oh it's a privilege for us to be partnering here with the league of women voters for this very important occasion it's it's always important that we're part of such a conversation but it's particularly important this year at the college of new jersey in that at the beginning of the year i announced that we were going to commit to making sure that we were part of encouraging civil disagreement but it's very important for the democracy for our country and for democracy in the world that we understand how to air differences of opinion in a way that we can actually hear one another i have such confidence in these two candidates that they can do just that and will do just that tonight and be an exemplar of what we want our students to learn thank you so much and thank you  good evening the league of women voters of princeton area east windsor heights town hopewell valley lawrence township and monro township welcome to the league of women voters never supports or opposes candidates for office or political parties any use of the league name or footage from this candidates night in campaign materials literature or advertising of any kind including the internet cable or television has not been authorized by the league of college said we have with us this evening two candidates vying for u s congressional district twelve as a courtesy to the candidates please turn off all cell phones and other electronic devices now and please refrain from taking photographs during the candidates night also please hold your applause until the end i will ask lead generated questions questions from students of the college of new jersey or questions which were submitted by the members of the audience this evening both candidates will have the opportunity to answer each question each candidate will be given a set time to answer each question and responses will be time by a person sitting up front after both candidates provide their responses to a question follow up time is allowed so that each candidate may expand rebut or clarify their response to the question after course to have the bacon and like thank all of you for coming in tonight but like to think that i'm the constitutionally minded fiscally responsible socially tolerant candidate the new jersey has been asking for this country in this district has a lot of problems educational problems cos of education the need to have more local control over it we have jobs problems unemployment real unemployment nine point five percent taxes are sometimes on even a need to be addressed and also us of the war on drugs which some politicians like to run away from but i think more and more people of this country and people the state are targeting where the war on drugs are the facts creating it in for the college of new jersey for being generous and hosting it again and i want to say thank you to each and every one of you are here today i am delighted to see students in the audience because a lot of what we should discuss today is important to you it is important to your future i look forward to an opportunity to discuss the issues that are confronting us not just any generation and not just any part of the twelve congressional district which i believe is a microcosm of the state of new jersey i but to discuss access to affordable higher education i want to discuss how we will build an economy that is building upon the strengths of those who have the capacity to do and the elimination of obstacles that stand in the way i want to talk about health care and the improvements that we've had as a result of obamacare and the challenges that we have the opportunities we have to move forward and i wanted to talk about the importance of government and ensuring that freedom pursuit of happiness liberty and justice are experienced by all and that those individuals will not encounter false obstacles such a sexism racism or discrimination against one's religion so i look forward to our discussion tonight and look forward to the questions that are comparable to lead and from the students and other audience thank you thank you all right now time for submitting questions again i'd like to remind you to hold your applause until the end i'd like also to remind you that the questions must be related to issues and not to personalities as i said before both candidates will have the opportunity to answer each question after both responses follow up time is provided to all candidates for clarification or response during this follow up time is permitted but not required the first question which is to mr hughes and since we are on the campus here what would you do differently as an elected official to decrease student loan debt well that's a very interesting question and i think a lot of people but what happened was more and more people kept going to college and then colleges started compete with each other they had to build bigger better newer colleges to compete with every other college and what happened was colleges stopped selling people on the education part and started selling them on the experience of it now as an example colleges i've been walking around here they were they're redoing their student center they have three new buildings are being constructed wreckers university just completed one hundred sixty million dollars building and all these things cost money and that's why tuition keeps going up but the loans are still guaranteed so the loans will continue to go up and be guaranteed as long as people are willing to pay it so i would say th problem i do not think the federal government can solve it but i think the federal government can do as a practical and alleviate the problem is they could probably work with loan industries and probably would use the interest but the federal government has no intention of solving this problem because the federal government one third thirty percent of the government's federal government's assets is through loans and they have no intention of getting rid of it thank you miss watson coleman i think i first  about the student debt issue because that's the assumption that our if you graduated from college and as you heard you have so much debt or knew the burden of so much debt that you may be in many instances still living at home with your family and not able to participate in the economy we need you to participate in the economy we need you to be able to get a job and we need you to buy a house and my a car so i think that some of the things that we need to do with student debt are a obviously allow students to refinance or debt would be i think that we need to look at forgiveness programs if you're willing to work in certain space that helps the society to move forward then i think that we should take that into consideration as we expect you to pay back your debt and i also think that the federal government needs to expand pell grants i think the federal government working in this space was very important in terms of creating greater opportunities for students to go to college in the first place because otherwise college would have only been affordable to people who had very wealthy parents or who were somehow able to support themselves so i believe that we need to be expanding grants and opportunities and fellowships and things of that nature for students to be able to go to school without burdening themselves with debt but when you have day we need to be doing something about it and refinancing that debt and creating forgiveness programs is certainly one of the ways in which we should go i also believe that our government has a responsibility to invest more in higher education in states that are committed to investing in higher education that are committed to hold me down to which are good and freedoms all right thank you the next question and first want to answer this is miss watson coleman standardized tests in new jersey have become a major part of education in part because of federal policy what changes would you make to reform the education system you know this is an issue that i dealt with even as a state legislature and i was always very concerned that we teachers were having to take up too much of their time to teach a child to pass a test and education is about learning it is about acquiring  that you can move forward in life move up and out into the work world so i'm more interested in teaching our children critical thinking and problem solving and not just passing tests i am a proponent of standards because i believe that there is such mobility in families today that if you're a fourth grader in new jersey and your parents choose to move to ohio that when you go to fourth grade in ohio you're recently in the same sort of learning co port so there is there is a reasonable in this to expect standards not be that that is a role of government i also think that role government has to ensure that there is non segregated schools and that there is globally competitive education your respect of what your  what your does it is so at the end of the day i think our investment should be exciting our children about learning making learning fun and making critical thinking just something that you part because of federal policies what changes would you make to reform the education system well i have to question the federal government's evolving and in involved in education and all the constitution does not give the federal government authority over education the states know this the states have to approve common core park no child behind i think those things need to be eliminated but i would i would try to do is i would try to get the authority of the of education down from the federal government and keep  the state level we have a state department of education we have school boards we have teachers we have principals i want let them do their job i think we need more local control of education i think when you do that you will have less expensive education and you have better education i've talked to numerous teachers and they don't have a problem with us that i've talked to and i've talked to people on school boards and they and they feel they're banging their heads against the wall to apply federal mandates so that's why do i think me more local control of education not necessarily less spending but more local control of education thank you but i didn't want to just sort of this mention again the i showed the importance of the federal government in this space in particular because i'm reminded of the things such as brown v board of education had it not been for federal intervention we would not have the kind of access to equal educational opportunities that we do have thank you the third question or the next question to what extent do you believe in assisting illegal immigrants living in your district do you believe or support the dream act i can repeat if you  want to allow as many in this country legally as possible while simultaneously securing our borders we are a nation of immigrants my grandfather was an immigrant my wife is an immigrant we should let as many into this country as possible while still doing it legal well i certainly agree with mr aris you know this is a land of immigrants immigrants founded this country it is the diversity that exists that helps to make it great and so i think that we've had the biggest challenge in this republican controlled congress to discuss and debate and come do some conclusion on a comprehensive immigration policy we have people who've been here for thirty years they have children and grandchildren here and now and they have the possibility of being taken away from them and sent back to their home some people left their homes because they feared for their lives some simply left for the same reason the original immigrants left and that was for freedom and opportunity so i believe that we should do everything that we can to accept immigration and to respect the diversity that it brings and the greatness that is brought to our country next question with gun violence on the rise within the minority community what would you do at the federal level has to do with just the police and on the other hand you're asking me what should we do in terms of violence in those communities first of all i think that decent jobs and decent housing and and decent a safe neighborhoods are principally the answer to that question i think when it when it when you're dealing with violence and when i take this outside the law enforcement area that i've tremendous respect for in fact i'm married to an individual who was a former policeman and is a chaplain to the police academies to this day when you take the issue of just violence associated with guns the issue is that there are too many it guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them there is a proliferation of illegal guns and we need commonsense gun legislation to who has them or should not have them now we're talking about the issue with the police by and large i believe that law enforcement does its job it protects and it serves but where you find instances where that doesn't happen and we need to deal with that we need to acknowledge it we need to have the individuals responsible for it be held accountable but we need to invest in can community please relations race relations and we need to ensure that there is deescalation training that these police officers have not had and do need so that their instinct is not to kill someone who they perceive as a threat to them irrespective the fact that he might not have a weapon but to deescalate the situation thank minority community and the police well i have a different perspective on that as far as the police go i think being told to do a job i don't think they were intended to do first of all if you look at a municipal budget which ran  for council last year look at their minimal budget there's a certain amount of money that is expected to get in revenue from tickets so i think a lot of this pallies don't treat police officers as peace officers they treat them as tax collectors so that's a township issue also as far as the war on drugs go i think that we've asked our police officers to solve an issue in a criminal matter that is really a medical matter we've asked me i think we have the police officers wound up telling them to into people's houses we're telling the break up families are telling to arrest people and i think the war on drugs is inherently racist and like to address that issue i think we do those two things along with what was coleman said about improving economic issues we can improve relations between citizens and police thank you and next question ok and this is to mr you all right what is the largest issue facing district twelve and how do you plan to fix well i think the largest issue facing district twelve is the same one as any other in this day i think it's really unemployment and job creation officially our unemployment rate is five percent but the numbers are very misleading if you use the official numbers it is five percent but if you use the what's called the real unemployment numbers it's nine point five percent i think that's a better indication of our employment right now nine point five percent when you add people who are only working five or six hours a week when you add people who have stopped looking for jobs  state and i think a larger world country is about ten percent unemployment so i think we need to address that i think we need to allow industries to be created in the state and his district i think princeton would be a great place for of energy to be developed i think that we need to eliminate the coal and oil subsidies i think we need to get rid of basically all corporate subsidies and have an overall lower corporate tax rate to raise our g d p and lower unemployment thank you mr watson coleman q need you to repeat the question i think that this is a great and rich invest district i believe that this is a district that has so many innovative companies start up companies pharmaceutical companies educational facilities i think that we need to be concentrating on ensuring that our people are educated that the workforce has the kind of skill sets that is needed to take on these jobs i think jobs it very much is the issue and it's not just jobs it's about careers it's not about the underemployment that we're experiencing or even long term unemployment of the of the elderly who have so much you contribute to the work site what part are kept out because of the fact that they're older and there's an assumption about them i think that we need to be investing in our education systems exposing our young people to stem education at an earlier age so they've making rise up become educated and take on the kind of jobs that we have in our community to give thank you next question pipelines and fracking have become controversial issues what do you think needs to be done especially with the federal agency that makes the rules miss wat thank you but this certainly is an issue that's come up a number of times in congress with a republican congress that cares very little about fracking and taking on private property as well as public lands i've stood up against fracking and i've introduced legislation that would require first to ensure that when it's considering applications for pipelines that it looks at the situation holistically that it just doesn't look at that one pipeline that is being proposed that will affect your backyard but it also is concerned with  seven other pipelines particularly in this district that there are numerous pipelines that already exist and we need to make sure that we are good stewards of our environment our environment is our legacy for generations to come and so we need to ensure that we're not disturbing that balance now we're protecting it and we're living in such a way that we are good stewards of the resources that are there so fracking and pipelines and such over fuels that are not renewable energy sources those at the things that we need to grapple with not only just in the twelfth congressional district now lng in the state of new jersey but in this country we need to be more reliant on solar we need to be more reliant on when and we need to be more reliant on those are sources of energy that are clean thank you mister pipelines and fracking being controversial and what do you think needs to be done especially in the federal agency that makes these are well i think this is another example of our differences in approach i actually don't want too much federal involvement in this what i would prefer to see and i would prefer a more state think we need a very healthy respect for property rights all the time to the government does through use of eminent domain is a look at this property so you know what we think we can do a better job with this we're going to take it going to pay what we think what we think is fair but we're going take it from you so i think of any kind of pipeline any kind of project likes like that is going to happen then you have to get permission of all the property owners and a lot of people like to go to the federal government and say please do this for us to we don't we don't want to go through his past we want to ask every single person who owns  remark about that i think it's really important to recognise that one of the reasons that the government should be so important is that pipelines in particular don't just start in new jersey and then in new jersey they go through pennsylvania they go up through dakota they go all the way up to canada and we need to have some expectation that the regulations that applied to fighting these things are consistent with not only the little region that we're interested in but as it impacts larger economies and environment thank you before we go any further i would just like to make another statement repeat what i said earlier in this broadcast that you are not to be recording any of this those of you in the audience that are either taking pictures or recording please put it down ok that's against the rules that we started with the beginning of this evening thank you the next question is going to mr u do you agree the affordable care act needs to be reviewed and fixed to be more effective if if so what do you think needs to be done well i'm going to have to take a mill road approach this and and say that there are some good parts to care act i don't think it's completely sastre but there is a lot of bad what happened was we create these exchanges and the idea of these exchanges was that you would have some kind of cost sharing some kind of co op where the younger and healthier people were covering the cost of the older and the more sick and it was predicated idea that those younger and healthier people would have to join these exchanges and in large numbers and if that didn't happen that is  democrats and fix the affordable care act and again i think we need a more state based approach to let states come up with their own replacement plan you can the federal government to replace obamacare one of the recommendations i got from a doctor was to try to get people into high deductible health care plans which when you have low premiums and higher deductibles and then what you do is you have health savings accounts health savings accounts like flex spending but the money in the in the health savings accounts rolls over and you get to keep that and fixed to be more effective if so what do you think needs to be done so i think the affordable care act has also known as obamacare has been very helpful in ensuring that young people are able to stay on their insurance policies to the aged their parents insurance policies the age of twenty six that there's no preexisting condition neck and keep you and insured that there's no lifetime limit on how much money can be spent on your health care in that you can't charge women more than choose then you charge meant having said that there are a lot of challenges that we did we face with obamacare with regard to the insurance companies some of them really offered very very very very artificially low  rates in the very beginning hoping that they would just amass all these people and then they would go to wherever they can after that we need to get a grip on the costs the rising costs of health care even though it represents right now it represents a slowest growth in health care in a very long time we need to recognize that ninety percent of americans have health care because of obamacare and that means that this is something that we need to reject from this republican congress that has tried to repeal it defunded neuter it and do anything it can but fix it obamacare is a blessing just like social security in just like medicare was they weren't perfect they needed to be worked on and this health care program initiative also has to be worked on and i am glad to see that my opponent is evolving because on his website he said that practical about things what's happened is the democrats are trying to sell obamacare as a blessing and it's not it has needs a lot of work and has a lot of work to function correctly and the democrats are so hell bent on making it sound great in the republicans were so adamant is moving in the right direction and if we want to be practical then mr you need to recognize that you would find yourself on an island all by yourself in congress and you would not be able to effectuate any kind of change you're running as a republican and they would expect you to total lying with them thank you all right the next question please by two thousand and thirty four the social security trust fund is expected to be exhausted there after payroll taxes are projected to only cover approximately seventy nine percent of program obligations how should the government deal with this problem miss watson coleman thank you very much for first thing we need to do is lift the cap on the amount of taxes that you will pay on your income i pay one hundred one hundred eighteen thousand dollars pays one hundred eighteen thousand dollars le bron james pays on one hundred eighteen thousand dollars that somehow just doesn't translate into being fair and so one of the things that we need to do is to make sure that we have more fairness in how we are are tapping our obligation to do so security i also think that we need to make sure that social security is never privatized that it is a sacred promise and the best anti poverty program that has ever come our way prior to social security there were sixty or seventy percent of elderly people who are living under poverty now it's less than ten still percent still an acceptable way to ensure that there is one social security fund that it recognizes survivor benefits and disability benefits but at the end of the day the will that thing that we need to do to social security is turned into any kind of personal accounts or try to privatizing also repeated his pleas like ok by two thousand and thirty four the social security trust fund is expected to be exhausted payroll taxes are projected to only cover approximately seventy nine percent of program obligations  should the government deal with this problem so here's the point where i say the exact opposite of a common just said i do believe that we need to have individual accounts like you mentioned is going to run out of twenty years i talked to  go to new accounts have that will go to covering the old system and it will make the federal government a liable to pay the difference now for that to work would be very financially secure currently were about four hundred billion dollars a year over budget every year we're wrecking up way too much debt so if this plan to work we have be very fiscally responsible i know ms coleman wants to talk about how great it is now now she can fix it but maybe she should not have voted to take one hundred fifty went to social security eligible individuals who were disabled pardon me billion dollars billion dollars that went to individuals who were disabled and weak that's why i am supportive of one source of security system when i was very young i got my first paycheck i was like i don't weigh by taking money out of my savings i'll say for myself but i'm glad that they took it because that are relied upon for my security in my future where would i be trade plan of some kind probably the best thing to do but i really want to focus on talking before i want to eliminate coal and oil subsidies what i want is the innovators come in the entrepreneurs to come in and start developing these new technology we profit who want to develop this country and power this country and justly want to pay for it so that is would be my solution again probably some kind of cap and trade bill and then i want to encourage alternate energy production by eliminating  and dividend law and i'm also very proud of my president and the delegation that goes and negotiates these issues around the world because how we impact our climate is not just here in the united states there are no borders to that  you know we tried to do cap and trade in new jersey and before we could really see we've the benefits of it in see it governor christie eliminated it so i would think that that certainly should be one of the things that in the toolkit but i really think that we need to be investing in innovative energy sources we need to harvest the the wind and we need to recognize that there is there is energy in the water and we need to work with partnerships like things like companies like energy and other energy companies to try to devise more inefficient effective and innovative ways of ensuring that our environmental air is clear at the same time our energy needs are being  but my problem is sometimes say invest and spending more money and i have to question where is this money going to come from we are broke as a nation we have four hundred billion dollars a year over budget we are twenty one trillion dollars in debt p is eighteen trillion dollars means the amount of debt we have exceeds the amount we produce in one year so yes we can invest in certain things because member certain things but what are we going to cut how are we going to pay for these things i'm so glad to be asked that question might we need to close our poll we need to increase taxes on those who have so much to give and give so little we to whom much is given much is required and that's not been the case in this country we need to ensure make sure that there's a cost for a corporate inversions and for of the loop of very wealthy people and corporations state and then we need to use the money that we have wisely and not continue to give the kind of tax breaks to the very very wealthy whether their companies or individuals as this republican majority has done in the in congress thank you tried to do ok next question is for you miss watson coleman the crude by rail safety act has been languishing in congress a freight rail line in this area is used by a large number of trains with oil cans the safety measures proposed should be enacted what is your position on this a well so we had some experience of that and down in south jersey and we almost had another issue it south jersey not too long ago with a freight train i think that in the northeast corridor in particular we have serious issues with are in for strong we need to ensure that our trains are safe our tracks are safe and we need to do we need to invest in an infrastructure bill that includes rail and transportation and we need positive train control of those things particularly in the northeast corridor where we are sui go through so many towns and affects such populations that we have the positive train control is a slow trains down when they're going to that you know we've been trying to get this going and congress as we fused to fund it the way it needs to be funded because the majority of the congress that is in control now thinks that trains are just used to go from one place to round to the another end of the country just to see the countryside but we in this been languishing in congress a freight rail line in this area is used by a large number of trains with the oil cans the safety measures proposed should be enacted what is your position on the aca well i think it goes back to the question about pipelines no are we going to bring in by rail are going to bring by pipelines how is it to be delivered but i can't speak to that specific bill you know as a congressman you have to come in you have to read the bill evaluate the bill evaluate the cost of it real estate tax rates compared to the rest of the state which discourages investors and buyers what do you plan to do about the housing crisis in trenton and camden well the housing prices are a lot of that as do the property taxes and number one cost of property taxes is education so what i've talked about previously is we have to bring down the cost of education i think we have need to have more education that'll bring specifically high real estate tax rates it's not because of the answer that i'm asking that i just want to kind of focus in on the act of i think a lot of this has to do with the fair housing act in new jersey in particular has very rich and long history in being required to produce fair housing for people and it has not i think the cities like trenton in particular are under the gun because they're so much in lieu of property taxes i think the state of new jersey of the counties in this do not pay their fair share yet there is a tremendous burden on the infrastructure in the city of trenton and that includes the people infrastructure as well as the physical infrastructure i think that part of the problem we've had is the people have the mortgage problem the greedy folks who have offered these mortgages and now we have these they can properties were there are upside down properties that people can't live in and we need a robust program to help them help people to move back into these homes and keep the zones i think we need to think about innovative programs like living where you work incentivizing those programs through tact credits or whatever so that with some of it and rightfully so some of its political interactions with the governor and so it is positively impacting some of the housing because more industry is coming in there and trying to as an industry is government right and you need to treated with the respect that it deserves ok next question and this is also cue miss watson coleman recently a new jersey transit train crashed in hoboken and this summer governor christie stopped construction of roads and bridges because he and lawmakers could not agree on how to renew the transportation trust fund what is your role as congress person in helping  improve new jersey's infrastructure when we need in in congress were trying to pass a significant infrastructure bill and not just a continuing spending one and that would be used for transportation  d positive train control as a transit public transportation infrastructure things of that nature governor christie was wrong to stop the infrastructure program from taking place because that is fighting against your own economic well being is just like when he stopped the tunnels from being built first of all it's great jobs and great jobs mean good incomes good incomes mean you put money into the economy put money into the economy it helps her on even small businesses but in addition to that we're talking about state and security issues sixty seven percent of our bridges in the state of new jersey are unsafe our  roads are unsafe and they're bad on our cars so that was an unwise decision and it was a negative political decision not that we're not used to that with him but government has a responsibility i do believe to to federal going to come in to fix this is a state problem the state mismanaged trust fund the state couldn't do their job and i think it's largely the state's problem to fix now the federal government can come in and help with auditing and can help to identify the ok thank you next question briefly describe the experiences you have had that make you a constructive member of house of the house of representatives mr this is you well thank you and i was a waiter was a bartender as a manager as cook did all those things i had my family run their restaurant for several years until we had to sell it because we couldn't just get buy new jersey as a tax or do high fees too high can make ends meet so we sold it after that again with my father we run a wholesale distribution business i work in manhattan i help i help run the business i work fifty hours a week monday through friday so i know business and how to run a business but this this thing about experience i want to touch on briefly experience is great i would say it's not but experience is not everything  we have the most experience congress if not one of the most experienced congresses we've ever had we have people who have been in congress twenty thirty years i was two years old and frank when we had a congressman so while experience is important it's not everything i think you can have someone come in an average person teligent responsible capable come in objective lee evaluate bills and make the proper decisions  you i think that for me being an elected official is an extension of my desire and my passion for public service because that's what you are you are a public servant so obviously somebody who spent many years in state government who's worked in various departments and work with both republicans and independents and democrats to get things done you know has had some experience on that level and obviously i was in the state legislature and i succeeded in getting a number of bills passed  using both marvel nation ships with republicans as well as democrats and i see that that part of the responsibility that i have as a legislator on the federal level but passing legislation or reading bills interpretive legislation is only a part of the job a good part of this job is having constituent relations is being able to empathize sympathize and identify the resources that are available to help people work through their problems and i'm very prideful in that area because i do believe that i have been given this responsibility so that i can help others through their issues whether or not it's students at issues or seniors that people have access with to health care or any range of issues you know we work with veterans all the time and we work with health care issues and we work with immigration issues that is a blessing and that is the richness of life of a public servant so i believe my passion and my experience in public service uniquely qualifies me in this moment for this position in the twelfth district thank you next question watson coleman your first how do you think the trans pacific partnership trade agreement could affect new jersey would you vote for or against it i'm on record as against the transpacific partnership because i think that it has it would undermine unions it would undermine workers in this country it would undermine environmental issues that would undermine our dealing with india with countries that have no respect for human rights and women's rights and and issues of that nature i believe that i do believe in trade agreements and i believe  i believe in going high and not low the transpacific partnership takes us to a low here and i do not support it now going on record not supporting it and here respectable people think i don't do everything the president wants even when in the best interest of the country there is some good in there there is some free trade but with all these free trade deals all these things that get inside regulations stipulations there is something that looked at secret everything that could have been done to alleviate people's concerns were not done so i'm against trans pacific partnership t v p i'm also against nafta i think we need to re evaluate nafta i think it sent too many jobs to mexico we've lost jobs through through trade also lost jobs to automation so we can get good trade deals they're not saying it's impossible we want free trade for us the world we want you know reasonable trade deals with us the world but i think the t p p and after are not solution thank you next question is do you see on your first what measures should congress address to renew the provisions of the voting rights laws that the supreme court overturned that any save new jersey we have a lot of people who are on probation and parole and in state new jersey if you're on probation or parole you're not allowed to vote so one of the things that i is my platform and i want to address as soon as possible is that to propose a law or amendment that if you are not incarcerated and you are of age then you can vote period miss watson coleman the supreme court found that their formula that was used to determine whether or not there would be oversight no requirement for a district to get permission before it changed anything as it related to its access to voting has created a problem that congress refuses to deal with i think that the issue here would be for us to take on what has been a part bipartisan issue is far back as i don't know republican and democratic presidents and republican and democratic controlled  houses of congress but for some reason this congress refuses to deal with and instead you know we have to fight case by case state by state as the states who are trying to suppress voting are in putting in these issues that make it more difficult to vote reduce the number of hours to vote reduce the locations in voting requiring certain i d s like in the state of texas you can do it you can use your id to carry a concealed weapon to vote but you can't use your student id to be able to vote so this is something that we really do need to grapple with and i hope that a new and reinvigorated congress comes in in january and that we're willing to deal with these issues as are vitally important to equality and opportunity voting is secret thank you yet you want to rebut mr well as i mentioned meaning i believe myself to be a constitution in the fourteenth amendment there's something called the equal protection clause that means the government has treat everyone equally so if a state has certain time times for voting in one area and different times another area i think that under your questions we will now begin with the candidates closing statements beginning with miss watson coleman well first of all let me thank the league again and let me think the college and let me thank mr lucille thank you for wanting to be an elected official and for wanting to serve in this capacity i am delighted to be here and i said i'm delighted to see the students that are here because it is your future that is on the line here we have only scratched the surface in the discussion of issues here we've not talked about the assault upon a woman's right to choose we not really talked about the impact of the suppression of the vote we've not talked about the fact that republican congress has defunded as much as it possibly can e p a and other agencies that are important to the quality of life i'm pretty of your services we've not discussed what we can really do to try to ensure that our children are educated in such a way that they're competitive it's a small world and we need to be able to  our standing in this world and so i ask you if you would please consider back to washington d c to continue to work on these issues to work with both democrats and republicans approaches and how to handle situations i like to think of course mine is the correct one when we country was founded and the constitution was created the idea was that you would have a very small federal government and you had the states do most of the work the federal government was not a player it was the referee and the federal government has gone so large that i think that a lot of the issues we see today are because of that the federal gun was never supposed to be this big never supposed to one hundred percent party this is what i want to do and if you want to work with me we'll do it so i believe in the independent candidate i'm the outsider i've got no money i've got no special interest money i've never been a politician because of that i think tha