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And now Maine's independent incumbent Senator Angus King faces his Republican and Democratic challengers in a debate hosted by News Center Maine in Augusta.
This is just under an hour.
Good evening.
I'm Patrick Woodcock, President and CEO of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.
The Maine State Chamber of Commerce represents thousands of employers of all sizes and sectors across Maine.
We are focused on improving our state's competitiveness and fostering a business climate that creates greater economic opportunity in Maine.
We are pleased to present tonight's U.S. Senate debate in partnership with News Center Maine, and we appreciate the candidates who are participating this evening.
We look forward to a constructive and substantive discussion tonight.
Maine businesses and voters deserve to hear the candidates' priorities on the major issues and policies that affect our state and our nation.
Thank you for engaging by watching tonight's debate.
We encourage you to get to know the issues and the candidates and to vote this election year.
And good evening and welcome to News Center Maine's Voice of the Voter Candidate Forum.
I'm Rob Caldwell.
In the next hour, you're going to be hearing from the four people who are running for a seat in the United States Senate from Maine.
We are coming to you live from the Augusta Civic Center.
Our partner this evening is, as you just heard, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.
We've got several hundred people who are here for the annual meeting and dinner of the chamber.
They're going to be with us throughout the next 60 minutes.
We would like to thank the chamber.
We would like to thank the candidates who are here this evening.
And we would like to introduce them.
So without further ado, the four candidates running for the United States Senate who will be on the ballot on Election Day or already for those who are voting now, the independent incumbent Angus King, Republican Demi Kazunis, Democrat David Costello, and Independent Jason Cherry.
We're going to spend, as we said, the next hour talking about the issues.
Our aim tonight is to get a clear picture of where the candidates stand with an emphasis on solutions, with an emphasis on specific answers, and with a minimum of canned talking points and filibustering.
So with that, we're going to begin with our first question, which will go to Senator Angus King.
All the surveys that we've seen, Senator, show that the number one issue on the minds of voters in Maine is the cost of living.
People are struggling financially.
Obviously, inflation took a serious toll.
To some extent, that horse has left the barn and been brought back.
Inflation is a lot lower than it was, but people continue to have trouble making ends meet.
My question, what specifically can the federal government do to help people who are struggling with the high cost of living?
Well, I think the first thing to observe, Rob, is we see the figures that inflation is down, but the inflation that we've had over the past three or four years is baked into prices.
So it's about 20% higher than it was pre-pandemic.
That's what we've got to tackle.
What can the federal government do?
One of the mistakes I think the federal government has made over the past 30 years is taking its foot off the gas and enforcing the antitrust laws.
For example, there are only four companies in this country that control 85% of the market for meat.
That's a recipe for higher prices.
Competition is the best way to control prices.
And in fact, we're seeing it on TV as costs for cellular phones, for example.
They're all competing and talking about $25 a line, $20 a line.
That's competition.
That's one of the things the federal government can do.
The other thing that we can do is be sure that supply chain problems like container ships backed up at Long Beach, California that ripple out through the economy is something also that we can tackle.
And energy costs too, which is I'm sure something we're going to talk about.
Energy costs is underneath a lot of these higher costs for everything.
Republican Demi Kazuni, same question.
What can the federal government do specifically to address the high cost of living?
Stop spending.
I mean, what we've done is we went ahead and had American Rescue Plan, which was COVID-2 plan, which threw trillions of dollars in.
Then we had the infrastructure bill, another couple of trillion dollars, and then, of course, we had the Inflation Reduction Act.
And all of those things basically heated up the market and threw a lot of money in the pockets.
People started spending, and you had inflation.
And so inflation doesn't go away.
You just lower the rate of the rise, which is what's happening now.
We're hopefully their share may be closer to 3%.
We're about 2.5 now so far.
So that is an issue.
And it's not just about phones.
We have a problem with eggs, bread, gas, oil, heating oil.
These are staples that people have to pay every day to basically make it in the state of Maine.
And so we have to stop spending.
And that's going to be an issue that we have to deal with.
David Costello.
Just a couple of quick things.
I certainly agree with what Senator King said about antitrust laws.
We certainly have to apply them more effectively.
I also think in terms of the supply chain, I disagree a bit with Demi in that it really wasn't, it was the supply chain, it's the pandemic that really led to the 20% boost or over the cumulative boost in inflation.
I think what the federal government can do and needs to focus on is what kind of relief do you provide?
As you've said, Rob, the Fed has done its work.
The rate of inflation is down below 3%.
Now we need to make sure that those families struggling have enough assistance, whether that's through child care tax credits, I think we need to expand those.
We need to look at the earned income tax credit, provide more resources there.
Certainly as it relates to energy costs, whether it's electricity or home heating oil, we need to do more with regard to LIHEAP, the low-income energy assistance programs.
Also, we need to look at wages.
Wages haven't kept up, so I certainly think we need to look at the increase to the federal minimum wage to raise that up to at least $14 or $15 an hour to keep up with inflation.
And certainly looking at Social Security, we need to expand benefits and raise not only the cap on the payroll tax, but also to raise more revenue to protect Social Security.
But also we need to take a look at the COLA.
All right, I want to jump in because I want to keep things moving along.
Jason Cherry, same question.
I think a lot of news is out there about dynamic pricing, and that happens in a closed market.
And so David and Senator King and myself are looking at more competition for living costs.
And for here in Maine, specifically what can be done is we need to take advantage of what our location is at.
We are up in the Northeast.
We're isolated.
Transportation costs here are very expensive.
I used to live in D.C. and the food's more expensive here going out than D.C. at a certain point.
So that means that stronger ties with international trade.
I have a background in international trade and business.
We need to work more with our Canadian partners to make sure that we have more competitive goods.
We need more competitive fuel oil here.
It's very costly.
It's about $1,000 sometimes for some families.
And I don't know how they can make it.
So between that.
I want to let that be the last point because we do want to move on.
One of the ways in which the government is constrained in dealing with problems is that the government is already spending so much money.
It takes in about 75 cents for every dollar it spends.
The result, an enormous budget deficit, about $1.7 trillion this year, something like that.
You said a moment ago, Demi Kazunis, that we need to stop spending.
So let me ask, in dealing with the budget deficit, there are basically two options, increasing taxes or reining in spending.
Which would you do and give me specifics?
Well, first of all, $1.7 trillion is what we're paying on the interest on the deficit.
The deficit is close to $36 trillion.
That's the debt.
The debt is $36 trillion.
The deficit is about $1.7 trillion.
Okay.
I'm going to tell you that if we took all the people in all the United States and put them all together, we don't have $36 trillion.
And so we have a problem where all the taxing in the world would not save this problem.
We have an issue here.
What we have to do is not continue spending like we've been spending.
And then we have to also be able to find ways, which personally I would say is bring more manufacturing back in the state, increase workforce, and bring more money into the state.
Right now, we're a consumer society, and that is causing havoc for our deficit.
Let me come back to spending.
Are there places where you specifically would cut?
And if so, what are those programs?
Well, I mean, there's nothing to cut.
We shouldn't be spending any more money.
We shouldn't put new bills out there and continue spending and putting money out there.
We're already spending too much.
Our GDP is not equal to the $36 trillion that we have in the hole at this point.
So we need to just take a look at things, be more strategic.
The two things that are more expensive right now is, and we're paying for Social Security and Medicare.
We're now spending more than we are on the deficit than we are on military defense.
So we've got problems, and we need to really take a look at this.
Otherwise, our children and grandchildren will be taking care of this problem for us.
All right, David Costello, same question.
How would you address the federal budget deficit?
Well, the last time we had a surplus was during the Clinton years.
And so what happened after that, we had a couple of massive, massive tax cuts during George W. Bush's administration and certainly during Mr. Trump's administration.
We need to roll back most of those taxes, quite frankly.
If we do that, we'll start to raise the revenue.
The wealthy in this country have had a tremendous ride, quite frankly, as it relates to taxes.
And also, the economy for them is very good right now.
And actually, I've done all right because I started investing in the market in 1991.
But most Americans haven't.
So what we need to do, again, we need to be smarter with the budget.
We need to be smarter with spending on the tax.
Okay, but what are the specifics?
Again, where would you tax spending or where would you raise taxes?
Where I would raise taxes, I certainly think we need to make the tax, so as it relates to the corporate tax, go from 21 back up to 28.
Also, we need to go back to 40 percent, 39 to 40 percent for those higher income levels for more progressive income tax.
I certainly believe we should do a wealth tax above those who make more than a million dollars a year.
So there are a number of other taxes we could do in terms of Social Security.
I talked about the payroll tax.
At least those, again, eliminate the cap altogether.
Right now it's $168,000.
So those are examples of taxes that were revenue that we could raise and raise a significant amount if we make those changes.
All right, Jason Cherry, same question.
Well, I agree with me.
I was an assistant section chief for 430 employees and a budget of over $100 million.
So I saw plenty of expenditures that were way beyond what a normal business would spend.
So part of the problem is I think the federal government's drunk off of tax money.
And the first thing for an AA is to admit you've got a problem.
So we could raise as much money as possible, but we're still going to misspend it.
So where do we get it?
I pay 34% tax bracket, the highest you can.
Maybe that's me, but I have no shenanigans, and maybe I'm just dumb to be so.
But when you have someone like Jeff Bezos or someone else that are declaring $80,000 in tax and income and they pay less income tax than me, that is an outrage to the upper middle class and the middle class.
We're looking at an elitist that have gone from 8% of the GDP in the 1980s to 30% by some.
All right, I want to jump in and that same question.
We finish with Senator Angus-King.
I had lunch four or five years ago with one of the budget officials, a nonpartisan budget official.
He said, you know, Senator, if we collected all the taxes that people are cheating on, it would cut the deficit in half.
So that's the first step is to go after people who are cheating, the millionaires and billionaires.
This isn't tax avoidance.
This is downright cheating, not even filing.
We started to do that under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Already several billion dollars has been collected under that program.
So that's number one.
Number two, corporations, there are billion-dollar corporations that are paying no taxes because of a series of deductions.
Again, in the Inflation Reduction Act, we passed a law that says an alternative minimum tax for corporations making more than a billion dollars in profits.
So that's one place to go for revenues.
The other thing, what's really driving the federal deficit isn't the Agriculture Department or the Interior Department or the National Parks or even the Defense Department.
What's driving it is health care costs.
And that's where I think we really need to talk again about refocusing Medicare on prevention rather than simply treating.
Instead of doing $50,000 for a broken hip, how about giving people grab bars for their showers so that we can avoid that broken hip and that $50,000 expenditure?
All right, something that was mentioned earlier that is somewhat related, although it is a separate program, is Social Security.
As we all know, there are tens of thousands of people in Maine who rely heavily on Social Security.
The trustees of the system say that if nothing is done, in a decade, it will not be able to meet its obligations.
And there will be a spending or a cut in Social Security of 18 to 20 percent, something like that, if nothing is done.
So the options are raising revenues for Social Security, cutting benefits, or raising the retirement age.
David Costello, how would you address the Social Security problem?
And give me specifics, please.
Well, we need to raise more revenues.
As I said earlier previously, that the easiest thing to do is to eliminate the payroll tax cap.
It's set at $168,000 now, so everyone who earns more than that is taxed in its entirety.
So lower income earners are taxed higher than higher income earners.
If we eliminate that cap, then we'll raise significant revenue.
I also believe that we should also conceivably establish a sovereign wealth fund where we take supplemental money, not money that's dedicated to Social Security, but money that goes into general revenues.
We establish a sovereign wealth fund like the pension programs in many state governments and put much of that money into equities as well as the market, the bond market as well as equities.
I think we can raise some revenue there.
Jason Cherry, how would you deal with the Social Security crisis?
I also would look at raising the payroll taxes from $168,000, but also offering a privatized opportunities for Social Security as well.
I know that Senator King had worked with Senator Cassidy on a privatization.
I think the problem is that after the bank crisis, people don't trust financial centers because they're not held accountable.
I was personally had to investigate a lot of the mortgage crisis, and we need to have that privatization.
The annuities market, the above inflation rate, is actually attainable for many people to put their money into for Social Security.
We just need to make sure that those people that lie to us about retirement go to jail.
Moving on.
Senator King, addressing the Social Security issue.
Well, number one, the key is that you're right.
There's a serious problem that's coming right at us.
It's coming down the track in nine years.
We're talking about mandatory cuts under the law.
That can't be allowed to happen.
So there are all kinds of alternatives.
The taxes that we've been talking about, I worked with a group of about a dozen bipartisan senators.
We talked about this for six months, didn't come to any final conclusions.
But the one idea that was mentioned, and I don't like to call it privatization because I don't think that's what it is, is the creation of a true trust fund for Social Security, which it's never had, that can then be invested just like the Maine State Pension Program, and that income can supplement the value of Social Security.
That can do about 70% of the deficit and get us 40 or 50 years of solvency.
I think that's what we need to talk about.
There's talk about raising the retirement age, although in that discussion it was phased in over something like 35 years.
Nobody who's currently facing retirement would even have to consider that.
But altogether, we've got to face this problem as a whole.
It's a very difficult problem.
Same question, Social Security.
Social Security and Medicare were promised to the people when they paid in.
It should always be there.
The age should not be touched.
I know Senator King has talked about upping the retirement age to 70.
People today have the ability, if they want to, wait until 70 to get Social Security, which, of course, we get a better monthly income if you did wait.
A couple of issues.
I do think that we should raise the wage base past $168,000, $168,000.
To what extent I'm not sure, but definitely raising it would help a lot.
I think that we should take a look at COLA.
I know that was one of the bills that Senator King signed on to that lowered COLA from 3% that was going on for the last four years, so that's 12%.
Remember, inflation was up 20% to now 2.5%.
So it still hasn't kept up with inflation.
And that is an issue with Social Security.
Right now, people today are not getting enough Social Security to equal the inflation that's happening.
We should also increase workforce.
Maintenance down by 4% on the workforce after COVID.
And so if we increase workforce, that would help a lot too.
But we need to take a look at the whole thing because it's a serious issue.
We're promised this money and it should be there for us when we retire.
All right, that's going to end the first segment of our forum.
We're going to take a quick break.
We'll be back with more from the Augusta Civic Center and our four candidates for the U.S. Senate right after this.
Welcome back to our new Center Maine Voice of the Voter Candidate Forum.
We have with us this evening live from Augusta, the four candidates for the United States Senate in Maine.
And we're going to resume our questions.
This time we're going to begin with Independent Jason Cherry.
One of the problems that has come about in Maine in recent years is one that most people had not dealt with before, and that is the worker shortage.
We're in front of an audience of business people.
They know how acute the problem is in many parts of the state.
What, if anything, can the federal government do to address the shortage of workers that is really hurting so many employers?
Well, I work for a law firm that handles labor issues, and it is across the board, across the nation, the labor shortage.
There's also, you know, concerns about immigration.
So if you talk about labor shortage, you talk about immigration.
Immigration, in a sense that we have highly skilled technical people that are here willing to contribute to the economy.
I would be in favor of controlled immigration where the federal government actually plans out the infrastructure.
So many police, so many hospitals, so many schools, so much infrastructure before we start shoving people into cities trying to find jobs.
So I think we can actually streamline the immigration where we find those working skills.
We go overseas, we get those visas and bring those people in.
Also, the second one, of course, is technology.
It's automation.
Do we need someone to do that, you know, that technique or that service?
Can we have someone else do that and fulfill that role?
We all see this at the supermarkets where, you know, it is tough to find a cashier.
But for both of those, our economy will grow with the help of immigration, but it will be a more logical pattern for immigration and not what we have now.
All right, I want to move on and let Senator Angus King answer the same question.
Well, the first thing is that this is absolutely a valid question because every business that comes to my office talks about workforce shortage, whether it's truck drivers, school teachers, nurses, you name it, we're short everywhere.
One way to deal with this is upskilling and training.
I think one of the best things that happened in Maine in recent years is free community college that opens up training and skill building for thousands of people in Maine.
Mr. Cherry is right.
Immigration is another source.
Senator Collins and I, right now, you can come into Maine or you can come into the United States.
You have a claim for asylum, but you can't do anything.
You can't work for six months.
So we've got skilled people who are literally sitting there, unable to work.
They then have to go on public welfare.
Susan and I's bill would reduce that to 30 days so that we've got a ready, willing, and able workforce.
I was in Becky's diner last week on the waterfront in Portland, and Becky told me how fabulous the workers she's getting from these, the work that she's getting from the new Mainers who have come in to keep that restaurant afloat.
And we're not talking about costing Americans jobs.
We're talking about preserving Americans' jobs because without those additional workers, the whole restaurant has to go to three or four days a week.
Demi Kazunis.
I know it firsthand.
My parents were illegal immigrants.
They came here to the United States.
My dad only had an eighth grade education, and we struggled with wage.
So we understand that.
The problem we have today, though, is a workforce shortage of health care providers.
I can tell you in the health care field where we have many offices that don't have enough dental assistants or hygienists.
And housing is a huge issue in the state of Maine.
So that needs to be addressed.
Another thing is...
What are the solutions that you would put forward?
With housing?
With the worker shortage and housing, which could be part of it.
But what are the specific solutions that you would put forward?
Well, for one thing, we have illegals coming to the state.
Why don't we open up and have more legal immigrants come to the United States?
Instead of $1 million per year, let's make it 3 million per year.
These people are ready to come here.
They are being vetted and they're ready to work.
With the asylum seekers, you have a lot of adjudication that has to occur.
And are they supposed to be here?
I mean, we know from facts from Monday night, we know that probably only barely 12% of the people that are coming here legally are true asylum seekers.
And so now you have people that are here that may not be part of that system and can't be here.
It shouldn't be here and may not be able to work.
So we have a huge issue in that area.
I want to give David Costello a shot at this question.
So a couple of things.
I mean, as Jason and Senator King have mentioned, certainly upskilling, upskilling workforce training, we need more federal assistance, more federal resources, as well as apprenticeships.
So I'd add apprenticeships to that list.
In terms of immigration, obviously we've always given priority to high-skilled immigrants.
So we need to fix a broken immigration system.
I think we all agree with that.
That's something we might talk a little more on later.
And as far as housing, obviously we've got a housing shortage in Maine, as well as the cost of housing.
We need to do a lot more to build out our inventory of housing so that we've got places for people to afford to live in, whether they're health care workers or first responders or teachers.
And of course, we can do that again with a lot more federal assistance at the federal level.
I support Senator Warren and Warnock's Housing and Mobility Act, which would pump a significant amount of resources into the federal government's toolkit to help with housing.
And again, with education, it's foundational.
And if we've got good schools, which we've got among the best in the nation, we can always improve by providing more resources for our local jurisdictions and our local school districts.
There seems to be some agreement that clearly one way to address this problem is by repairing what pretty much everyone agrees is a broken immigration system.
So I'm going to ask each of you to just give me one or two concise points.
What can be done to repair the immigration system?
Senator King.
Passed the bipartisan bill that James Lankford and Chris Murphy negotiated last year, strongest immigration border bill in 40 years, endorsed by the Wall Street Journal and the Border Patrol Union.
The bill would have made a huge difference in terms of the problem at the border.
Now, that's not immigration.
There's a whole range of other things.
We were talking earlier just about the talent and talent that we need.
We have a huge river of talent flowing through Maine and through this country of foreign students.
They come to our universities and higher education.
They then have to go home.
We should staple a green card to their diploma.
Keep those talented people here.
Demi Kazunis, same question.
Secure the border.
It should be number one priority.
The bill that you're talking about, Senator, would allow 5,000 people in a day up to seven days or 85,000 per day.
And then I guess at that point, the president could have shut down the border.
Why not shut down the border now for a lot of reasons, including fentanyls coming in?
Number one killer of 18 to 45-year-olds in our country is fentanyl.
It is 50 times more powerful than heroin, and it's killing people.
Second of all, humanitarian.
When I went down to the border, what I saw were women and children that are coming across.
They are abused.
I went to the hospitals.
The Yuma Arizona Regional Hospital is going to hold $28 million because it's treating these poor people coming across that are basically having to pay the cartels and then basically coming in here and being in servitude to them.
David Costello.
That's a humongous problem.
David Costello.
Like Senator King, I think what's going to happen, you'll see Senator Murphy and Senator Langford's bill come up again.
I'd likely support that, although I prefer the Gang of Eight bill from 2013, which was more comprehensive, had $40 billion for border security, but also had a lot of in there as it relates to the DREAMers, those who are already in the United States, who are paying taxes, who want to become citizens.
So this gets back to legalizing a lot of people who are here who are paying taxes.
So I would want a more comprehensive bill than the one that Senators referred to.
Jason Cherry.
I read through the bill that Senator King has mentioned, and it does have some loopholes.
I think what jaundices or shadows the immigration here of visas and highly technical people that every company would love to have in their roster versus a socioeconomic problem, not a socioeconomic problem, where the question is asked, how many poor people can we put into a city and not have the businesses that profit from it contribute.
So I would increase the security at the border because that gives the whole kit and caboodle a bad name.
We need to help those people that are in deplorable conditions.
But at a certain point, those businesses that are profiting from mass immigration need to add more to the infrastructure.
All right, I want to jump in and change the topic to something that is on the minds of so many people in this state every single week, and that is child care, which is either exorbitantly expensive, so they can't afford it, or it's simply not even available, so they don't have any place to take their children.
This is not an easy issue necessarily for the federal government to address, but Demi Kazunis, what specific proposals would you have if you were in the U.S. Senate to address the problem of child care?
As a mother myself, I had to deal with it.
For my oldest child, for a while I had an older lady that was a nanny, and for my son, which I thought was a great idea, is we had visiting nurses services that were working in conjunction with the high schools.
And my son went to this daycare, and it was perfect.
Some of the young teenagers at the high school were learning how to be child care providers.
There were a couple of girls that were there.
They were actually pregnant and were involved with child care.
And it was a great partnership.
I can tell you my three-year-old loved going to that child care.
So that's one partnership.
I think you can do a little bit of a partnership with private and public type of facilities to try to fix this problem.
Because here's the thing.
For women to work today, they have to feel safe and make sure that their children are in a good situation so that they can be comfortable at work.
So it is a humongous problem.
David Costello.
Again, what the federal government can do is provide more resources, more funding to state and local jurisdictions.
And what I support is universal pre-K and aftercare.
And much of that could take place in schools.
Obviously, we'd have to provide a lot more resources in schools.
I worked out of the mayor's office in Baltimore City.
We tried to establish community schools where you've got wraparound services as well as child care.
And I think that's the most cost-effective from an economic standpoint.
Sending a kid to daycare is like sending them to college.
So we've got to do a much better job, and the federal government's tools are really about resources and applying them nationally, would be the most cost-effective.
I'd also do a paid family and medical leave program out of the federal government as well, provide those kind of resources.
Jason Cherry, addressing child care again through the federal government.
Through the federal government, first of all, we're definitely going to have to get the tax basis fair and collecting taxes before anything.
So the Congressional Budget Office will need to look at these bills, and this bill is a good one.
You look at any industrialized nation, they look to all genders to man the economy or staff the economy.
So we need for our counterparts, the people that stay at home, to be able to work and to be able to protect their children.
So I do approve of universal pre-K and after school because if we have a labor force, our best person, our best partner in that is going to need child care.
And one of the parents is going to need to provide that.
Senator King, I want to let you take this question.
Number one, I'm glad you asked it because it's one of the number one things I hear when I'm out in the community.
And one thing we haven't touched on is staff.
I have a friend who lost their child care slot for their little boy because the child care center couldn't hire enough staff.
So we need to figure out how to surge people into certain professions that we desperately need.
Child care is one, mental health is one, education is another.
The other piece is I believe child care is going to have to become a kind of joint responsibility of the private sector and the public sector.
And it'll be like health insurance.
Our companies offer health insurance as a benefit for their workers.
A lot of companies in Maine are now offering child care and developing child care centers as part of the perks, if you will, of working for that company.
I do think there's a responsibility for the federal government to assist in that.
And one thing, the way to think about this is if you enable someone's children to be safe in child care, they go to work, then they're paying taxes.
So there's an income thing, an income piece that comes from having good child care.
Let's turn to the issue of abortion.
I'm going to ask each of you if you could state clearly and concisely whether you think there should be any changes in federal law, federal law, regarding abortion.
David Costello.
Yes, I think we should immediately codify Roe v. Wade.
And I know the bill, there was a bill to do that.
It was stopped by a filibuster.
And actually, Senator King did not support removing the filibuster for that particular vote.
I think that's the first thing we should do.
We should also provide contraceptive care.
We should provide resources for contraceptive care.
Whether we require that of a public insurer or a private insurer, I think that's important.
Also, provide resources for women's health organizations like Planned Parenthood.
That's something the federal government needs to get more involved in.
Yep, go ahead.
Jason Cherry, again, clearly and concisely, whether there should be any changes in federal law regarding abortion.
The federal government should provide interstate measures.
It's what they were created to.
And they were created just as the U.S. Constitution.
As an attorney, the U.S. Constitution represents the minimum level of human rights, and then states can expand upon it.
So the federal government, after hearing open, transparent information from scientists, when is the fetus viable?
When does the fetus feel pain?
When is the fetus have, you know, to the point where we can say as a nation, is it 15 weeks that it's legal?
Or if it's 24 weeks, is it legal?
So the federal government sets the mandatory and allows states and individual people to make that choice themselves.
All right.
Senator King?
Simple answer.
Codify Roe versus Wade.
Somebody's constitutional rights, a woman's rights to have her control of her reproductive future should not rest upon her zip code.
And there's no room in a doctor's office for the patient, the doctor, and the government.
This should be a federal right, universally, and that would save lives.
And we can restore the status quo as it was for over 50 years before that disastrous Dobbs decision.
Demi Kazunis.
Yeah, as a woman who has gone through infertility and had procedures and was assaulted in college and didn't even tell my parents about that, it's a difficult decision.
Roe v. Wade does allow for abortion early on, and at the same time, it says that in later terms, when the fetus is viable, that it protects unless in certain situations, say the life of the mother, the termination of the pregnancy.
And so in that aspect, I think Jason is probably correct on that.
We need to look at it from both sides.
But I do believe in pro-choice, and I do believe that I think Roe v. Wade covers that, allowing the states to come in and make decisions later on in the pregnancy.
Another issue that is not one that the federal government has all that active a role in, although it certainly does have a role in, is housing.
And a lot of people in Maine right now simply cannot afford a house.
They can't buy their first house.
They can't move up.
A lot of places are just too pricey.
Jason Cherry, again, asking for specifics.
What, if anything, can the federal government do to address the housing crunch?
I think the federal government can come up with a template for regulations because there's a number of state regulations I've heard from builders where there's just so many regulations to the point that they either get out of the business or it holds up construction.
So we need to make sure that we have rational, reasonable, fact-supported regulations that protect the consumer but also allow for businesses to grow.
So we're missing somewhere from 85 to 89,000 houses.
All right, Angus King, housing.
The first thing I want to do is quote my friend, my old friend Lori LaChance, who once said, there's not a silver bullet, but there may be silver buckshot.
And what I mean by that is there's no single solution.
There are a lot of things we have to work on.
I agree.
Regulations, outdated building codes are adding to the cost of, and zoning codes are adding to the cost of housing.
But we also need to talk about the underlying cost of building a house.
We need to be thinking more creatively about how to build a house more cheaply.
There's a company in Oxford that is building houses in panels.
They're being shipped to the site, saving a lot of time and a lot of money.
The University of Maine even 3D printed a house.
And we're going to be having to think about that.
Finally, I'm involved, as I said, silver buckshot in something like 12 different bills to incentivize renovations, new housing, particularly in rural areas.
There's all kinds of solutions, but we have to concentrate on many at once.
Demi Kazunis.
Yeah, it's a huge problem.
Housing costs are up 40% from pre-COVID.
And we have people that want to buy homes.
We had a lot of out-of-statists come up to Maine and wanted a home.
And of course, we have also undocumented that are coming in and taking up some of the housing.
I agree, regulations are difficult.
I went to, and I don't know if it was the same place you went to, Senator, but I went to KBS Homes, which they build homes for $50,000.
Here's the problem.
The $50,000, you have to put the slab, and then, of course, you connect that modular home to the electrical and the sewer system.
You have to be licensed to do that.
But if you had a piece of property and you said, you know what, I'm going to try to build myself a home, but I'm not licensed to do so, you can.
So we have too much regulation that prevents things from moving along, and we need to look at that.
Let that be the last word, David Costello, or you can wrap us up on this topic.
A couple of things.
I mean, the federal government, again, has tax credits.
They have affordable tax credits, historic tax credits.
We can certainly, as I said, support Senator Warnock and Senator Warren's bill, the Housing Mobility Act, which would provide a lot more resources for a variety of federal programs.
I certainly agree with the Senator and Jason and actually Debbie as it relates to regulation, but much of that is at the local level.
But the federal government can provide incentives to local jurisdictions as well to have the adequate zoning so you've got the sort of the infill development that you want in Maine.
And certainly as it becomes, as it relates to manufacturing and job training for people who build houses, the trades, putting more money there as well.
All of that can be very helpful.
We have more to talk about.
We're going to take another commercial break.
We'll be back with more of our candidate forum from here in Augusta.
Our voice of the voter forum will continue right after this.
We are back in Augusta for our new Center Maine Voice of the Voter candidate forum.
We're talking to the four candidates who are running for the United States Senate in Maine.
We've got one more segment where we're going to do questions and answers, then we'll get to their closing statements.
I want to touch on what is happening in Ukraine.
There are people who say that the United States and allies in Europe and in other parts of the world are providing enough aid to Ukraine for a stalemate, but not enough for a victory.
My question is, should the United States be doing more to help Ukraine?
Jason Cherry.
Yes.
Obviously, as an FBI agent, I have classified information about what goes on behind the curtain, but with Putin, you're dealing with a ruthless Hitler.
I am not going to mince words with him.
I was actually taught Russian by Ukrainians, and they're human beings.
They're the closest to family that the Russians have, and he's sending waves after waves of his own people in shields of meat to kill them, to take their children, to take their property.
He must be stopped.
All right.
We're going to have limited time in this last segment, so I'm sorry, I've got to keep things moving.
Angus King.
Well, I agree.
I mean, supporting Ukraine is one of our highest priorities because if Putin takes Ukraine, he's not going to stop there.
And if you don't believe me, ask the Finns or the Swedes who joined NATO after 75 years because they know Putin and they know Russia.
So I think it's critical that we continue to provide this support.
Some people feel that we're doing all the work and putting in all the money.
Actually, in terms of percentage of the economy, we're something like 14th.
Estonia is putting more of their economy into supporting Ukraine than we are.
So it's a joint effort of the European countries and us.
And in answer to your specific question, I think the decision as to how much aid and how to provide it and what weapons should be should depend on conditions on the ground.
But I think we should enable Ukraine to defend itself and to expel the invader, not by American troops, but by American weapons and wherewithal.
Demi Kazunis.
Well, I'm the only veteran here, and I can tell you I was served during the Cold War from 81 to 84.
When Russia wanted to come through the Folger Gap, we had 20 or 50,000 troops in West Germany.
And when Reagan said don't, they didn't.
Here, we said don't, and they did, because we didn't go ahead and let Putin know not to do that.
We've given $300 billion with no transparency and no plan to end this.
Nobody who's a veteran likes a war that doesn't end.
Finally, I will say Senator King has at least nine different defense contractors that are given him money.
I worry that we're giving a lot of our weaponry to Ukraine.
And then, yeah, we are building a lot of weaponry here to restock our weapons, but we're also enriching a lot of the war machine that's going on in the United States.
David Costello.
I think we all agree here.
Bottom line, though, is we haven't done enough.
And we've been slow.
The Republican Congress actually slowed up aid for over six months, which cost a lot of lives in Ukraine.
I certainly think we need to unleash Ukraine, allow them to use those OTACMs and some of the cruise missiles, the stealth cruise missiles, to attack some of those bases that the Russians are using.
So I would say we need to do more, if anything.
And I certainly agree that with, well, one of the other things, I certainly agree with what Senator King said.
If you're in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, that's the next stop.
If it's not, if Ukraine today, the Balkans, the Baltics next.
Election Day is Tuesday.
We may, may, for the third time in 24 years, end up with an election in which the candidate who gets the most votes in the popular vote does not assume the presidency, loses the popular vote, wins the vote in the Electoral College.
That may happen, again, for the third time in our last eight presidential elections.
Senator King, do you think it's time to scrap the Electoral College?
Yes.
It's a gun pointed at the head of democracy.
I went back and read the Federalists where Hamilton justifies the Electoral College.
It's never worked the way it was designed.
It was supposed to be a kind of council of elders that would then pick the best person as president.
It immediately turned into much more of a political kind of process.
And the fact that, as you say, we potentially could have a third time in this century where the person who didn't get the most votes ends up president.
That doesn't correspond with what any of us learned in kindergarten.
The most votes wins.
And it has the process now.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
We're watching this election and nobody's paying attention to Maine or California or New York.
All the attention is to six or seven states.
The Electoral College should be abolished, but short of that, we did amend the Electoral Count Act to clean up some of the problems there that gave us January 6th.
All right, Demi Kazunis, should the Electoral College be scrapped?
Well, if that's the case, then I guess us Mainers don't decide who's going to be president.
We don't have too much say.
New York and California will make all the decisions for us.
And then the Rust Belts, it was all there done so that the Rust Belt had a say, because they didn't have, they had a lot of farmland, but they didn't have a lot of population.
I think it was meant to be the way it is.
I think it was the Electoral College vote is meant to allow some voice in these states that do so much for us that don't have the population.
Absolutely not.
David Costello?
We should eliminate the Electoral College.
It's obscenely undemocratic for the person who gets the most votes in a representative democracy to actually lose.
We should go to a popular, direct popular vote with ranked choice voting when you have more than two or three candidates, when more than two candidates.
The other thing, take it, check my reform agenda at CostelloForsenate.com because there are a lot of other reforms we need to undertake to really make our government more accountable and democratic.
Jason Cherry.
I would not get rid of the Electoral College unless there was some sort of backup that protected small and medium-sized states.
So I was a former legal instructor.
I read James Madison's notes.
I taught the new agents constitutional criminal law.
The Electoral College was meant to balance the powers between small and medium states and other populations.
And until that balance of power changes, I agree with Demi and I respectfully disagree with David and Senator King because we need that as Mainors.
That is our little bit of power that we have inherited from this Constitution.
So I would not.
We have time for one more topic.
I'm going to have to ask you to keep your answers very succinct, about 30 seconds.
Should there be term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices?
Demi Kazunis.
As soon as there's term limits for Senate and House, then we could go ahead and talk about the Supreme Court.
But we don't have term limits for anybody.
So at this point, we need to go ahead and look at the whole system.
Remember, they were more concerned when they did the Constitution how young you could be to go into elected office, not how old.
Nobody was living to be 78 and 80 years old.
We are now, and so things have changed.
David Costello?
Absolutely.
We should have 20 to 24-year term limits on all federal judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, even legislators.
I think if you get 20 to 24 years, that's enough to get your work done.
We need the churn in government.
I'd also have age retirement requirements for justices as well of 80.
Jason Cherry, very briefly.
Across the board, all three branches, 75 years old.
We need a meritocracy and we need term limits.
However, the way the committees are built, you want to keep your candidate alive as long as possible.
We need to change that as well, seniority on committees.
Angus King.
I think the difference between the legislative branch and the presidency and the courts is the courts are unelected.
They're appointed.
And I think there should be term limits, some reasonable term.
Now, this would require a constitutional amendment because the Constitution says they serve on good behavior essentially for life.
But I do believe that there should be some limit on the length of time a Supreme Court justice can serve.
In terms of members of Congress, we have term limits.
They're imposed by the people who vote every four years.
All right.
That brings us to the end of our questions and answers.
Time now for closing statements.
The agreement is that the candidates and the candidates all knew about this.
We're going to have one-minute closing statements.
We drew names out of a hat to determine the order in which they would proceed.
And going first, Democrat David Costello.
Like many of me, I believe Congress is broken.
And to fix it and to actually deal with our most critical issues like climate change and affordable housing and health care, we need to do a lot more than simply change whom we elect every two to six years.
We need to substantially reform our governing practices and institutions.
And we need to eliminate the excessive and corrupting influence that money, wealth, and disinformation have over our politics and government.
I appreciate the service of Senator King.
However, I believe he's been too reticent to support the kind of reforms that are needed to truly fix Washington.
And I don't believe he'll be any more than overly cautious as he's been these last two terms.
The bottom line is the bottom line in Washington is what's going on in Washington now is not working.
If you agree, I would encourage you to take a look at, again, my reform agenda at CostelloForsenate.com and mark me as your first choice on Maine's ranked choice ballot.
Thank you.
Jason Sherry, the independent candidate, one of the two independent candidates in the race, you have the floor.
As someone that's not running for a major party or a well-known name like Senator King, obviously you have questions about why I'm here and what my background and qualifications are.
I am an attorney with a background in economics and for a political position such as a senator, you want a lawmaker to be a law understander.
You want someone to understand economics.
Many people here are from the business community.
You see this government.
It does not run well.
I don't think anyone up here is going to agree.
We need a meritocracy.
In your wisdom, you have enacted the ranked choice voting, which attracts customers.
As you know, personnel, human resources, if you can't bring in talent to serve you, then you're not going to get that.
And you see some of the people that are being sent to D.C., some are just irrational.
Others have no competency whatsoever.
Half of the senators and people in Congress don't even have a law degree.
They don't know about vagueness.
They can't read case law.
You ask them a question about what they can legislate and they cannot.
So.
All right, thank you.
Angus King.
Rob, when I first came to Maine, my first job was with Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Skowhegan.
I suddenly realized after being there for a short period that the people that came into my office for my help had problems that were this big.
Their legal problem was this big.
I could deal with the legal problem, but I couldn't deal with the broader problems of education, health care, all of those things that made life so difficult, or the fact that it was just so hard for them to make it one day to the next.
I suddenly had a realization just a few years ago that the job I have now enables me to deal with that whole range of problems and a lot more.
And what I want to be able to continue to do is to work on those problems that make Maine people's lives better, day by day by day.
I want to continue to work on those problems.
And if I'm fortunate enough to be returned, I will do that.
And I'm ready to get after the problems of the people of Maine.
And Demi Kizunis, your closing statement, please.
So tonight you get a chance to hear from all of us.
Senator King says he's bipartisan and he is a problem solver, but he votes 98.5% of the time with one party.
That's not bipartisanship.
Also, we have problems in the state of Maine.
Our problems haven't been solved.
We have inflation, immigration, cost of living, energy cost, and industries that are struggling like our fisheries and the lobsters.
As a veteran, a born Mainer, daughter of legal immigrants, health care provider, educator, college-level, and a mom, I want to bring common sense back to Washington, D.C. My name is Demi Kazunis.
I humbly ask for your vote to bring sensibility, true bipartisanship, and new ideas, fresh ideas to Washington, D.C.
And I thank you.
You all did a superb job in staying within the time limits for your closing statement, which leaves us with about an extra minute.
So I'm just going to ask you a question that you can answer in two or three words, probably.
And I'll go down the row.
Jason Cherry, who's your political hero?
That would be Thomas Jefferson.
David Costello.
Mine is Pauline Palatir-Balageron, my grandmother.
Demi Kazunis?
Ronald Reagan.
Angus King.
Abraham Lincoln said every political thought he ever had came from the Declaration of Independence.
Every political thought I ever had came from Abraham Lincoln.
All right.
I think a round of applause is in order.
Our thanks to the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, our partner this evening in this Voice of the Voter Candidate Forum.
Our thanks to the four candidates who have been here on the stage with us answering questions.
Our thanks to you at home for watching and being engaged in this campaign.
If you would like to see the other candidate forms that we had, first and second congressional districts, you can find those on our News Center Maine website or app or on our streaming service, News Center Maine Plus.
That's going to do it for this evening.
Thank you for watching.
Have a good evening.
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