CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Familiar themes from the campaign surfaced when U.S. Senate candidates Shelley Moore Capito and Natalie Tennant met Tuesday night for their only head-to-head debate.
Capito, the Republican 2nd District Congresswoman, said many policies of President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would continue to harm West Virginia if Tennant is elected.
“This race is about West Virginia’s future,” Capito said. “Whether we’re going to continue to have Washington pick winners and losers, of which we’re losers, or are we going to elect United States senators that are going to fight for us.”
Tennant, the Democrat Secretary of State, contended she valued fighting for West Virginia over political connections with the current administration.
“This race is about West Virginia, not Obama, not Harry Reid. They are not on the ballot,” she said. “I am on the ballot and Congresswoman Capito is running against me.”
Another topic was Tennant’s handling of the ballot controversy involving the House of Delegates’ 35th District race in Kanawha County. After Republican candidate Suzette Raines dropped out. Tennant said the decision to not fill the ballot with a fourth GOP candidate was made by the bipartisan State Election Commission based.
“We looked at the evidence that was out before us, we studied it, we questioned, we debated, we asked questions to those who chose to come to the SEC meeting and we made a decision based on what we had,” she said. “The Supreme Court said that we did not get it right.”
After the state Supreme Court voted 5-0 that the commission should have allowed Republicans to fill the open ballot spot, the Secretary of State’s Office announced it would pay for the reprinting of the 55,000 ballots through Supreme Court Printing.
Capito was critical of Tennant’s leadership in the incident: “The Supreme Court basically told the Secretary of State, who’s the chief elections officer of the state, that she got it wrong, blatantly wrong and it was obviously for political reasons. So now she’s saying that the ballots are being reprinted and she’s going to absorb the cost. Where does she get her budget? That’s the taxpayers.”
Tennant supported her recent campaign ad alleging ethical misconduct by the congresswoman. The ad claims that Capito, as a member of the Financial Services Committee, personally benefited during the financial crisis by providing her husband with insider information.
“Congress has access to information that regular West Virginians don’t have access to,” Tennant said. “The fact is that during the financial crisis, West Virginians were losing their retirement, they were losing their savings and their homes and Congresswoman Capito was making money.”
With her opponent trailing in the polls, Capito dismissed the critique as a desperation play.
“I’ve built 18 years of trust with West Virginians,” she said. “They know me. They know my family.”
The election is Nov. 4.
Specific excerpts from the 60-minute debate at the Clay Center:
Where Candidates Stand on the Issues
Immigration
Do you support any sort of pathway to citizenship for people who are in this country illegally?
Capito: “I do not support amnesty, plain and simple. I believe that it is incumbent upon us to secure our borders before we move forward into any other comprehensive immigration plan.”
Tennant: “We need to address this piece of (immigration reform) legislation that was bipartisan and worked on so hard by so many senators but first off, we have to secure the borders. We must secure the borders. We must make those who are in this country (illegally) get to the back of the line, learn English and pay taxes.”
The Affordable Care Act
Capito: “What I would vote for is to repeal and replace. I’ve voted for that 50 times but I also recognize that the ACA has some good things about it…So we need to keep what’s good and replace it with what will work.”
Tennant: “I will never go back to the days when insurance companies can deny insurance for someone with a pre-existing condition.”
Social Security
What measures do you support to making social security solvent again?
Capito: “I do believe we should bust the [payroll] cap on the social security taxes and I’d be willing to take it above the $200,000 number.”
Tennant: “I am supportive of raising the (payroll) cap to $240,000. Not quite that far, yet, then we’ll work on a number. Another way that we can keep social security solvent is, quite simply, raise minimum wage. If you have more people getting paid, they’re going to pay into social security more.”
Same-Sex marriage in West Virginia
Do you support or oppose same-sex marriage and does what’s happened in the courts change your opinion at all?
Capito: “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I have a long history of that dating back to when I was in the West Virginia legislature but I believe the decision that’s been made is basically saying that the states will make their own decisions and I will abide by what the state of West Virginia decides in this matter.”
Tennant: “I think that under the law that people should be treated equally and fairly. Now does a church go against its doctrine? No, not at all. A church should not go against its doctrine and it should not be forced to, but I think that we as West Virginians know about fairness and we know about freedom. Mountaineers are always free.”
Climate Change
A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate concluded, according to the New York Times, that ice caps are melting, water supplies are coming under stress, heatwaves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying. Do you believe these scientists are simply wrong? And if they’re not wrong, if they’re correct, don’t we have an obligation to do something about it?
Capito: “I don’t necessarily think the climate is changing, no. I think we have to find a balance and find a way to address this without hurting the heartland of this country without hurting West Virginians and West Virginian families.”
Tennant: “I know that there is a consensus and I don’t disagrees with them. At the same time, I don’t think that we need to chose between clean air and good paying jobs because I know that we have the technology that can meet the demands.”