Congressional candidates talk immigration, health, national security

For the first time, the three candidates in the 4th District congressional race squared off on the same debate stage.

Republican Ron Estes, Democrat James Thompson and Libertarian Chris Rockhold debated topics ranging from illegal immigration to health care to national security at a televised forum hosted by KWCH on Tuesday evening.

Early in-person voting has already begun for the special congressional election to replace former Rep. Mike Pompeo, who resigned his seat to become the Central Intelligence Agency director in the Trump administration.

Estes, the state treasurer, said the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed and “rising Islamic terrorism” needs to be defeated.

“America is facing some serious challenges today because of the failed policies of President Obama,” Estes said. “We need to change Washington by changing who we’re sending there.”

Thompson, a civil rights attorney, called Estes a “career bureaucrat.” Thompson said he would represent “all Kansans.”

“I want to protect your jobs, I want to secure your education, and I want to make sure that we are protecting the veterans when they come home from war,” Thompson said. “I will choose people over party.”

Rockhold, a flight instructor, said he wouldn’t be beholden to lobbyists and special interests as a Libertarian.

“I want to ask you to have the courage on April 11 to try something different,” Rockhold said.

Estes said he supported some of the Trump administration’s budget proposals, such as cuts to foreign aid.

“We’ve got to get our spending under control and get that aligned with our revenue,” he said. “And the president is making an attempt at that.”

Thompson criticized proposed cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and subsidies for flights to rural airports.

“The president and his Cabinet aren’t thinking about Kansas,” Thompson said. “We need to make sure that our representatives from here are going up and insisting that we do address issues in Kansas.”

Rockhold said he wanted an auditing process for each federal program “to see how they spend their money.”

“A lot of government programs are simply inefficient,” Rockhold said. “We do want to reduce our spending, but let’s do it in a sensible manner.

“The new budget proposal … just transfers (spending) from social programs to a larger military budget,” he said. “That’s the wrong message.”

All three candidates disagreed with the frequency of presidential executive orders from current and past administrations.

“Congress needs to stop being lazy and start doing its job,” Thompson said.

“We have a system in the country where we have a separation of powers,” Estes said. “We need to put more emphasis on the legislative body to start laws.”

Estes said the U.S. needs to stop illegal immigrants from getting into the country so we “can start to fix what’s really broken, which is our current immigration policy.”

“Security of the country is one of the major responsibilities of the federal government,” Estes said. “A wall is part of that.”

Thompson said the United States needs to have humane immigration policies that include “a quick path to citizenship.”

“The idea that we need to have a wall is just not conducive to our American values,” Thompson said. “They are our neighbors, our friends and people that work in our fields.”

After the debate, Estes said he was thankful for the Trump administration’s executive order to roll back parts of the Obama administration’s plan to curtail the effects of climate change. He criticized “excessive regulations … trying to kill coal.”

“The whole aspect of what the Obama administration did to slow the growth of safe electricity is a problem,” Estes said.

Thompson said after the debate that he disagreed with Trump’s executive order, adding that Congress needs to address climate change.

“It is something that we do need to have the federal government involved,” Thompson said. “We need to make sure that we’re addressing those issues.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 8:19 PM with the headline "Congressional candidates talk immigration, health, national security."