good evening and welcome to this league of women voters form for the candidates for the november election from minnesota legislative house district thirty eight and thirty eight b my name is liz knight ling and i'm a member of the  area league of women voters but i do not reside in either of those districts as a trusted volunteer nonpartisan organization the league of women voters does not support or oppose political candidates or part political parties or candidates we sponsor for arms to provide voters an opportunity to hear can produce views about issues of interest in the upcoming election for more information about the minnesota league please visit our website at l w v m n dot org the order for speaking tonight will be by alphabetical order for each house district and will be rotated there after candidates remarks are being time to assure equality of time questions are being collected from the audience there are two candidates for hi two candidates for house district thirty eight and our candidates are for thirty eight pat davern and linda runback for thirty eight b met dean and great parasol we will now begin with opening statements and we will start with pat danvers davern thank you my name is pat davern and i'm running for minnesota house thirty day and i decided to run for this position because of my experience and i've had i've had about thirty years experience in the technology area working in both public and private sector and also k twelve and higher education and like to thank the league of women voters for putting this event on one of the things i can say that i can bring is a new view in a new vision to the people thirty a day to help them solve problems within the district and that's one of the big things that i'm pushing to be able to bring a new set of eyes to a district and be able to help them solve their problems that they're currently having no thank you now with your opening statement linda run back good evening my name is linda runback and my husband and i live in circle pines we've lived there for thirty eight years i am running for reelection in district thirty eight to the house of representatives  our daughter is a graduate of centennial schools and my husband and i own a small business brand monument in brand minnesota and so we understand how you know how people  how hard they have to work to to raise a family we understand some of the stresses that are on people who are small business folks and so on but my my main reason for running is that i go there to represent the taxpayer i think of all of the groups that come to the capitol the taxpayer has the least representation probably eight hundred lobbyists to lobby for everything but the taxpayer and they are want something they i want spending they want more bigger government they want their organization the turf to be protected and so and i also got to seek to go to to fight wasteful spending government with government i'm a limited small government individual i believe that government governs best when it is smal and when it keeps a very defined role and we see government growing outside of its role i think in terms of the incredible layers of bureaucracy and agencies so those are my reasons thank you thank you next with his opening remarks matt dean thank you liz and thanks to the league of women voters for sponsoring this event tonight it's always a great you always do a great job of moderating we appreciate that and like to thank the city of white bear lake for hosting us i see mayor emerson out in the audience and i also want to thank all of the folks who came out to watch from the audience here in the council chambers a city white bear lake and also the folks tuning in at home so welcome to you and i'm glad that you are engaging in this upcoming election because it is a very very important election that we face coming up on november fourth you know we've got some real struggles and we've got some real challenges in the state of minnesota but we've got really good people we've got one hundred fifty years a track record of building the best state in the country for health care for manufacturing and for ideas and we've got another hundred fifty years to look forward to have true greatness if we really look backwards on what we what we've done to get to where we are the people of the state of minnesota got us here the people of the state of minnesota will bring us to a really bright future and that future is going to be really battled built on what got us to where we are in that greatness and that heritage of minnesota exxon it's but that's really in danger right now because we've got a government that is too big it is too bossy and it is too noisy and we need to make it smaller and we need to make it more effective and we need to make it smarter there's some of us at the capitol who really work hard on trying to find the number five the number five because we have five communities that are included in the boundaries house district thirty eight b each of those communities has its own character and its own story its own history well i would kind of feel yeah i think we have yet to see the file out that's good that's yet to come from insurer if you're someone who is concerned about wages stagnating about the work week reducing about fewer hours that people have at their jobs about jobs that are being converted into part time with no health benefits all of those are part of the family out of minn sure and what has happened is now minutes sort of course had a fabulous  program of covering ninety three percent of minnesotans with health insurance be for obamacare men sure and what do we have now after it's implemented ninety five percent coverage and we've gone through tremendous disruption thousands and thousands of people lost the coverage that they wanted many thousands of people had their personal identity violated through the website the website was one hundred sixty million dollars in the making and very few of the functions that people need even performing even yet thank you question now goes to pat davern i would call it actually divided into two categories one the website and two what it does the first part of what it does is i would call it a success for all those people that have kids that are under age twenty six that can now stay on their parents policies that's huge that should have been done years ago the problem is with the website because i don't know enough about what's going on there but eventually websites will be fixed and resolved the technology part of it i'm not too concerned about because i know that eventually will be tweaked and fix and there's always going to be improvements and adjustments that are going to  have to be made to that website to be have it be more effective for the people the state of minnesota thank you the question now goes to great pair so liz can i ask for clarification on the ground rule yes what really let's get honest and acknowledge that this thing when referring to it obamacare does not exist it's the e c a it's disrespectful would you like to answer the question no thank you i agree with pat and it's important to divide that into the pieces because really what got the most attention was the the out of the  son can be on my insurance until he's twenty six the donor is beginning to go away i'm worried that every room he will pull is passed in the first place so we've got a lot of positive things that are coming out of it even though the numbers are slow increasing we'll see that in the future it will be a well respected medical insurance option thank you the question  you minnesota is leading the nation in quality of health care we are second to none in quality we are among the lowest cost states too for that health care so we are very very high quality we are very low cost so are the excellent value we had a program called m show that took care of people with preexisting conditions that was one of the goals of the a cia we also had a program that don't with low income fort ability are we even have a way to pay for that in a way to bill it we should have been the absolute last state in the country dragged into this not the first to jump in we had the most to lose and we've done that we were told that we could keep our doctor we could keep our plan one hundred forty thousand minnesotans were kicked off of their private health care insurance because they were dragged into this debacle we have seen every single milestone set out by him insure failed we have seen sixty percent of the population of men sure collapse it is a disaster thank you all now open it up for additional comments and when wish to make additional comments yes great minshew is not a debacle my opponent wants you to believe that one hundred forty thousand people were pushed off a miniature they were if you really look at what he's referring to he's referring to people that were moved off of policies that were trash and really weren't worth the premiums that they were being being there but the premiums that would being paid and it was only if those individuals were testing their medical insurance did they find out how bad  you develop a standard a good standard thank you anyone else yes matt well i'd just like to correct you on that one hundred forty thousand people who lost insurance wanted to keep their insurance they were told that they could keep their plan and they were told that they could keep their doctor i met last week with a twenty person employer had twenty employees making thirty to fifty bucks an hour they lost their plan they can't get insurance on the free market because they lost it there outside of men sure they had a plan that they wanted to keep they lost it they were booted off because of this plan and that's something that's really too bad for the state of minnesota thank you let's go back let's go back before and sure when we had double digit increases in health care we saw it every year it was ten percent or fifteen percent along those lines now the average increase is about just reported recently was about four point five percent to really go back to double digit increases in health care or do we want to have a collective group where we can we can get lower insurance and lower priced insurance by group involvement thank you linda thank you just a couple comments first of all though the federal subsidies that underlie the system and are part of why the the prices may be so low now are going to be taken away so january and sixteen there's going to be enormous sticker shock so sticker shock so wait for that and then if you are you thinking you are unemployed person if you're a healthy person under this program you're the runs paying much much more in order for everyone else to pay and the question is do you advocate cutting the corporate tax rate in minnesota minnesota companies compete with other states and other countries for jobs north dakota south dakota iowa wisconsin michigan border minnesota and we are currently losing jobs to states that are lower taxed and also have lower regulations so we absolutely are in an uncompetitive position when it comes to jobs in the state of minnesota as we saw medtronic situation where we had one of our great landmark marquee companies invert and actually move its headquarters to dublin ireland we see the exact problem of what is wrong with the state of minnesota in being uncompetitive with our taxes we can't be that uncompetitive and we can't possibly say that it's a good thing when medtronic decides to move to dublin that is a bad thing governor dayton said but that was great news it is terrible news when one of your marquee companies decides to move to dublin ireland we need to keep our companies here we need to keep those high paying jobs in the state of minnesota to do that we need to be more competitive there's no two ways about it thank you question i posed a great pa really my opponent wants you to think that the corporate tax rate is the only reason that company resides here in this state it's not just taxes we have probably the the the one of the top ten best environments for businesses and that's not my opinion that's that's these the annual survey that's done by fo c comes up with the the same equation minnesota is a wonderful place for corporations to reside and medtronic was not going to pull up stakes and had to go to ireland they were going to do it just for tax purposes minnesota has a lot to offer corporations they are not running for the border where sky is an example of what happens when you drop your tax rates and try to compete for jobs by thank you eliminating the question i guess pat davern at this point at this point i would say i don't know that i would change anything at this point i agree with mr pearsall that businesses are not running towards the border here i think that minnesota does have a lot to offer in terms of market and i think using one example like medtronic is unfair i think you've got to look at the whole picture the whole business climate to determine what to course of action to take on the corporate income tax thank you the question i was to learn to run back well i think one thing we should do is to compare minnesota's tax to our neighbor to the north and canada has enjoyed tremendous economic boom over the last fifteen years because they have lowered dramatically their corporate income tax they're at twenty five percent we are at thirty five percent when you add federal and state these are meaningful numbers and we have many of our companies here being sought and we we are right here in the eastern part of the state i see companies going across to wisconsin where you know they're friendlier would be you know improperly acting if they weren't considering their options so corporate taxes are really important and i think we could afford to lower them thank you any additional comments yes greg really  counted the number of businesses that were started in minnesota not five hundred not five thousand but the thousand new businesses in minnesota your business really made their decisions based on taxes alone i don't think you'd see those kinds of numbers minnesotans doing something right we can really be proud of that thank you matt well i think that you need to talk to business owners you need to talk to small business owners and you need to talk to big business owners and what they will tell you is that they are fighting for their lives just to try to hang on by their fingernails right now in a very very competitive market and pat you should look at other small businesses you should look at you line which moved from just down thirty five eagan they picked up a great company and they moved it just down into hudson now you'd no we're up here for you asking to be your representative to represent your wants your needs your wishes and desires if we had to put it to put taxes to a referendum every time we made an adjustment the whole process would break down in the founding fathers would be turning in their dreams so no thank school districts should should be should have to come to voters for the referenda i mean they need to i think tell us why they need more money so i'm very big on that i think we have too many decisions  now showing up on our property taxes that are our board approved as opposed to voter approved and the trend is moving that direction soon the voter will will not be able to to have their voice and have the opportunity to interact with the school district i would like to see frankly more in the way of referenda for our cities or municipalities and certainly the reverse referendum is a is a very good idea that we need more of thank you pat no i did that was pretty easy it wasn't even a yes or no question our next question will go in this order pat lend matt gregg and it is what is your position on local property tax limit point i do believe that there should be governance as far as obviously how far they go but as needs of a community or group change you may need to pay for certain things and certain items i'm not really a fan of limits in that minnesota we've made a very complicated property tax system so most citizens while they may have some opinions never get to the city hall to say really should we be spending this way i think that that's due to the fact that we have a very complicated system the limits that i'm aware of are simply levy a limit so i'm not sure that they are very useful weeks to hear about the government governing the governor saying well we'll have a three percent levy limit by the way three percent annually is not sustainable so i think we need to keep that in mind we keep hearing you know the spenders come and say we just want three percent increase well over time that really doesn't work for the taxpayer so we need i think much more care and concern how the things are being spent thank you whether times are good or times are bad it seems like the one universal constant is that you see property taxes increasing across the state of minnesota and you see them increasing on a farm stand you see them increasing in small towns and you see them increasing in our community whether times are good or times are bad it seems like property taxes always go up and that's where i really think that we have to have some some real discipline that takes place what the elected officials that we have and i think that when you put kids out there and you say are we we need more transparency we need to fund our schools perhaps in a way that is more level and more so it's more predictable for school districts and that the handlers i put in this trap all the time and small districts and a large a six across the state i so i think property taxes are a real thing we need to focus on sorry thank you craig yourself there's a bit of a theme here we seem to be focused on taxes to a good extent decade you were the majority leader you know you were there you knew what was going on our income tax rates were dropping and the money had to come from somewhere and so jurisdictions were moving to the property taxes and it's the tax we need to reverse that and get back to a revenue source that once that we had you know one time and put it back more of a fair tax i mean can tax thank you any additional comments from anyone or i think if you look back we had development around this this area and in developing areas fund a little bit differently that feeds property taxes and growth is good for communities but to say that we somehow move from profit from income taxes to property taxes really mix misses the mark we've had a lot of growth at the local level we've had a lot of growth at the state level and the answer cannot always be higher taxes for both you can't raise income taxes and raise property taxes and expect folks to be able to make ends meet thank you anyone else linda i'll just comment on them again the complexity of our property tax system not only is that your highest tax going into your city budget but it is state funding that's coming in the form of of an aide a subsidy to the city and the family has a little bit  but l g a local government aid is something that has not lowered property taxes the idea was we'll send state money to each city and then they can lower the property taxes but in fact in my own city just twenty five percent of that services are out there they're also services for you as well so sometimes if the property tax goes up maybe because of added safety for the communities such as like i said police fire and other government services comments ok we move on to the next question and it goes in this order linda pat great mant question is are you in favor of going ahead with the poly met mine proposal to establish a sixty seven hundred acre open pit mine in the superior national forest well it's certainly a question that the state has been looking at for about ten years it's been that long that the environmental assessment the reviews the analyses have been going on i believe the company has spent two hundred million dollars preparing for those environmental assessments  this in my view mining and agriculture are part of minnesota it is part of our wealth that is part of the diversity of our economy and i have a lot of faith that we will find the technology to make certain that we are not disturbing and ruining the router up in that part of the state these are one hundred thousand dollar your job is fifty thousand are your jobs that our young people that those young people in that northern part of the state desperately need and it is time to make it happen thank you that folks we've got to be real careful on this one what are you going to wait you know fifty to one hundred jobs versus the corruption of the water table for the next five hundred years this is very very serious and you type of this type of mining i'm sure some of you remember the taconite mining in the mining that happened up there water tables can get poisoned and they can be done for a long time i'm i worried about what's going to happen after they mine all that copper or they do all the mining out there was going to be left behind to clean up the mess basically once they leave and take everything out so i'm not we need to take however long it takes to make sure that the environment is protected here thank you question goes to great pair so i agree with pat i think you summarize that well i'm for jobs absolutely we need as many jobs as we can possibly produce especially when we're looking to utilize the resources that this fine state has but we're talking about faith in a process that may be working may protect the environment may fail me continue into the future there's a point where faith cannot be depended mean i believe that we can develop the technology but until we have it i really honestly believe we can't go forward on faith hoping that it will develop in time we need to make sure that the technology is going and workable before we take the next step and pay the price for those expensive j i my dad went up to work in the mine and i'm really glad that we've had the resources in the state of minnesota our mining resources and minerals they've really helped build the country and have helped all the great state and if you talk to the folks up there they will tell you that it won the second world war and they're right and we should be proud of that history and that heritage and i would really hate to think if we look backwards in time and we said well i don't know about if we can take the i left out of the ground in northern minnesota because we need to study it for a long period of time i'm afraid that maybe that would never have happened then we would have been able to build this great state the way we did or win the war or really build the country i'm proud of that and i'm also proud  future that we could have with the minerals that are currently there governor dayton likes to say that those men are also be around for a long time maybe they will but the jobs won't because those jobs will be leaving we need to move forward and that's we need to move forward for a stronger minnesota and that's why i think that we did we need to say yes to this and i really believe that if governor governor dayton has is reelected this will not happen thank you any additional comments move on to the next question and the order of response to matt gregg pat and the question is do you support building the sandpiper and keystone pipeline absolutely i think that energy independence is a really important i think when you look at canada our neighbor to the north we have hydroelectric natural gas and hydro power we need to look at what are its our future in clean energy in the state of minnesota we need clean and affordable energy but we can't do that if we continue to say no to everything we can't dig here we can't mine here we can't even take up the sand in the state of minnesota for other states to use to get the natural gas out of the ground i mean that's what we i'm a state of minnesota for as far as drawing a line in the stand that i believe is really wrong is preventing job growth in the state of minnesota we need to stop this ideology from the environmental fire laughed that is really hurting jobs in the state of minnesota it's a big deal thank you the question now goes to greg parasol it's  not that much different again it's a responsibility that we have this generation to ensure that we pass on to the next generation everything that we've been allowed to experience and enjoy that is a very real responsibility once we put that first shovel in the process begins we're changing the environment the broader issue is going to be part of what is going to be addressed in this you know in the same way but a pipeline going through minnesota you think it would be as safe as any one of transporting oil except that it is very common the pick up newspaper and see that there was another oil leak there was an only in north dakota that was discovered when the phantom or was moving across his field noticed he was getting stuck we don't even have the technology to thank you but say now question now goes to pat davern i'm not i'm not totally against pipelines but i'm very worried about the monitoring of them i'm sure that all of you probably heard about the explosion in north dakota with the fire the train the stuff like that i have very big concerns about moving putting pipeline like that into without the proper monitoring and the tech technology to monitor what's going on with that pipeline it's very problematic for people to say oh yeah it's going to going to be a problem and then a year or two years later all of a sudden it explodes and blows up and now you've got people hurt or land destroyed or crops destroyed so i would say i would not be i would have to take a look at it closer to see more what's going on but i'm i'm not a big favor of pipes going through thank you linda ran back i think the topic here is here is the common sense use of our natural resources we have tremendous wealth in our country and it is there for our people and i think if you look at it again to the north in canada they are very smart users they know that their national wealth comes from all of the vast resources that they have they're not they're not holding back they're doing it properly and i think we need to follow follow their example  same thing happened just across the canadian border the canadians decided well here's here's the lumber we can harvest and they were able to let their lab or mills harvest that and in minnesota i think it still sits waiting for the next forest fire to flare up thank you any additional comments on that just a comment to what pat had to say about the safety issue of pipelines and we're all going to have to move oil and natural gas and there is there's safety concerns that you have to think about when that happens in we're going to continue moving this product around but if we don't move it through a pipeline and you know where it goes it goes on the rails it goes in cars and it will be moved through small cities across the state of minnesota many of whom are worried about what happens if we have a direct fire who are we going to protect that and how are we going to do that so actually for many small communities they believe that it's a safer alternative and one that i think we need to think about as a policy issue thank you greg i agree that i don't want to give the impression that i am that far extreme environmentalist we we do we have not technology for pipelines than we do for the plan we met and i really truly feel that but this is such a big issue i mean we're really talking about the correlation between our job growth in our country and energy use and they are very very much aligned so if we want more jobs we need to reckon with the fact that still today is the five percent of all of our energy is coming from oil and gas and in twenty fifty eighty five percent of all of our energy will be coming from oil and gas is so abundant and there really isn't any replacement for it and it's nice to think about what we can get from other sources but they're really not available thank you that any additional coming there's always going to be people that say the yes it's fantastic it's wonderful until the d leaks or the day it explodes and kill somebody so i'm i agree with greg it's something i would like to see more about what how that pipeline technology works how it's monitored what the clean up procedures are and that sort of thing as i said before i'm not totally against pipelines but i'm very concerned as to the safety and the man and the and manufacturing process to make sure that it is totally safe thank you our next question that the order of response will be grade matt land pat and the question is why does the role of the legislature and manage you know water resources including white bear like that goes right to the heart doesn't that here we are awake and it's in our backyard we're watching the lake disappear the legislature i predict is going to be playing a very big role because i feel we are just beginning to understand what the issue is for the link level dropping and the supporting for and that when you look at the area that the awkward for converts the communities that are using it it's going to require that many different agencies the d n o are met consol the and it's a big deal folks have been watching the lake level for a long time and we've been regulating it for a long time with pumps for a long time and also with runoff and with other things people are watching the  lake disappear and they're really worried it's going to die and when we look forward what we're going to have to do is say how are we going to actively manage the water level in the lake i'm very parochial with this i'm a state legislator but i represent this district first and i will measure success by how many gallons are in the lake maintained over time that's my right that's how i view success if others want to do that in a way that is fair i am going to work very very hard for that but that's how i measure it if they're going to do so in a way that is unfair that unfairly taxes or restricts people in my district i'm going to vehemently oppose that but it's something that i believe is part of my job to protect and defend  represent the folks directly here thank you linda runback well riders becoming a political issue we see the state agency now is gaining total control the d n r in a bill from twenty thirteen  given control now over our permitting and so that means that if you have a business if you have a home that requires a permit if you're the city itself the municipality is the biggest permit holder for water and so it's going to be an interesting  war i have a feeling that the groundwater management area plans that are now being developed and this city year and hugo and others that i represent are in this plan we are going we're the guinea pigs and so we get is to see how this is going to play out but i do believe minister parodies need to have a very strong voice because they represent so many of us who are users of water and there need to be many solutions brought to bear but the concern over the  in our cities out here far too dependent on that i think is a very big question and we do need solid answers and we're going to get them thank you pack it certainly is a very big as you know it's going to be it's going to be an example probably for the rest of the state we're going to have to take a very close look at this it is a complicated issue and many people are going to have their basically have their pods in this yes it's going to probably be judged on a per case basis i think that's what it should be look i don't know if one standard would solve every problem in the state of minnesota because of size of community number of lakes that sort of thing so my thinking is it's probably going to be solved on a case by case comment and i think it's interesting pat says let's be able to have sort of an appeal process bring it to a higher authority and i'll tell you that isn't what you see coming out of any of the leadership at d n i or the p c a they don't have appeal processes so let's hope that that you know we've got a really open process where cities permit holders in are going to be able to have their say because yes we do need to be much more accessible anyone else thank you move on to the next question the order is pat linda matt greg question is i read some bridges i had to tear rating with many more than fifty years old how do you see the state generating the needed revenue to repair and replace our roads the d o t report came out and said that fifty percent of the roads in minnesota are oh now over fifty years old which means they were built during the eisenhower administration i think  we're going to have to start to look at our infrastructure it's starting to wear out we need to make repairs and nobody likes the idea but we're going to have to probably start looking at making slight increases in being able to maintain those repairs and upgrades and also either create new problems or improve the roads from that it means a slight increase to the gas tax to me involved increase to the license tax i've heard people say that if we make constraints within government we can make up that difference that's not true we're not going to be able to the problem is too big for that and everybody's going to have a share or an investment in the roads and bridges of minnesota thank you thank you linda i think we need to look at the the plan that is being debated here about what what our road system over the next twenty years is going to require in terms of funding and i think it's interesting too to note that what we're spending on south was light rail with that money you could you could repair i have a trap hundred bridges in minnesota that need repair an inordinate amount of money is being spent our transportation system that at best is going to carry four percent of minnesotans to their commute every day of the country there's no better numbers in the country billions and billions have gone into this and yet we are not increasing the  ridership to say that this is a value so let's take a look at this plan do we need fifty billion i am not sure thank you the question well i think you have to look at where we're spending our money in  washington county ramsey county you have to look at are we getting our fair share of the dollars they're being spent we've got a billion dollar train that connects downtown st paul to downtown minneapolis that takes about a little bit longer than it takes to drive about fifteen minutes longer to get  from one side to the other replacing a bus system that work well and put seventy businesses out of business on university avenue i think did that work what's the return on investment for that make what are we doing out here in the northern northern metro as those dollars getting back to us we are looking at transportation system where we can't get bus service to downtown st paul because those are being deployed elsewhere within the twin cities through a met council that is really short changing the northeast metro i agree with my democratic friends on the other side of the aisle and we say we're getting ripped off we also need to look at spending our money and corridors of commerce where we are actually going to do the most good we're looking at spending and oh excuse me i'll that what we are being asked is where is the money going to come from to fix the bridges the roads that we currently have running on that we have  available is of course our bonding available at the state well it's just the question why was there an arbitrary limit a handshake deal to limit the amount of bonding that  could have been increased and we could have had more money available for those bridges for those roads thank you it's that one thing one thing i'll add to that is the longer we wait to do these improvements and upgrades the more expensive it's going to get so if you say no now in five or ten years it's going to be more expensive to do these repairs and upgrades so i just want to remind everybody that  the longer you wait the more expensive it's going to become so that's one thing when i talked when i went and i door knocked i talk with people as if they want to manage solution to transportation they want equal solution as much as possible and i agreed with them on that and said you know you have a division between us you have roads and bank use and light rail yes matt one of the things that i would really like to push for and see is a greater percentage of the cost of our transportation be put into temporary lanes and temporary traffic how many of us sat out on highway sixty one all summer watching the guys you know put the media any and from june until now you're waiting you're driving you spread light green light red light you're waiting to see somebody workin in the median and they see one guy out there painting spots on the cobblestones and you're just your head's ready to go purple because you're just you're saying why can't i move we need a greater percentage of that go into temporary traffic as we have in other parts of the stank you and i do think that some of the folks requesting dollars think that the dollars are unlimited and i think we've probably read the stories from sa stay with transportation and have to yes and no questions and i'll go in this order linda pat great match the first question isn't is a yes or no answer do you favor a five cent gasoline tax to be used to help repair our transportation system yes greg yes matt next question order is m greg pat linda do you think that there is sufficient funding for continued expansion of light rail matt sir could you repeat that please once more do you think that there is sufficient funding for continued expansion of light rail let's start with matt and then go to greg i disagree with the premise of the question ok gre answer no no no we need in a moratorium ok all right we're going to go on to the next question in the order of responses greg matt linda pat super pacs and other independent spenders have increased the amount of money spent on advertisements to influence voters in light of this what changes should be made to minnesota disclosure laws if no changes are needed to explain why start with greg i think the real question that when money is being spent from outside of the state to influence what's happening inside of our state we need to know as much as we can possibly know the super pacs are changing the the political environment and we need to have the the spotlight on them so that we can understand really what's behind all of the ads flyers and the influence it really does make you wonder why all this attention coming to minnesota so yes transparency thank you matt well i think that if you look at either side of the aisle there's all kinds of money that gets dumped into our mailboxes and onto our t v s on a nightly basis and then you see the little disclaimer afterwards that says you know children for fluffy or puppies played for the paid for the content of this message and you think i wonder who you know i want to read that group because you know who's funding them and it's we do need to know exactly where the dollars are coming from and we need disclosure and transparency of where did you get the money and what did you spend it on it's a pretty simple concept that we can have but i think you can have it just halfway if we've got unions  are taking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and plunking them into districts and being spent against one candidate or another when we have limitations on how much we can spend in raising the state of minnesota that are very very tight that's not fair and i think that people have to have to understand that it's not fair and people have a better understanding where that money comes from we're going to feel better about it thank you linda i think the super pac is a creature of the federal government i don't know that minnesota can do too much about it and i think our laws have increasingly provided some disclosure more disclosure for folks to know where the money is coming from and for example instant information as a candidate i can know you know tomorrow if somebody is spending a big chunk of money in my district so that is you know information we can get ahold of and so i think that's very useful but i do worry about the  disclosure because really the advocates the activists who want it are really aiming to placard and to picket into to you know to to really bring harm i guess to people who spend their money in  diligent way which is just to support a candidate to support an idea so i would be very concerned about too much disclosure thank you matt i believe in full disclosure i don't like the idea of a corporation dumping a lot of money and having more influence on the people who live in the district i believe we should have full transparency in knowing why are they donating their money and what for what purpose are they doing it are they doing it for more real estate or more home n what's their purpose here i agree that we should have definitely have transparency in that to know where that money is coming from and how it is being used so people know what it's being used for and how they're trying to be influenced funding of elections thank you anyone else yes just i think there's somewhat of a red herring to say that you know a corporation is spending on so much money in fact with these the citizens united decision since then very few corporations have actually given any money to candidates i mean they're not interested frankly for the most part in being identified with a candidate they want a good reputation and frankly  are not going to permit the money being spent in ways that out by political so i think it's it's kind of a scare tactic i don't think we've we're seeing what what you guys are saying thank you matt or p ok move on to the next question the order of response is pat linda matt greg and the question is what legislative measures if any would you support to reform the welfare system well the current system right now if that's in place is doing its job at this point certainly in any system in government we can always look and see what improvements we need to make whether they be technology technology wise procedure wise whatever that may be i'm certainly would be open to look and see what is involved what improvements we can make how can we make it more efficient for people and easier for people to be able to in those benefits thank you linda come here it's an entitlement maybe that they don't deserve i mean people who are in need need our help brad we have made it attractive i have spoken to her gabby other day her coworkers two coworkers and said we're going to quit because we can get more on the public assistance system through have a different programs then we feel we're getting from our jobs so we're at that point and we need to really revaluate just the kinds of things that make it possible for abuse thank you matt like people who can work should work and we should do everything that we can to match people with jobs in the economy to keep either our state moving ahead we also need to make sure that the people who are needy shouldn't be behind people in line who are greedy that people who paid into the system their whole life need help from from time to time with public assistance to get back on their feet that certainly is a good use of our public resources but we also have people who are who are cheating the system who are here illegally and illegally obtaining benefits who have never paid into the system and who are taking from  from those very scarce resources and the people who are needy shouldn't have to be beholden to the people who are greedy and taking those things through fraud or abuse and that's where i think that i've really tried to focus and would like to focus first greg we minnesotans really are generous with you know with our funds we want to have the assurance that our tax dollars are being used as as expected so we need to have the rules in place and we need to have rules enforced for our needs to be sought out but what are you going to do when you have cut for all of those  resources that actually do the the the checking in verifying when you have as as a representative run back referred to a situation where someone is going to leave a paying job to go on welfare one of you have to ask the question then perhaps we need to raise the minimum wage so that people who are willing to work are paid well enough to stay in the job thank you any additional comments and just comment on the minimum minimum wage which i get is another tax on labor in our states in addition to the min sure tax i think we have really harmed many of our business owners because we have imposed a one size fits now and i think that it's only a matter of time before some of our great  restaurants in our state minnesota are going to be closing and probably will either as well be laying off folks who are going to i pads when you go to your restaurant order thank you pat i would disagree with that i think the increase in the minimum wage actually helps because a lot of that money is going to be i think going to be plowed back into small business and resources so i think that the increase in the minimum wage helps get people off welfare because it's going to ravish they raise their income but i also think that it's going to help small business and help communities grow in that sense thank you greg it was not excuse me it was not my intention to open that hornet's nest quite yet i imagine that question is going to be coming a little further down the road but it just was necessary i think to introduce that point because again i represent a runback is referring to those people are going to utilize every program that's available and make it a wonderful way to live i don't think that's a wonderful way to live thank you have any  was interesting how that morphed this was going to be our last question before we go to closing comments and the order of response is linda pat grigg met and the question is how will you break the bipartisanship you know i have i've seen the legislative process for a number of years and frankly i think there are many many issues that would would benefit from a bipartisan brainstorming bipartisan committees that are set you know in place to work out solutions but our committee process that the legislature has has really i think failed us in terms of developing good bipartisan ideas so there isn't time in the process to sit and say oh here's a problem why don't you come up with strategies and it doesn't even happen at the legislature so that's what i would start i would start by changing how we take a look at a problem a different venue maybe get a bipartisan group of folks and actually sit down and develop the the solutions thank you had ever i think  on the person that's in that seat of that elected office to be able to bring together people i think people are looking for common sense solutions to problems and i think that one way if you have a person in office who knows people whose whose work in different environments who understands them i think you have a better chance of making breaking that gridlock as people will than understand where you know where you're coming from i do believe it's i think it's the person in the personality that helps see the camaraderie in the legislature that really could be there when individuals can set their ideologies aside and come together on something else so maybe maybe we need to get back  and we get to know each other that way so it's going to take something to set aside those ideologies that seem to be the definition for so many individuals that they can't set aside thank you matt so i think this is the fundamental question of the next five years at the national level and at the state level we've got shutdowns we've got we've got lawsuits we've got gridlock and you've got republicans and democrats that just can't seem to get it done at the end of the day because there's great incentive to do nothing or to burn down the ideas and burn down the solutions that should be coming forward it was put to me best by a woman in hugo and her name is katie and i was overzealous and talking about an election a few years ago and she said you know you always talk about taking the state back and the democrats say we should take it back from the republicans and the republicans say we should take it back from the democrats and we never get it and she is right and we need to think hard about that and move toward solutions of common ground rather than middle ground or you want to versus mine and we have to look at ours and linda i think to say that the blame is on our own legislators is probably  too pat of an answer really a lot of the blame is for the special interests that are at the capitol who are sort of very dug into their positions and i tried once to work out a compromise on a very kind to controversial issue and i found out that i was sort of the enemy of both sides the one you know the proponent and the open on it so many of these special interest groups a good make you know they're there because they want issues to develop that they can raise funds over and keep alive as a organization thank you any other comments when else they will now move to closing statements and we will go in the reverse order that we had our opening statements so we will begin with great pair so again thank you to the league of women voters this was the film that we that we expected we shared a lot of information tonight perhaps some of it was a little spirited but that's what we come here for i my i am not asking you to vote for me because i'm a nice guy i'm not asking you to vote for me because i'm  next year the closing remarks well thanks to the league of women voters and to the folks who came to white bear lake city hall and thanks to the folks who are probably hopefully still tuned in at home watching this  debate we've got an election coming up november fourth that's going to be very important for the state of minnesota moving forward and i hope you all participate i hope you get out and vote because it does make a difference who represents you and makes a difference who represents you in minnesota legislature it makes a difference who represents you nationally and so i really encourage folks to get out and vote on november fourth or before if you want to vote early we can do that now in the state of minnesota it's very very important that we do that it's our civic duty and i think of women voters for doing that i want to thank my wife laura who is here tonight and one of my three kids the number one kid is here for the backbone of my campaign team across this great district so if you've seen us  out give us a big thumbs up and thanks my volunteers who are out there they're probably proud of my family so i'll get my honk and thumbs up and i really would appreciate the honor of returning to st paul to represent this district it's been the true honor of my life to do so for the last decade and i think i've got some more work to do and i obviously there is some more work to do in the state of minnesota and move in together and getting things done so i look forward to your support i'm asking for your vote thank you thank you now with your closing remarks linda runback well thank you very much for the opportunity tonight to anyone especially thank us some of my supporters and the volunteers who are here tonight it's always nice to see your faces i am seeking reelection and i would be honored to have your vote i have served served actually for sixteen years not not continuously abroad i guess i'm stronger than ever in my belief that if we lift the weight of government off of our citizenry we will see the maximum opportunity and grow if we will see the middle class begin to surge again we will see wages increase we will see the opportunities increase and so my my good going to all into office if i'm so honored is i'm i'm a taxpayer advocate and i really believe strongly in that i'm not and you do you're right on the other hand i think there are many cases when we work together and frankly when you look at the results from each session there's many many many bills that that are bipartisan in nature but we've gotten to a very controversial issues of late because everything matters everything is so visible and where i was so very involved but i also seek to go to fight waste and fraud in government i think that that is what irritates me to people that i see we never have the money is not being spent well i'm a hard worker i think of if you talk to folks who have been aware of my record i'm i'm i'm working very hard for our cities in the six or six cities that i in the district so i hope to continue that and thank you very much thank you know with his closing statements pat davern well again i'd like to thank the league of women voters obviously worker for hosting this event and i'm running it like of running for thirty eight and when i'm talking to people on the field they want common sense solutions to problems and they want progress they want progress that's one of the things i think i can bring like i said i've been thirty thank you thanks the candidates for their participation in this forum we'd like to thank the city of white bear lake for the use of their city hall and which is the government television network for live casting and videotaping this event for cable television and for sharing this broadcast with three other cable channels c t v nor suburbs north metro t v and with hugo local cable channel sixteen please check the websites of your local cable channels to find out the schedule for when the form will be rebroadcast in your area we also thank our league volunteers and you the audience for your attendance and your interest thank you and remember to vote on november fourth thank you and good night