite
- a bit. And so folks who actually want to go into school for, let's say, for example, a music degree
- versus folks who want to go into school for electrical engineering. So obviously, those outcomes they're
- going to pay are
- grossly different in terms of incomes. So they need to be commensurate with the plausibility of outcomes
- relative to employment, right? So it's well known if you go into and you get a computer science degree
- versus an engineering degree, you're going to make a lot more money coming out of college, right? So
- therefore, you should have a higher likelihood or those loan terms should be much better if
- you have, if you're pursuing a degree, has a lower income, maybe you need to reconsider that loan because
- it's not gonna pay off, right? It's not gonna pay back. So that's kinda my position. But in critical
- need areas, I will say this, in critical need areas, so obviously we talked about doctor shortage, we
- also talked about skill trades, we need to really consider free education for those fields that are
- critical in need. All right, thank you, Mr. Work.
- Dr. Peck, student loans, what are we doing? I think Biden and the Democrats made a mistake on how they
- went about it by trying to use the executive branch and executive powers. Congress sets the rates for
- student loans. Congress sets the rates for student loans. We could set a zero percent rate or prime
- rate or under prime rate. It's a very easy fix to make these loans more affordable.
- Now, can we go further than that? There's a lot of resistance on the right to do so. But what could
- we do today is set rates that actually make sense and aren't usury. I myself have experienced this.
- I paid $540,000 for all of my education that I've done. That's ridiculous. And I'm still paying it back.
- And the reason I'm paying it back is because of the interest rate, because
- I am always behind because of that interest rate. And I know there are so many other people in this
- room that struggle with getting their finances, getting paid the money that you need to pay your loans,
- not to mention all of your other costs beyond what I experience. But it's an easy fix if we have Congress
- just lower that rate. So thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck.
- Mr. Meyer, how should we be paying for higher education as a society? So let's start with what is in
- the best interest of our society. Education is a great benefit. And there's been an attack on education.
- Since 1970, the cost of education, a college education, has gone up in today's dollars by a factor of
- 10. This is not an accidental thing. This is an intentional attempt
- to restore what we had in the quote unquote good old days when education was for the wealthy. And we've
- got to get past that. We've got to look past how do we tinker around the edges and how do we minimize
- the interest rate and say what do we want as a society? What is in the best interest of society? We
- need to start funding education like we fund roads and bridges and water treatment plants. It is a core
- of our future and our infrastructure. And one of the struggles that people have is that when you get
- into college, a lot of people get into, some people get into college, they go for a year, they struggle,
- they end up with debt, and then they carry that debt, and they get out, and then they have the debt,
- and they don't have the benefit of the education, right? So the first year of college education for
- qualified people should be free, okay? And then we need to restore
- You know, at the state level, the state has cut from about 75% to 80% of the funding that used to be
- for the universities. It's now down to like 30%. This is why we have to have loans, because the states
- and the government's not paying for education like they used to. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, I
- believe that you are the last one on the student loan question. Well, when I got a student loan,
- It was like an $800 student loan for books. I paid on it for five years. That is unacceptable.
- Beyond that, I've written an education reform bill. It doesn't address higher education, but I'm going
- to pull the Congress app trick and say, how many people here believe that I should write a bill that
- makes higher education free?
- Looks like we got a majority. I think I can write a bill that will make higher education free for all
- people who want it. I'll write it tomorrow. All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. So I believe we start
- this next section with Dr. Peck. And this question comes from Bloomington DSA. So a recent Marist poll
- showed that 65% of Americans believe that ICE has gone too far. And there have been recent calls to
- abolish ICE.
- Do you believe immigration and customs enforcement can be reformed, or must it be abolished? What are
- your thoughts? You've got 90 seconds. I think it can be reformed, and it's going to need a lot of reform.
- The first piece is to restore funding to Homeland Security, to ICE, to pre-Trump levels. That's easy.
- just infused so much cash into ICE, and what are they gonna do with it? They have to spend it. We had
- a government shutdown and they didn't care because they have so much cash and they're so flush. So we
- need to go back to that. Second is fire, Kristi Noem, and I don't know if anyone else is looking at
- their phone, it looks like she might be getting fired. She already got fired. She already got fired.
- She already got fired. Raise your fist for that.
- And then thirdly is to make ICE work like any other police force that we have in this country, which
- means body cameras, which means no masks, which means just the basic pieces of law enforcement, such
- as training that puts you out on the street in a responsible way, but even more so, making it so that
- you can have
- that you need a warrant to actually arrest and detain citizens, residents, and otherwise. So,
- thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, I suspect most of us are going to agree that it's going to
- take more than deposing Ms. Noem to reform that organization. What do you think we should do with ICE?
- So, expressions of outrage for good and pretty are justified.
- But the hard work that we have to do in Congress is to actually fix the problem instead of tinkering
- around the edges. And the core problem is that we have a logjam in what we're going to do about immigration.
- And I have a detailed description of what I think needs to be done with immigration. I think we need
- to reframe it around economics. And we need to dramatically increase legal immigration into the United
- States. This is the reason that we have the illegal immigration, because
- We make it so doggone hard to get the workers into the country that we need. And it dehumanizes them,
- and it's disrespectful to them, and it depresses wages for all of us. We have to fix the root problem.
- And the root problem is that we don't have a good immigration policy that even serves our own interests.
- The other problem is that we have an administration that
- that wants to use brutality to force a change. And if we get rid of ICE, if we waved a magic wand, sorry,
- waved a magic wand and ICE was gone tomorrow, they'd move that work to the FBI. We have to get... Their
- policy, the only way they'll be able to... They're gonna switch people
- Kind of both. Ice used to be a nice, friendly little unit of people wearing windbreakers and carrying
- badges and not the stormtroopers we see today. And there's no reason we can't return to that. But ice
- should be a subset of INS.
- There's no reason for ICE to be out on the street unless they get a complaint from IIS or they have
- to be out. That's it. Reform them completely, but I don't think you'll ever be able to get rid of them.
- All right. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Wharf, finally to you on the ICE question, what should we do with
- this organization? So I do not agree that we need to abolish ICE. I think that would be the wrong move.
- We do have to remember ICE was developed post 9-11, okay? They do a lot of good work to get a lot of
- scared people out of this country. However, I do agree they're out of control, right? They're acting
- like a paramilitary organization. They're not doing the right things, right? Take the mask off,
- body cams, judicial signs, search warrants, and then we also need to look at recruiting standards. What
- folks are going into that organization, you know, what background checks have been done,
- had they been thoroughly done. One positive step is they got rid of Christie. That's a good move. It's
- about time. But I'll kind of echo what Tim just said. I don't think that's going to change their posture,
- the way they do things. So going forward, as a congressional rep, we need to hold hearings.
- to basically make sure that everybody coming in to DHS is held accountable and they're thoroughly vetted.
- And we need to understand how they operate, right? Change the way they do things in terms of investigative
- tactics, techniques, and procedures, and making sure they're doing the right thing by the American people.
- All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wark. This next question, we're gonna start with Mr. Meyer.
- And, you know, we've seen this authoritarian regime and authoritarianism thrives on always having an
- enemy, having an other. And immigrants, that community has certainly been one of the targets of the
- administration's ire. The trans community has been another target. What will you do to prevent further
- harm to our trans neighbors and to protect your constituents from attacks like those in Kansas?
- where they've recently invalidated every gender-affirming driver's license that has been issued over
- the last several years and made them invalid, effective immediately, or, for example, threats to medical
- care. How are you going to protect some of our most vulnerable Americans? 90 seconds. So I try scrupulously
- not to agree with Dr. Peck, but I'm going to have to do it here.
- The government shouldn't be in a doctor's office. They shouldn't be in the decision-making process.
- The decisions with trans, the patients, the families, the doctor, they're all involved in that. And
- I need to stay out of it. And I guess the bottom line is that everybody has a God-given right to mind
- their own damn business. And I think we need to do more of that.
- We need to understand, I guess, it isn't necessary that everybody in the United States understand the
- trans community, but they need to respect their right to live their life the way everybody else does,
- right? They make their choices and we need to respect and understand that. It's not about trying to
- force people to live like us or think like us, it's about
- freedom for everybody to make their own decisions about how they want to lead their life. And we need
- to support that in Congress. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, now, if the folks in your
- Congress app don't necessarily understand the trans community and aren't quite evolved there yet and
- they want to bring out the pitchforks, how are you still going to protect their rights? Well, I have
- relatives on the
- Should we say the alternative lifestyles? Communities. I don't believe they should be persecuted. How
- I can protect them is just to not persecute them. I think we need to do a lot more of just not persecuting
- people. It would be really helpful. I remember back in the day when
- Your funny Uncle Bob didn't come over because his roommate wasn't liked by the family. But, you know,
- we don't need to go back to those days. Those days are over and they're over for a reason. And yeah,
- I don't know what to do.
- I don't have a good answer for it, but just no bigotry would be nice. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rourke
- from Washington, what can you do to protect our trans friends and neighbors? So just a point of clarity,
- are we talking for trans under 18 or over 18? Well, maybe you can elaborate. OK.
- So I believe from a traditional perspective, if you're under 18, I don't believe that there should be
- gender affirming care under 18. I believe once you're over the 18 of years of age, then if you want
- to transition, you're more welcome to do that. And at that particular point in time, I'd be more than
- happy to understand that individual's issue and try to support them in any way I could.
- But if you're under 18 and you're in high school and you have a trans issue relative to transition,
- I would want them to wait till at least they're 18 years old and they're leading their life before I
- can support in terms of their transition. But in terms of a public policy, as a human, I would just
- want to sit down and try to understand what's going on with them and support them any way I could. Whether
- it's a health care issue,
- an employment issue, I would do whatever I can to help them. Because that's just kind of the person
- I am. And that's the leader I will be. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. Dr. Peck, this is
- a human rights question, but in many ways, it's also a medical question. How are you going to protect
- trans rights in Washington? I respect so much. And we've been together at so many different things.
- I respect you so much. Thank you for serving. Thank you for stepping up and running.
- to really disagree with something that you just said there. And the fact is you are inserting yourself,
- and I'm sorry to make an example of what you said, but it's a perfect example of the government trying
- to insert itself into a medical decision. It don't need you to say 18 or not. I have the guidelines
- that I would look up right here. I printed them out before this because you knew you were getting this
- question. And it's so detailed.
- The government cannot write a bill that tells us what to do as clinicians in terms of our counseling
- with the patient. It just can't happen because this is going to change tomorrow when the evidence gets
- better and then we'll learn other evidence and other evidence. Government shouldn't be writing these
- bills and in fact they should be writing these bills to say the government cannot insert its opinion
- into our health care decisions.
- Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Rourke, I'm going to give you 30 seconds since Dr. Peck did mention you by
- name here. Sure, sure. I mean, Tim, I appreciate you. I like you. You're very respectful. But I just
- kind of have to disagree. If you're under 18 years old and you want to transition, I think
- that's irresponsible. Because there's so much change going on with children at those ages. And to suggest
- that they want to get a transition before
- 16 or 17 before they fully grown. I think that's irresponsible and that flies in this in the face of
- medical history and psychology, right? I've heard many cases where Folks have transitioned at 16 17
- years old five years later next, you know, they want to transition back So there's situations in medical
- history where that's actually happened so we have to be very careful about who are letting transition
- that's why I
- I always ask the question, let's wait until at least 18 before they make that call. All right,
- thank you. All right, thank you, Mr. Work. So, boy, this thing is really flying, and there are so many
- other things I really hope we can get a chance to talk to tonight, but we do only have time for one
- more question, and then we will do closing remarks. So I want to stay on this topic of bodily autonomy
- and whether we support adding a right to abortion to the Constitution.
- And that, I believe, we start this question with Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor, 90 seconds. Adding it to the
- Constitution, I don't know. It's a health care thing. It's not a government thing. The government shouldn't
- be involved in it at all.
- It's a medical decision, and I would leave the medical decisions to medical professionals. I'm not one.
- 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
- question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Mr. Rort, should we enshrine a person's right to their own body
- in the Constitution of the United States? So, you know, I'm a supporter of Roe, reinstating Roe.
- With that, obviously, we have to get that work done, right? You need 67 votes, right? Two-thirds of
- the vote in the Senate and in the House, so it's going to be a tall order. But I believe with those
- votes, I think you could do it, and I would support that endeavor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roe. Dr. Peck?
- I've treated a lot of women who've been raped. I've treated girls who've been raped this week. And when
- giving my counsel, I never once thought about what the government had to say until recently. And I still
- don't accept what they have to say. Again, the government does not belong in my exam room.
- In Kentucky, you have to sign a death certificate when you have a miscarriage. There are 67 votes we
- need to change this whole thing, but there are issues like that that occur that we can make laws tomorrow
- if we don't have the 67 votes, if we educate the public to say how terrible that is to do to a woman
- and their family. And so we can make strides today
- while we get those 67 votes to make the change that we need. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Packwell. Mr.
- Meyer. So I think that the assertion that we need 67 votes is overly optimistic. If you look at what
- the Supreme Court did, they explicitly said that this has to go back to the states. They've explicitly
- worded it in a way
- that they have tried to intentionally deal out the federal government to keep it at the state level,
- to keep it fractured, to keep us broken. The only way that we will be able to overcome this and end
- it is a constitutional amendment. I have a draft, which is actually very long, of a constitutional amendment
- for universal health care, and it should be included in that.
- Yes, we need a constitutional amendment, or we're going to be fighting over this forever. Roe v. Wade,
- I think, should be restored, but the way they did it, it's going to be very hard. Thank you. Thank you,
- Mr. Meyer.
- I do believe we have to be wrapping up, but I want to give everybody an opportunity to make closing
- statements. And I will give you up to 90 seconds. And because we started with Mr. Taylor, I'm going
- to start closing statements with Mr. Rourke. Mr. Rourke, 90 seconds to you, sir. Well, good evening,
- everyone. Thanks, DSA, for giving me an opportunity to speak here this evening. I appreciate the time.
- I just wanted to say, you know, I'm a former UAW assembly line worker, put myself through college with
- little or no help. I went in the Navy, spent 11 years in the Navy. And the reason why I say those things
- is I believe I bring to the race crossover appeal, right? Those independent and those disenfranchised
- Republicans who we desperately need to win. Because remember, this is about winning. If we keep doing
- what we've always done,
- We're going to lose. It's that simple. And I really believe we kind of have to change things a little.
- I know my colleagues disagree with my approach a little, but that's kind of the reality. We need 25%
- to 30% of the independents and Republicans to either not vote or vote for us. And I truly believe that's
- the path forward. And I just wanted to say, I appreciate your time, appreciate the opportunity to have
- this debate tonight.
- Please look me up on HTTPS colon backslash backslash Kyle Roark dot com and also please remember the
- vote on May 5th. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Roark. Dr. Peck closing statements from you. Thank you everybody.
- Thank you Scott. This has been great. We have seven more on the books six more on the books and we'll
- probably have more put on there and there'll be a lot more discussion. I really encourage everybody to
- Tune in if you can't be there for it to get the full breadth of what all of these candidates have to
- say about the issues. I hope I earned your trust tonight. That's what's most important to me. And I
- hope that that trust turns into a vote. I hope that you saw that tonight I not only am progressive,
- not only am someone who wants to make progress,
- But I'm a realist in that these ideas that we are fighting for have solutions for today. And sometimes
- those solutions are smaller because we need to run and hit and do what we can during this next two-year
- cycle so that we can make the bigger changes. And if we get to the point where we can make the bigger
- changes, great. I think my colleague, Brad, to my left,
- You know, has said things like we need to make education free. We need to pass constitutional amendments.
- But today's solution, I hope in the next six sessions that we'll get more down to talking about what
- we do today. And I hope that I gave you a flavor of that as well. Thank you all for your trust. And
- please vote May 5th, but also in November.
- We need a big turnout from Democrats. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Peck. Mr. Meyer, closing statements
- from you. You've got 90 seconds. So I'd like to thank everybody again for being here. The first thing
- that I did publicly was a couple of universal health care forums, because that was important. It wasn't
- meet and greets, and it wasn't fundraising. And then the next thing I did was an ICE protest at Camp
- Atterbury last August that had about 550 people there, because
- I am more activist, and we need to stand up and speak out. I've been listening a lot to the app, and
- there's a couple things that came to mind. I don't have any strong feelings, frankly, about the legalization
- of cannabis. And I decided that I would leave it up to the people of the district. And it's popular,
- and I'm for legalization of cannabis. But we do need to be careful that
- You know, it was popular opinion in California that actually destroyed their education system or undercut
- their education system, and it was popular opinion in Germany that led to the Nazis. So we need to have
- leaders that have responsibility and some sense of what they want to do. I know we need crossover, but,
- you know, I am a practical problem-solving person. This is what I'm about, is solving problems.
- And I know that there is short term, but if we don't start with where we want, sorry that's yours, where
- we want to be, we're never going to get there. We have to state, we have to screw our courage to the
- sticking place and say this is where we're going and this session we're going to try to get this piece
- of it. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Meyer. Mr. Taylor, final word goes to you tonight sir.
- I want to thank all of you for having me here. It will be me and one of these three against Aaron on
- your November election. I will not be in the primary. I need 4,500 signatures to get on the ballot.
- My petitions are back there. You can visit my website at floyd2026.com. I've got a demo of the Congress app.
- Thanks for having me. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Thanks again to all of our candidates tonight. Thank all
- of you for being here, and thank you for your questions. Thanks to First United for the facility, and
- thanks to the entire DSA team. You guys have done a great job putting this thing together two weeks
- in a row. So hats off to everybody here in this room, from Bryce, Rebecca.
- Our sound and audio and video team here are doing phenomenal work, so thank you guys so much. Again,
- thanks everybody tonight. Be safe getting home.