On July 31, 2018, I had the opportunity to attend this year's "Community Conversation with Congressional Candidates from districts 7, 9, and 10." Columnist Scott Maxwell from the Orlando Sentinel and Ray Elijah of FOX35 News were the co-emcee/co-moderator of the event. In attendance were U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, Chardo Richardson, D-Candidate for FL-D7, Wade Darius D-Candidate for U.S. Rep. Orlando, U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando, Mike Miller, R-FL Rep., U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Kissimmee, Wayne Liebnitsky, R-Candidate D-Kissimmee.
The event was held at a theater in the Orlando Science Center. It seated 2,000 and was at capacity with a spill-over via video on another floor. The League of Women Voters participated as well and took questions from the audience to ask hosts. There were 4 main topics discussed; gun control, immigration, health care, and the environment.
I was disappointed the hot national topics got so much time, with seven participants and over a minute and a half response it was daunting at times. I would have preferred that a candidate from each political party to address the issue for each of the topics, so we could get to community issues.
Of course, all the candidates agreed that assault weapons should be outlawed, but when it came to the 2nd amendment, some of the candidate's opinions differed a great deal.
Liebnitsky believes the only way to fight a bad guy with an assault weapon is a good guy with an assault weapon. Miller believes the second amendment gives everyone in America a right to have any type of gun. Demings agreed with Miller, except for criminals. She also stated the 2nd amendment was being highjacked by the NRA and the issue at hand is getting the guns out of the hands of criminals. Darius stated the schools need is to follow the example of New York City and have metal detectors and cameras everywhere.
This was a great time for the moderators to ask questions about not only school safety but their plans to keep qualified teachers from leaving our public schools. There is a shortage of teachers in Orange and Seminole County already and will only get worse if we don't find ways to get bring them back to the public sector.
When it came to the topic of immigration, not one candidate had a clear solution to this issue. Soto, Murphy, and Demings told of the horrors they witnessed at the various holding facilities they visited in the past months. Liebnitsky went so far as to say that he believes "we don't know what their health records are they could be bringing in all kinds of things we don't want in our country." This statement was met with a lot of gasps and boos. Richardson wants to do away with I.C.E. and revamp the immigration department. Miller stated it is a non-partisan problem to secure the border and solve the problems of DACA and find a long-term comprehensive immigration program.
Then the topic of the wall and was brought up and Miller said he supported building a wall, had no solution for paying for it. Liebnitsky also supported building the wall with no answer to how it should be paid. Soto and Murphy discussed using 21st-century technology to secure our borders, but there is no clear blueprint for this solution.
The 15 or so minutes it took to discuss the "wall" could have been spent on affordable housing crisis for the fast-growing communities in Central Florida. Orange County alone has been burdened with the high cost of single-family homes or extremely high rental properties. This high expense is half of the average worker's monthly income. Or a discussion of the I-4 project that is a never-ending expense and frustration with everyone and incentives for commuters to use SunRail.
There was a short discussion on infrastructure after the long drawn out conversation about health care. The Murphy and Demings, two of the three candidates already in Congress brought up infrastructure and admitted they should have brought that to the floor of Congress before healthcare 18 months ago.
The conversation of Florida Eco System had a single question regarding offshore drilling. None of the candidates supported offshore drilling. There was a blanket statement made by Soto regarding his bill for renewable energy. Demings and Richardson applauded his bill.
This is the time the moderator should have asked the question about the current conditions of the toxic waters on our lakes and beaches.
The last question was regarding increasing the federal minimum wage. As expected the Democrats supported the increase to $15 and the three businessmen on the stage did not. This conversation lacked substance. There are state minimum wages throughout the United States that are or will be at $15 as their minimum wage increases per inflation. If Florida lawmakers would enact a minimum wage increase according to inflation this would solve many other issues, such as affordable housing, the high cost of health care, and child care.
The closing statement was filled with the bullet points from their websites. However, the most impressive statement was from Demings. I will certainly be doing additional research on each of these candidates for my district before making a choice on August 28, 2018.
