The only common ground between Congressman Derek Kilmer and challenger Marty McClendon at Friday afternoon’s congressional forum appeared to be their shared belief that it should be up to those in Grays Harbor County’s citizens as to whether they accept oil trains in the community.
Responding to a question on the oil export facilities proposed at the Port of Grays Harbor and if they are a “good fit” for the Harbor, Kilmer replied, “That’s up to Grays Harbor.”
McClendon said the same, “I’d agree, it’s up to Grays Harbor.”
Kilmer, running as a Democrat, added, “Do we want to see continued dependence on fossil fuels? And I think not just domestically, but around the world, we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Second, there’s the question of rail safety and I think there’s an appropriate role, regardless of what happens with this, to ensure we’re protecting public safety. Rail cars need to be safe. Speeds need to be slow enough so the local community is protected. There needs to be adequate funding for rail crossings. And, third, there is a permitting process underway and there’s a question of an elected official’s role in that permitting process.”
McClendon, running as a Republican, added, “When we live in our country, energy is one of our biggest options to grow the country. … By delivering oil, that’s where jobs come from and that’s got to be part of the mix going forward if we want people working in good-paying jobs. The average person in those areas getting a job are making $90,000 a year.”
The forum hosted by the Grays Harbor League of Women Voters drew more than 50 people. By one estimate, it’s the first time in 29 years that a forum featuring the incumbent and a challenger was held on the Harbor.
There were plenty of questions written on index cards — but only six questions were chosen for the forum, where both candidates had two minutes to give opening statements and one minute each to reply to the questions.
Not including the time spent flipping a coin to determine who will speak first, the event lasted just 22 minutes, according to an audio recording of the event. Many at the event expected it to last longer. Congressman Kilmer said he had set aside an hour for just the debate, and longer to meet the voters after the fact.
“It didn’t go the way I thought it would,” organizer Shannon Vandenbush said, adding they shouldn’t have limited the questions to just six and should have just kept going for the whole hour.
At least once during the debate, Kilmer offered for McClendon to take another minute to finish an answer on immigration issues.
McClendon declined.
But on the question of increasing funding to enforce the Americans with Disabilities act, McClendon spent 18 seconds of his minute addressing the question, using the rest of his time to talk more about immigration and other issues.
“Like many things with the government, there are a lot of things that we can look at that are less important,” McClendon said. “I do support the Americans with Disabilities Act and funding it properly and securely as much as needed. However, we need to be wise with our budget to make sure we are being as efficient as possible with all we have.”
“The Americans with Disabilities Act is a critical law that makes sure that people with disabilities are treated fairly and they don’t face undue barriers,” Kilmer said. “I support the Americans with Disabilities Act and I support providing adequate funding with the Justice Department to make sure those with disabilities, who might be facing any sort of discrimination or barriers, are able to seek proper recourse.”
Kilmer touted his experience in economic development, noting he doesn’t want the region’s “top export to be its young people.” Kilmer is a proponent of the Wild Olympics federal legislation to add more protections to the forests, but he noted he’s also advocating to increase timber harvests in federal forests, as well.
“We’ve got to get people back to work but we also need to get this Congress working again, too,” Kilmer said. “We’ve had way too much partisanship, but not enough progress.”
He noted he was working with Grays Harbor Community Hospital and its new public hospital district “on reimbursement issues.”
“I want the hospital to keep its lights on,” he said.
McClendon described himself as a “Realtor, a pastor, a husband, a dad and your Republican candidate for Congress.”
McClendon said he is a strict believer in the U.S. Constitution and accused Kilmer of voting against the Constitution an alleged “80 percent of the time.”
“I will defend and protect the Constitution of our rights,” he said.
He noted that government’s responsibility “is to keep us safe from enemies,” and said that Kilmer had voted against protecting the borders.
“Are we safer today than we were before? No,” McClendon said.
“In fact, the world around us has gotten far more dangerous. The threat of ISIS, Al Qaeda and Ebola are all over the news. Our borders aren’t safe and the government is doing nothing about it.”
On whether women should receive equal pay and positions on voter rights, McClendon replied, reading from notes he had prepared prior to the event, “This war on women thing is a political pose and it’s getting stale. If we want equal pay, if we want better health care and benefits, then we need to attract more private sector jobs in the 6th District. Private sector jobs, not government. … I do believe we need more jobs that increases pay for everybody.”
Kilmer, who never used notes during the forum, noted that McClendon never answered the question.
“I support equal pay for women,” Kilmer said. “I’m a sponsor of the Pay Check Fairness Act and, as a dad of two little girls, I think it’s wrong that in our country that women get paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the exact same job that men do. I support a very simple principle. Equal pay for equal work,” Kilmer said. He went on to address the other part of the question, which addressed voter rights.
“We know that racism exists in our country and that in the last decade, a town in Mississippi canceled an election rather than have an African American majority on their city council and the Supreme Court recently overturned part of the Voting Rights Act and I’ve joined with Republicans and Democrats to reverse that, to make sure that the ballot box is open and available to every American to exercise their constitutional rights.”
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