Marshall and Bollier clash on Supreme Court, trade barbs in Kansas Senate debate
Republican Roger Marshall and Democrat Barbara Bollier clashed Saturday on how quickly a successor should be appointed to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during a radio debate a day after the liberal icon’s death.
Both candidates began their opening statements of the debate by offering condolences after the 87-year-old justice passed away after a battle with cancer, but they differed sharply on the timeline for selecting and confirming a replacement to the high court.
Marshall, a congressman who represents western Kansas, said he was encouraging President Donald Trump to bring forward a nominee to be voted on by the Senate as soon as possible, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has pledged to do despite blocking an appointment to the court in 2016 during the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency.
“This is so different from 2016 when we had a Democrat president and a Republican Senate,” Marshall said. “Look, America elected a Republican president and a Republican Senate for just this time. This is our time to do, to keep our promises and move forward with one of the folks that President Trump has on his list.”
Bollier, a state senator who switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party in 2018, said that the confirmation process shouldn’t be rushed and that Kansas voters should have a say on this in November when the state votes on the presidential race and chooses a new senator.
“These are lifelong appointments,” she said. “This election that’s under way in Kansas now, Kansans should make their voices heard.”
The selection of the next justice will have major ramifications for the future of abortion rights in the country. The candidates vehemently disagree on the issue.
“You don’t deliver 5,000 babies without understanding the sanctity of life. Obviously, I’m 100% pro-life and I will be against abortions every time,” said Marshall, an OB-GYN, who attacked Bollier’s past votes on the issue.
Bollier, a retired anesthesiologist who has long supported abortion rights, replied that as an OB-GYN Marshall “should know how painful, heartbreaking and incredibly personal these decisions are for women. It’s disturbing that he wants to inject more government into these private health care decisions between a woman and her doctor.”
The debate was hosted by WIBW Radio in Topeka. It was live-streamed on Facebook and broadcast on radio stations throughout the state. The radio debate functioned as a substitute for the traditional Kansas State Fair Debate after this year’s fair was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gone were the raucous crowds that have in past years made the State Fair debate resemble a college basketball game as rival sections of supporters don shirts for their preferred candidate and seek to drown out each other with their cheers.
Instead, the two candidates sparred in a conference room in Topeka, where they stood at a safe social distance from one another with a plastic shield be them. The panel of journalists moderating the debate were spread out through the state and posed their questions via video conference.
But the socially distanced debate was far from tame as the candidates traded increasingly fierce and sometimes personal barbs.
In the midst of a discussion of the national debt, Bollier hit Marshall for supporting Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and said Marshall’s “record of fiscal responsibility is really as reckless as his driving is,” in reference to Marshall’s 2008 reckless driving conviction that was later downgraded to a lesser charge.
Marshall fired back that Bollier “has never seen a tax increase that she hasn’t liked.”
Throughout the debate, the congressman sought to tie Bollier to left-wing policies, specifically the Green New Deal, the ambitious proposal to transition the U.S. to 100 % renewable energy over a 10-year period. Bollier opposes the policy, but Marshall repeatedly hit her on it.
“My opponent says she’s not in favor of the Green New Deal, but her party certainly is. She left the Republican Party in favor of those Democrat values of over-regulations and that’s exactly what the Green New Deal is,” Marshall said. And when a party’s invested 15 or 20 million dollars in you they’re going to come after her vote and she’s going to give it up.”
Bollier said she opposes the Green New Deal and wants to pursue a bipartisan plan to curb climate change, including increased investment in green jobs.
“There you go again, Roger, running over the truth,” she replied to one of Marshall’s attacks. “As I’ve said many times, I don’t support the Green New Deal and I won’t when I’m in the U.S. Senate. I’m known for my independent voice. Stop deceiving voters.”
The candidates also sparred on COVID-19.
Marshall said that U.S. was winning the battle against the virus and contended that economic shutdowns posed a greater threat to the well-being of Americans.
“My opponent’s party, her leadership, the Harris-Biden administration, have promised to shut down our economy again if this virus rears its head. And I’m here to tell you that more people will die from shutting down the economy than the virus killed,” Marshall said.
Asked after the debate what data Marshall was using to justify this claim, Marshall’s campaign sent an article from a Texas news station exploring the topic of whether the pandemic is leading to an increase in suicides.
The article links to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says elevated levels of suicidal ideation were reported by U.S. adults in June of this year, but neither CDC report or the article make claims that rate of suicides will surpass the death toll from the virus.
The article also explicitly notes that the rate of suicide in the U.S. has been increasing for several years, which will make the impact of the pandemic on the suicide rate difficult to determine.
Bollier accused Marshall of politicizing the pandemic rather than modeling responsible behavior as a doctor.
“He refuses to consistently wear a mask and has circulated conspiracy theories and misinformation. And it was so bad it got thrown off social media,” Bollier said in reference to Facebook’s deletion of a post from Marshall earlier this month that promoted a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 mortality data. “This is astonishing recklessness from a physician.”
Tim Carpenter, a journalist with the Kansas Reflector who served as one of the questioners in the debate, asked the candidates how they as wealthy white people would work to understand the concerns of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has called for a national reckoning on systemic racism.
“If you look at my record, I just don’t see skin color,” Marshall said. “I think there’s things that we can do to provide everybody’s relationships and it all starts with good education and a good economy. And that’s what Republicans stand for is raising people out of poverty. Giving them a job that brings meaning and fulfillment in their lives, not keeping them buried down in the ghettos.”
Bollier replied that the “country has been in a crisis for many years and we need to listen to all,” before transitioning into an answer about the importance of public education without directly wading into the topic of race.
This story was originally published September 19, 2020 at 3:41 PM.
