 Testing, mic check test, one two, mic check, test one two. Mic check, test one two. Mic check, test one two, mic check. Mic check, test one two, mic check, test one two. Mic check, test one two. Mic check, test one two. Yeah, I hear that sir, thank you. Yes, we're going to work on that. Thank you. Mic check, test. mic check test testing one two mic check test one two mic check test mic check test one two mic check test one two mic check testing one two mic check we're gonna have we were having a technical difficulty so we're adding these two mics so we need like two more minutes is that okay thank you and so i just wanted to say testing one two mic check test we'll bring the just mute the the other mics testing one two and hard work in public service they really do have financial resistance and interest at heart they are here today to make sure things hold your vote and to talk about some of the working issues there are a lot of interest in the sanitary community and ART as well i know that every one of you that is registered the vote but you may know some folks that are not and the vote that you wouldn't be minding on it is a wish to go through much time right they need to register by February 1 and that's when so they pass the process the fourth only move further just along between two members of the ART staff are associate program director Lisa O'Neill here and is very scientist and they are working tirelessly if you're a family planner and you're not writing off as a process group to make this community a much stronger community and not only to seniors but for every member they are also drawn by a fairly new timeline for our staff we also have several other state ART staff and national ART staff for a lot of time you can see we only have a couple of wonderful volunteers to enter the audience would you please stand in the room following our debate this morning we invite you to stay and join and please enjoy a complimentary lunch provided by ARB Texas so let's get started by introducing you to our moderator who will explain the rules of the debate and introduce the candidates Sara Lucero is a native san antonian and any award-winning journalist who now anchors K&S TV eyewitness news at six and ten she has graced our living rooms for years with her intelligence warmth and ability to deliver the news in a way that touches all of us Sara was raised in a bilingual English and Spanish household and grew up with the love for languages she graduated from Robert and Lee high school and earned her BA in English communications from st. Mary's university. Sara is an experienced marathon runner that's how she keeps that great shape and an avid cyclist I fully concur with her co-anchor K&S TV Jeff Brady who said of her Sara is lovely she's talented she is the epitome of an established accomplished newswoman please help me welcome Sara thank you so much for that very sweet very kind introduction I'm very happy to be here I'm excited to be moderating this debate so I'm going to go over some of the rules that we're going to be following today and taking care of some of the house issues letting y'all know that okay first of all you receive some index cards when you walked in to the building and you are asked if you would like to write your questions to the candidates on those index cards and you can write them in English or Spanish and we can translate them for you so after the candidates opening statements please raise your hands with those index cards and somebody's going to come around and collect them from you if they haven't already one more thing also we ask that if you please be respectful of both of the candidates and that's going to mean no booing or shouting during the debate and if you have signs or campaign literature to please keep that down don't be waving that around so that they can concentrate on what they want to answer with respect to the questions and one last thing we would ask that everybody please don't forget to silence your cell phones okay so if we had asked the candidates if they want to make their way up to the stage as I tell you all what's going to happen here what I have in my hand is a coin and the order of the opening and closing statements is going to be determined by the coin toss occurring right now so I'm going to show the candidates this coin right here as you all can see there is a head and there's the tails on that one so we will toss it and let me see the candidate that calls the coin toss will choose the order of the opening statements so I guess I will toss it and somebody somebody chooses heads or tails okay all right here it goes heads okay it is tails so the other candidate let me see the candidate calls the coin toss will choose the order of the opening statement so you choose the order of the opening statements okay mr martinez fisher will go second all right and senator hosam and it is will go first and now the other candidate will choose the order of the closing statements at the last at the end of the debate okay okay uh thank you gentlemen if you would pick a podium um each candidate is going to be given two minutes for their opening statements and two minutes for their closing statements well we will start that momentarily the candidate that makes the second opening statement is going to get the first question and subsequently the questions are going to alternate between the two candidates the candidate that starts the question is going to have 90 seconds to respond the other candidate is going to have 30 seconds for a rebuttal to that response and candidates are going to have a 10 second alert actually 15 seconds right 15 second alert with that yellow card before their time is up candidates going over time will receive one verbal warning from our from the from me and after the verbal warning uh i'm going to have to start deducting time there's the bell is going to work too deducting time from the candidates time to answer or rebut the next question that they've got coming up for them our timekeeper today is pete jeffreys he's sitting there at the center of the stage and as he mentioned he waved the yellow card is the 15 second warning the red card means time is up the bell means stop now okay so with that we will begin our debate this morning and we want to thank everybody for being here we're going to start with some questions that we have been formulating with the help of the committee on the aarp questions that are important to our audience and what people want to know about and want to know what the candidates would do in these situations so the first question will go to representative martinez fisher correct after opening after the opening statement so let's go ahead and start with the opening statements so good morning everyone buenos dias a todos oyes escucha can you hear me in the back we put the microphone on guys okay i think it's on can you hear me back there can you talk a little bit closer to it can you hear me now there you go okay you've got to eat almost eat the microphone yeah i gotta eat it all right buenos dias good morning everyone uh yo me llamo josé menendez i'm josé menendez and uh you know i know that in san antonio many of us have a similar story when el primer dia de la escuela i did not know what the teacher was saying or the students were saying because my parents came here looking for a better life and so my sister and i only spoke spanish at home and so you you make your way through school and you get to high school and you know that when your parents are working six and seven days a week that you have to uh make good grades if you want to get a good education and so it's because of that education that i stand before you but i would not have had that education without the example el ejemplo de mi mamá y mi papá and some of you may remember a record shop on houston street next to the el teatro a la meda little record shop that only sold spanish music and that's where my mom would spend six and seven days a week and my sister and i would go after school many times and so um you know whether it's downtown san antonio or whether it's cast la calle castroville between san joaquin and eduardo that's where my dad was the family business uh we know san antonio porque pues aquí se damos toda la vida and this is where our heart is and this is why every day when i go to austin and i'm in austin and we're talking about things that we have to work on whether it's the prices of prescription drugs and i can tell you that my dad when he started suffering from hypertension and diabetes que me enseñaba las píldoras mira mi joven sabale 10 dólares hoy me siento bien y no me la tomo and i have to tell him no papa you feel good because you took the pill yesterday and you have to take it today so you'll feel good tomorrow so los temas the that's a warning the yellow los temas the issues that are important to you are issues that we have lived whether it's emigración whether it's the price of prescription medications whether it's the fact that our drainage isn't getting done we know those issues thank you when as he has good morning everybody i'm tre martín is fisher i love coming to the theater i'm a little nervous because every time i've come here i've never been on the stage i've come to see my wife when she danced flamenco and folclorico so being on the stage makes you a little nervous i hope they don't play any music but i love the west side i love the story of the west side and it's the story in the spirit of the west side that inspires my run for the state senate many you know that i grew up working at a family restaurant the age of nine the chili bowl at ferdicksburg in five points if you ate there i washed your dishes and in that restaurant you learn a lot about life my mother ran the cash register my brother was the cook my sisters waited the tables my parents paid fair wages for good work we received our healthcare because of that restaurant and my parents told us that our only choice to do better in life is to succeed in schools and no matter how hard they worked and how many days they told us that out of five children i'm the fourth in my family but only the second to graduate from high school and when i graduated from college out of a family of five i was the first education is important to me it has saved my life it has changed my life healthcare was important to me i know that now caring for a 77 year old mother with parkinson's disease with dementia who needs long-term care who needs primary care the issues of the arp are not just words on paper to me i live those issues day in and day out and despite the fact that my wife and i are lawyers despite the fact that we have good jobs i know how hard it is to keep up with the daily lives of older people as they get older and how they want to number one age and dignity and number two be cared for by their loved ones the only way we do that is that we have a state that respects and cares for our older population and that's why i want to be in the senate all right thank you to both of you gentlemen for your opening remarks and now we will begin with our very first question from the aar committee that put these questions together nearly 5.5 million residents in texas today don't have a way to save for retirement at work and knowing that 15 employees are 15 times more likely to save for retirement if they can save at work out of the regular paycheck what can you commit to do to reverse the trend of under-saving for retirement above and beyond education efforts well there are two things number one i think for those of us that are in public employment those that receive a public pension or an opportunity for a public pension you should know that we need to keep and protect that pension many of you know that the new chairman of the the texas pension review board does not believe in divine benefit plans believes in taking those away so as that person seeks to be confirmed by the texas senate and they need two-thirds of the senate neither party has that majority democrats in the senate need to hold firm and be strong and to make sure that we're going to have a pension board that is going to protect and live up to the promises of our public employees and at the same time for those working in the private sector we need to make sure that they're being paid fair wages and that means increasing the minimum wage that needs to make sure that employers are incentivized to invest in their employees providing matching funds for retirement and also giving those individuals the flexibility to invest those dollars whether it be workplace savings plans or cafeteria plans that allows them to take tax-free money and invest it for a rainy day or an older day these are just two or three of the things that we could do to further incentivize and promote savings as you know our population is getting older and if we don't take these steps that are necessary to protect people in their golden years that will become an obligation of the state and in this environment they don't want to invest those in charge want to cut so this last session we had attacks on public pensions even before this last very bad nomination that the governor has made that trey spoke of and we have already written a letter in yesterday while I was on the phone with the chair of the democratic caucus José Rodriguez del Paso and we have a commitment that we were going to fight against that and when we were talking about that and so we are in total agreement and we cannot subsidize corporations we fought against it when I was on council and we'll fight against it in the senate as well corporate subsidies and corporate greed is too much question number two how would you support strengthening laws to protect seniors from abuse and financial exploitation will you support legislation to increase civil or criminal penalties against financial exploitation and create multidisciplinary teams to combat against elder financial exploitation absolutely I already have a track record of that this last session I filed senate bill 1323 that was an anti-payday lending bill and then in my past history I filed a bill where we regulated group homes to protect senior citizens who were living in these group homes with no regulations whatsoever and we have a track record of passing bills to protect our seniors and escalating the punishments this morning I was meeting with the district attorney's office on a different matter and we talked about escalation of penalties against any crime against the senior or against younger people because we were talking about a different matter but so we have a track record of passing bills that protect our seniors and I look forward to working with everybody ARP here and the people that are here so I can tell you more about that thank you I was just talking to somebody who was thanking me for my work on payday lending now it took me back to a 2005 article that the late Carlos Guerra had written about the work I did when payday lenders wanted to get paid 346 percent for their loans I stopped it on a point of order those public payday lending companies lost 91 million dollars in the stock market based on my defeat of that proposal and in 2003 I passed a law that says if you steal or cheat against a senior citizen you get punished one degree higher than if you did it to somebody else I have put my record on the line I've done this in the past question number three family caregivers help seniors live independently at home providing assistance with activities of daily living and often performing complex medical nursing tasks such as administering medication and wound care with little or no training what would you do to provide more resources and training for those caregivers in texas would you support laws that call for hospitals to recognize and instruct family caregivers when their loved ones are hospitalized yes absolutely I think as I said in my opening speech older Texans want the dignity to live out their years in their own home being cared for by people who they love and love them I live this every day with my mother around the clock three hardworking women are there for my mom and I know if one person calls in sick how much that disrupts the family environment how hard it is the anxiety on everybody else absolutely we should make that a priority I think the educational component comes easy what doesn't come easy is the funding when we left town last May there were three billion dollars of your dollars in our checking account and 11 billion dollars of your dollars in our savings account and folks refuse to make these investments you pick about something you care about whether it's family care whether it's roads criminal justice mental health parks we left three billion dollars that we could have helped people and changed people's lives and instead rather than make those investments and the people that need the help the most people who passed the budget like my opponent cut services cut Medicaid by a hundred million dollars in state funds eliminated scholarships for children in the top 10 percent of their class if we don't get serious about making investments in our young people and our older people we're going to leave this state worse off than when we found it it's important that we show you the respect by telling you the truth in this last session we increased the Medicaid budget by 2.1 billion dollars we also added 77 million dollars to the program for all inclusive care for our elderly this includes the expansion 16 million dollars for day activity and health services for our senior citizens 488 million for hospice care and 450,000 to promote affordable housing for the elderly we have to be honest with you if we're going to have a valid debate question number four Texas has more than 1200 nursing facilities and a growing aging population while many nursing homes are providing good care recent studies indicate that the overall level of care is unacceptably inferior and must improve relative to other states Texas nursing home care ranks 49th in overall quality of care and quality of life in addition the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission found that few long-term care providers including nursing facilities face enforcement action for violations how would you improve the quality of care in Texas nursing homes to ensure the safety of residents in all Texas nursing facilities well the first thing we need to do is get there's a quarter of the population living in a nursing home that they that don't have to be in a nursing home there's a quarter of the population in Texas that could be living in an assisted living facility the problem is the assisted living facilities are too expensive other states are using their tax credits to build assisted living facilities to lower the rent so people every day folks can live in a very nice assisted living facility in their community you shouldn't feel like you have to go to a nursing home or it feels like they're putting you out to pasture out to die you should be able to live either in place in your community in your home or an assisted living facility and we can make that happen I filed bills to make that happen in the past we just need to get the nursing home community not to feel like we're trying to take their their concern and why they've killed the bill in the past is they feel like we're trying to take their customers we can do a better job of doing that and we can pass a bill to make that happen I think the answer is the extension of the prior answers it's about funding and I think it's very clear I don't have to convince AARP to know that primary care physicians did not receive any increase in funding for healthcare in fact they were paid 65 percent of what Medicare pays and in nursing homes there was no funding there was no increased funding for long-term care so these very solutions and challenges require resources not excuses we had three billion dollars in the bank and nothing happened back to the issue of payday loan companies one in five payday loan borrowers in Texas is 50 or older current state law places no cap on the amount of fees that can be charged with these loans typical fees can amount to 500 percent annual percentage rate interest or more many borrowers find themselves in a cycle of debt often paying much more in the fees than the original loan amount what would you do to rein in those high fees associated with payday loans trey thank you in truth the issue of payday lending has been around since the time I began serving in the legislature and you see a proliferation of these loan products it used to be payday lending now you can take loans on your titles now you can receive advances on your income tax return it is out of control absolutely and where we find ourselves or where I find myself more often than not is trying to stop them from occurring making sure that ordinances like the city of san antonio's ordinance or the ordinance in the city of opasso that those local officials can continue to restrict where these lending agencies where they can operate and have a license to do business and continue to support them and not let somebody try to take away that power in austin and like i said back in 2005 i will never forget that day because the day that i stopped the payday lenders from increasing their interest to 346 percent i had just buried my friend who i served within the texas house who died in a car accident the night before i stopped that and i'll never forget how important it was to make sure that despite that emotional challenge of losing a friend that i had a job and a commitment to do to keep my word to people of texas that we will control those payday lenders and to see them lose 90 million dollars in the stock market because of my work carlos guerrero said how do you feel about that i said well i think now they know what it means what it feels like to be poor you know that was a good day when we were on the house and you killed that bill but apparently you guys have made up since then because this last year trevor alberg the owner of the cash store provided you over most a hundred thousand dollars in contributions to your campaign and so i'm not sure what's going on because i believe you and i know you killed the bill but i don't understand why the payday lenders are putting so much money in your campaign we're not taking any money from trevor alberg or any of these payday lenders and we refuse to do so and that's why we filed the bill against them in order to ensure retirement security for texas hardworking teachers and state employees it's essential that the state makes its contribution to its public pension system to ensure the system sustainability for the future how will you protect public pension benefits specifically against those who would privatize the accounts and break the promise to public employees working toward a modest yet dignified retirement in 2001 when i was sworn into the legislature they brought me a a form and i joined the texas public state employees union and i've been a duespay member ever since this last session one of the lobbyists for the texas state public employees said hey they're trying to they're trying to change our pension to a to a savings account i can't find anybody to tag the bill i said i'll tag the bill and we tagged it in the senate and released made it take it harder and longer for it to get out of the senate unfortunately eventually it did get there but i have a proven track record of standing up we'll fight those bills we're going to fight this appointment i've already written letters to the governor and all the democrats we're all committed not to nominate or not to confirm the nomination of the governor for the person who is an anti defying benefits supporter thank you i think it's important to talk about how we can stop this nomination i made a very clear plan in front of the express news editorial board when hosay said rules don't work process don't work texas constitution says you need two thirds to nominate someone to the senate every single democrats can block that appointment to the pension review board i have been working on that i've been suggesting that to members of the senate and i think it's a really good idea and that is one of the only options we have but we are not going to stop there we have a state board of education chair who believes in homeschool not public schools we have a texas education appointee who doesn't think the state needs to have a role in public education senate democrats can stop those nominations if budget cuts or tax reforms are implemented in texas how would you as a member of the texas senate ensure that any such changes avoid hurting low and moderate income taxpayers as well as safeguard the financial security of texas 50 and older trey on budget cuts on budget cuts i think i think it requires being truthful and transparent i don't think it's truthful or transparent for hosay to attack me about taking money from payday lenders and specifically mentioning trevor alberg when he took a thousand dollars from him on september 7 2008 and another thousand dollars on february 1st 2010 and in fact he's taking 32 contributions for payday lenders over the course of his career maybe if he'd study his records as much as he studies mind he would know these things but when it comes to budget cuts it's to have the guts the guts to say no 30 out of the entire senate one person had the guts to stand up to a budget that rolled back the clock on children who take medicaid children with special needs children who cannot walk children who cannot talk children who receive their nutrients through feeding tubes one senator silvia garcia had the guts to say no in san antonio there are 10 members of the texas house seven democrats and three republicans every single democrat including josez replacement rejected that budget because it was done on the backs of our children it was done on the backs of our elderly it was done on the backs of our ll of our vulnerable population if we don't have the guts to come together and say this is bad we are never going to change things it's going to be to stand up on principle and to let people know that there are limits to what you can do when it comes to hurting people and that's the power of one voice in the texas senate i think it's a simple thing to talk about the payday lending contributions is simple we just do this let's add up yours let's add up ours i'll return mine if you return yours it'll be very easy to do but let's talk let's talk about the budget let's talk about let's talk about the budget look the budget is a document like every document in austin texas you can do you can vote no and and bring nothing home you can vote and know that you have to bring well now my light's rough that absolutely hit me with a red light okay all right um what steps would you take to support the creation or preservation of standards or incentives for the design construction and reconstruction of housing that would promote greater accessibility and enable residents to remain in their homes as they age well i i know a lot about housing and so in terms of housing we can do a lot in terms of using the texas department of housing community affairs they have a tax credit program where the state can set aside what the points are and how you design who's going to get awarded a tax credit and those tax credits allow them to build very nice multifamily in some cases senior facilities uh they look like a class a property so that i think we need to be able to get encouraged more of that with the input of the community so that it fits into the community and it's not just the idea of some developer from out of town that's just looking to make a quick buck which we fixed when i first started in the legislature by telling them they could not take their development fees at closing then they had to do it off the tail end of the thing so we can do this with the community because we at the state draft the rules on how they can get those awards for their tax credits and i think that i agree that funding is critical and again three billion dollars in the checking account to make smart investments if we look at the amount of money we paid to long-term care facilities if we look at the amount of money we pay for inpatient care to be able to come up with creative solutions to let people live in their homes to create an elder community incentivize that type of development so that seniors feel comfortable living with their peers and also have that level of independence and dignity that they all work so hard to earn families today are on the move and spread out geographically and many family caregivers play a critical role in caring and managing assets for their loved ones will you support adoption of laws like adult guardianship and power of attorney reforms that provide the family caregivers the tools they need to make important financial decisions for their loved ones i mean i think those are a new round of innovative laws that certainly become more important by the day as our population begins to age and as the family unit begins to decline and get smaller and as families disperse all over the state and sometimes all over the nation it's absolutely important that if there is a family member a loved one who wants or is taking on the role and responsibility of providing for their older parent or older relative that we find that pathway to give them that access and at the same time make sure that we have proper restrictions in place to make sure that vulnerable populations are not preyed upon by their friends and loved ones and we all know it's unfortunate and it's things that we don't like to talk about but all too often there are these scenarios where you have a family member who may be declining in age and may be declining in mental capacity and perhaps might have a loved one who wants to do the right thing but sometimes makes mistakes and so at the end of the day our focus in our interest is to take care of the older person and so our public policies cannot just be so free-flowing that we give somebody the keys to somebody else's identity and their way of life and their well-being but that we also make sure that there is a place someone can go when they need help and so it's striking that balance i've worked on legislation in the past where we've talked to the family lawyers about what we can do to give the family the ability to help their elderly member of their family but without giving them a carte blanche because many times we've heard from elderly members or other members of the family that they've been taken advantage of and i can tell you and i can point to a bill that regulates where the seniors live so that we can protect them from the qualities of these boarding homes and conditions and so we have a track record and we continue to work on that the majority of texas residents want to stay in their homes and communities as they age and texas has done a good job of establishing programs to support these goals but it's becoming increasingly difficult to find enough people to do the difficult job of providing care for the people in these homes for example the current attendant base wage for Medicaid funded home care is roughly eight dollars and 25 cents an hour making it challenging to recruit and retain workers to do that would you support a budget increase to raise the wages for attendants providing Medicaid funded care in the homes of course we need to do more you know the one thing that we do agree on and and i think that you know julia pointed this out very well at the beginning uh there if you look at our track records our legislative history train i have very similar voting records because we do believe in our community and our senior citizens so i'd be surprised that we wouldn't look to see how we can best take care of our seniors and i agree completely that we need to do a better job you know there's no no doubt about that but it starts by also getting uh replacing the members of the legislature and the governor and the lieutenant governor so we can get people that agree with the fact that we need to invest more our values are different than our policies we don't respect older texas we don't pay the physicians proper reimbursement rates they can care for them we don't put funding in nursing homes and we don't pay attendance what they need to have to have a living wage i tried to pass a minimum wage proposal to let voters decide on raising the minimum wage to 10 10 an hour and even though i knew i was going to lose that fight i thought it was important to let people in texas know that somebody is looking out for the little person and that we do need to raise wages and lift lives and build this state from the middle class up what changes will you make to state funding of services to help more seniors live independently at home specifically long-term services and supports one of the policies that i hear about most of the time from seniors is the amount of time they can receive when they qualify for attendant care at home if a person meets all of the standards can only they can only receive about 32 hours of attendant care at home at this $7 wage and with the transition of a caregiver being there one day being gone tomorrow because it's not hard to walk away from a job that pays $7 an hour we leave these seniors vulnerable so what we should do is we should give them the ability to actually be there longer this is a 24-7 situation for many long-term seniors that want to live in their home and at the same time if we pay them better he beats figured that out casco has figured that out the more you pay somebody the longer they stay and the better job they do because they're happy at their work they're not going from one job to the next having to work three because they can't make a living with one and so if we make these simple adjustments and we have the money three billion dollars in the checking account this last session alone we could have done something with attendant care three billion dollars we could have said we are going to pay doctors and respect them for the work that they do and pay them what Medicare pays them for the same service and so we have the resources we just need the will an agreement that we have to invest more we just need more will more votes to get it done and we will do it i'm in total agreement okay our final question from the AARP panel texas has among the highest homeowners insurance rates in the country in addition some insurance companies have been trying to make it more difficult for consumers to recover when they have a claim what would you do to make sure homeowners insurance rates are reasonable and homeowners and consumers are treated fairly in the claims process jose well we have to get a commissioner of insurance the state of texas has a department of insurance and we have to get a commissioner of insurance that's on the side of homeowners more than on the side of insurance companies uh too many times we hear time and time again from so many of our constituents that they feel as if their neighborhood their insurance is higher or if they make a claim their insurance rates are going to go up and there's a fear to make a claim because they don't feel that they have the they have the respect or the backing of the state of texas and so many times we've had them come to our office and we interject with the Texas Department of Insurance but before those insurance companies raise their rates we need to make sure that there's a commissioner at the department of insurance that reviews the rates and forces those homeowners insurance companies to explain why they want an increase in rates to show what their profits were last time because we do have insurance companies in this state that their premiums are regulated by the state and they cannot raise their rates unless they have proper justification for that and we should apply those same rules to homeowners insurance the easy thing to do is require an insurance commissioner to get elected by you i think the behavior changes automatically and secondly we need to go back to our our prior approval system used to submit your insurance rate increase and it had to be approved before you can use it now with the runaway republicans up there you just let them know you're going to raise rates and you can start doing it whether it's right or not it's getting back to those basics standing up and having those principles to say we've got to stop this because the ones that are suffering are the ones paying the premiums so that concludes the questions from the AARP panel now we're going to take some questions that we've been collecting from the audience as well as from social media sites from nowcastestata.com where people submitted questions online this is a question from a member of our audience and he asks if you are elected what would you what would be your top three legislative priorities did we started with Jose last time so try same time in 90 seconds on these 90 and 30 yeah okay wonderful the top three legislative priorities is to invest wisely with our resources today children are in school on a budget that will give them less money today in their classrooms for this year next year than they did the last two years we have not changed the formula that we allocate school funding since 1991 so other than gasoline that you're paying for today think of what things cost in 1991 and ask yourself do they cost the same today that's how we fund our schools and so keeping our promise to our children is job number one number two we have a pre-k education proposal that in 2011 cost $200 million today the effort to fund it is 140 million i don't know how you grow a program and expand your population growth and then give people less money to do the job because they certainly will get blamed when the children aren't performing three billion dollars in the checking account we could have fully funded pre-k education on health care we should have kept our promise when the house passed its budget last session to the senate it paid every single physician the same amount of money that medicare would pay them for the same job and that wasn't in the final budget and worse it hurt people like Miranda Hernandez when she lost her medicaid for a hundred million dollars at a time we were sitting on record revenues we need to fix those problems first and foremost and keep our commitment to our seniors i opened the meeting i opened the conversation with the story about my father and his medication and how expensive his prescription drugs are i'm holding a letter here that i wrote to congressman doget talking about his efforts to rein in the cost prescription drugs and we've received a response that he's looking forward to working with us so i think that our senior citizens are living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes they're making decisions between eating rent and medicines and we have to do something to help them with their medical bills and we have to invest more in that so i think helping our senior citizens watching what we can do with their prescription drugs and make sure that they can afford to stay healthy obviously the state is facing a lawsuit that it's going to lose again at the supreme court with its public finance oh there we go with that light again okay thank you this is a question of from our audience again and they ask what efforts are being made to work with community organizations in an intentional way to ensure that the needs and concerns of the residents are getting your attention okay very good question well the first thing is that we have for the last i guess 12 months or so we've been attending about 40 neighborhood meetings a month if we have not been to your neighborhood meeting let us know uh we go and we get information last night we made two of different neighborhood meetings and we get information because it's something that i've been used to do ever since i was on city council and so we gather information uh tomorrow as a matter of fact from 9 to 11 we're going to have a community gathering and so at this community gathering we're going to be taking in information from you it's not a gap it's not a meeting where you're going to hear us talk at you we're looking to hear from you what bills what information what do you need help with uh additionally from time to time i get calls on my cell phone saying we have this problem in the neighborhood we just resolved something at five points because uh the gentleman called me and mr. Trevino had a problem with via across the street and i said absolutely let's meet saturday morning and so he put his neighbors together and we went out to do that so whether you're a neighborhood association whether you're an individual whether you're an organization we're here to help and we have our contact information only than we host meetings but we also look forward to come to your meetings and i look forward to talking to you more about it after the meeting the two most significant laws i've passed in my career came directly from neighborhood neighborhood associations and organizations when a young jefferson high school student died in a street racing car accident by st. bridges kindergarten it was a neighborhood association that brought it to my attention and then i filed a law and passed a law to outlaw street racing when tom deshaun a member of the sanatorium crime commission told me that when seniors have crimes preyed upon them they need to punish those people harder and then i passed the crimes against the elderly bill to make sure that if you steal or hurt a senior citizen we're going to punish you one bit harder than we do anyone else this is a question from our audience as well and they ask our children are grown but we are now grandparents what is your record in making sure our future generations have a quality well funded education right thank you i mean again i i think it's about you know your values and where you stand public education is very important this senate district has edward independent school district which is the poster school for inequity and it still is today imagine from the 1970s to today they're fighting the same fights and because of their funding issues and because of their challenges right now there is not a full board on the edward independent school district edward high school does not have a principal kennedy high school does not have a principal there are lots of problems in our public education system all of them require attention all of them require help all of them require resources keeping our promise to our children how we treat and respect our children and our senior citizens will tell you a lot about us and again with three billion dollars in the checking account children getting less money today in their schools and they did two years ago this is not right this is not right and the only way you're going to change it and i agree with jose on one point we are outnumbered we agree on that but you have to stand up and push back because they are not going to give us anything by staying quiet having a principled leader is how you're going to make change and that's how we're going to keep our promise to our older texans and our younger texans no one stands quiet we bring results we get to the table where the decisions are being made and we have the results and we have a track record to prove it in addition to that edward school district right now is under investigation the issues that trey brought up are being being looked at right as we speak because of the issues that are going on right now senate in addition to that senate bill 1302 was i filed that bill to reduce standardized testing for our kids in grades three through eight filed the bill to give it every teacher a pay raise and give our retired teachers a cost of living increase as well so i'm working on these issues it's not that anyone's standing quiet it's the fact that we're trying to get things done because look it's one thing to vote no and just give a good okay all right thank you okay this is a question from jenna vive through facebook and she asks will texas expand medicaid jose texas should expand medicaid and i believe that you know trey and i would agree on that because that's the dumbest thing in the world that we're leaving nine to ten billion dollars of our tax dollars on the table these are federal dollars that belong to us that just because the governor does not want to expand medicaid like many other states have done we're not drawing down those dollars and bringing them home to help take care of our seniors and take care of our kids i will fight to expand medicaid and i'm working closely with the chair of the democratic caucus who filed that bill jose rodriguez and yesterday when we were talking and we're talking about getting that done next session and so i'm working looking eager to work on expansion of medicaid but we've got to get some help up there last year i filed two proposals to expand medicaid the one that the president says state you give me a dollar federal government will give nine back everyone in this room would take that deal and then i filed the most conservative version that republicans at one time said they could get behind neither one of them received a hearing expanding medicaid isn't critical to san antonio and the state san antonio is one of the largest cities with the highest percentage of the uninsured and we see it every day and you pay for it in your property tax appraisals with your university health system this is a question submitted to now castis a dot com and they ask what will you do about texas who do not have health insurance tray well again picking up on this discussion and why it's so important texas leads the nation in the number of uninsured and if you look at the cities with the largest percentages of uninsured seven of those cities are majority hispanic this in my view is not just becoming a public health issue this is becoming a civil rights issue where so many people in the state are in so desperate to get health care and they're trying and medicaid is not a handout you have to work these people have jobs they are trying very hard to pay for their health care their job may not provide it or they may not be able to afford it and so it is critical that we expand health care but it's even more critical that we keep the health care that we have and not roll back the clock not cut 350 million dollars in a state budget that hurt children with special needs children who need physical therapy speech therapy occupational therapy 66 000 children in the state of texas going to lose their health care because of that budget vote and so it's one thing to talk about what we would like to do in a perfect world it's another thing to protect what we have and not let people take it away and so it's critically important that we are mindful of what we need to do but that we are steadfast and committed to making sure that what we do have is ours and no one's going to take it away so i've been hearing a lot about the fact that kids are going to be losing their therapies so what i did was i asked the health and human services about this rider that was intended just to create a savings to reduce the overpayments and reduce the fraud it's called rider 50 and on rider 50 i asked them i said how are you aware of any providers who have reduced their therapies to children or gone out of business due to that rider the reply is no we do not know of any providers that have closed their business due to the implementation of that rider so once again if we're going to say things we have to make sure that they're accurate this is a question from our audience and they ask what is the biggest mistake in the state budget that was passed most recently and why wasn't there more money for senior programs jose well there was more money for senior programs and see that's the thing where i do agree with tre that there was a lot of money left for senior programs the problem that we have is that it you know we can both agree and say look we're going to vote against this budget because it is not doing what i want it to do but the problem that we have is we can vote up and down we can jump up and down we can yell up we can talk as long as we want but that doesn't mean that the republicans are going to put more money in it so that's the thing that you got to find out why and what can we do to help so when i look at the budget i go you know i talked to the five democrats who said on senate finance and i said does this hurt anybody no so what can we do for texas a and m san antonio what can we do for utsa what can we do for our veterans and i brought nine million dollars to build two veteran centers here at alamo colleges so they can get their mental health care i brought 32 million dollars to help save the alamo and do what it can do to help improve that i brought nine million dollars eight million dollars for the san antonio life science institute so they can study alzheimer and brain injuries and so these are the monies that we put in thirty million dollars to help protect our bases here so you know we can agree to disagree that we hate the budget and we're going to fight on the budget and we're not going to we don't like it but the problem the reality is the two-thirds of the people in charge up there are republicans who don't want a democratic budget if we had a democratic majority i would be in total agreement with trey and say why didn't we get more money in there we didn't get more money because we have republicans in charge at a time with three billion dollars in the account all it takes is the ability to say these things are important these values are important and i will tell you the house budget is a much different budget than this final budget the same proposition funded schools better by a billion more funded health care by paying medicaid responsible payments again it's the difference between having the will and the desire to do it what is the biggest oh i'm sorry we just said that one okay next question this is from the audience as well and they are asking if you become senator i want to hear in your own words what area would you help those who are waiting for amnesty trey well i'll tell you at the state level most of the issues we deal with on immigration deal with this notion of sanctuary cities or we deal with this notion of having these border task force on the border that are there to go after human traffickers and drug cartels but one of the basic issues one of the simplest issues one of the most significant signs of respect we can show is right now there are united states children who were born in texas who cannot get a birth certificate because their parents don't have an id because their parents may not be citizens and for an arm of the state to be so bold and so disrespectful as to deny those children their rights as american citizens and residents of this state is deplorable is deplorable being able to stand up and stop that there's no law that gives that agency head the authority to do it that requires a senate investigation that requires questions and answering during senate nominations to find out where these values are and who is leading the charge on these efforts stopping the attacks on sanctuary cities and in fact i was scolded in 2011 when i stopped sanctuary cities on the floor of the texas house but it's important that we show our community that we don't turn our backs on them no matter where they come from so this last session we had both the sanctuary cities bill and we had the anti-dreamer bill come up both times those two bills came up in the border security homeland security committee which in and of itself was an insult every time both of those bills came up i was present even though i was not a member of that committee i was there every morning early fighting those bills and we were able to veto and kill those bills in the senate because all 11 democrats were against them and we were able to get two republicans to join us to kill the anti-sanctuary cities bills and the anti-dreamer bill i've got a record of fighting that and we'll continue to fight that this is a question from our audience and they ask veterans who have given sacrifice part or or most of their life to provide the freedom and security which you live under are not receiving the benefits they are due where do you stand with vets jose well the session before last i chaired the defense and veterans affairs committee and in that session i i helped pass leticia vanipute senate bill to create the first mental health care network bill got stuck and we passed the house bill with her help that created the very first ever mental health care network for veterans and that year we put five million dollars into that network this year we added 20 million dollars into the veterans mental health care network and i passed two bills one for female specific veterans and one for rural veterans so a lot of our veterans have a lot of needs and they're not being met especially the older veterans who are being turned away our office is working each and every day helping vets through the va in addition to that we brought nine million dollars for the alamo colleges to build two veteran centers one is going to be a brand new one at san antonio college where they have three thousand veterans registered currently we're in communication with usa and the city to see if we can build housing for our veterans so that we can help them get off the streets yesterday i was with the gi forum and the gi forum is committed to working with san antonio college to provide job training so we can get them off the streets into housing and with a job and that's my commitment to veterans in 30 seconds when the senate passed a proposal to take away college tuition benefits to veterans and their families i and others in the house stopped it i co-wrote a law that fixed our tax law to provide a tax exemption for the surviving spouse of veterans with a 100 disability and i helped co-write a law that established the texas women's veterans program this was a question submitted via text online it says here we need more firemen and medical personnel like doctors and nurses et cetera what will you do trey you know on a fundamental level my reaction is there are times that our community colleges have come to us and ask them to give them the authority so they can have fire science programs and other technical programs career readiness type programs i think those are important things to continue to do we have a wonderful relationship with our college district trustees many of them are constituents are very vocal on this issue we're also now getting into the high schools if you look at the wonderful work being done out there by toyota they are now students in high school classes that are learning about car technology not the way it used to be not auto body and auto repair when things were done you know differently many years ago it's keeping up with technology learning more about computer systems and programming and engineering same things are happening at bowing i was very very fortunate to pass a law that helped bring the 787 dreamliner to the port of san antonio and when i passed that law i didn't realize the economic impact it would have not just for the west side of san antonio but the opportunity created for the employees to continue to go to college and the opportunities for children in high school to learn about aero science and aerospace we need to continue to do that and these are wonderful partnerships that can be done and i think in this world we want to make sure that everybody who wants to be a lawyer and a doctor and a brain surgeon has that pathway but for those that want to go back to the trade and the skills and have good working jobs with benefits we ought to make sure we're doing everything we can to help them as well as a member of the senate's higher education committee this last session we looked at what's the best way that we can help everyday children high school students who are all over the nation regardless of where they go to school all over the state and one of the things we noticed is that you know it the program to get the college credit hours was only applicable for juniors and seniors we took that and we said why can't freshmen if they have the capacity to take those freshmen and sophomores so now a high school student can graduate with an associate's degree in any school that's going to be available statewide so that's almost a scholarship in addition i filed the bill to get the four year and the fire sciences bills at the alamo colleges this is a question from linda pedes in our audience she's a retiree for the state of texas and she's asking will i see a raise in the near future in her benefits well i hope so we're i know i i i can pretty much guarantee that uh try and i would work for that i i think that what's going on with our retirees is deplorable but the thing you need to be careful for and the thing that we worked on to fighting last killing last session is that they don't take away our dues check off for our union members and so we will fight to get you that that pay raise that you so deserve this session and next session until we get them to give us the pay raise that you need the one thing i want to do is stop these agencies from writing these bonus checks to their political hires and invest that money in their employees and i will also caution you these next two years are going to be very rough as oil is 28 dollars a barrel it's going to be a tough budget next session i hope that we keep what we have and we don't roll back the clock any further this is a question also from our audience and they ask what can we do to recycle wasted fruits and untouched food in schools many needy communities could use it try that's a wonderful question i think i know who submitted that i've been asked this a couple of times and what's really unusual about this and it needs to be thoroughly fact-checked but is my understanding an overwhelming number of students in san Antonio are on the free and reduced lunch program where they receive federal dollars for their lunch programs and because those dollars are allocated a certain way in a per person way they cannot be reused and there may be a public health issue with respect to that but also maybe the way the federal government you know make sure that these schools are being given the funds on a per student allocation and so a number of parents some because you know cafeteria workers in public schools have talked about children not eating food and good food going to waste and how we can recycle when we have so much need in the city of san antonio and i agree whole heartedly but as i understand it it is very difficult if not impossible and aside from the public health considerations i understand the federal regulations frown and make it almost impossible for schools to do anything with perishable food once it's been served well you know the food bank is one of my utmost favorite charities that we work with very closely and so i'd like to see in talking to the food bank because we've had events where we've had catering where we've talked to them about what do we have to do to be able to send you whatever portions not finished and so i think i can work with the school districts just like i did when i went to visit with the superintendents right after i got elected i said we need to get healthier options for our children i'm tired of seeing kids only eating pizza and hot dogs and hamburgers there has to be better options for our kids because some of these kids are only eating at school and so if they're eating at school we got to get them better food this is a question from facebook and judy asks when will retired teachers see a cost of living increase senator so here's a cost of living almost as if i knew judy uh it says here senate bill 1991 would have given retired teachers of cost of living increase we filed the bill we got a hearing on our cost of living increase unfortunately we didn't have the will on the committee to get the bill out of committee we need a 13th check and we need a cost of living increase unfortunately they did shore up the retirement and the health care program with three quarters of a billion dollars but we can do better than that and we will do better than that we'll go back next session and file it again i think it's fair to say that public employees are under assault as i mentioned there are the person in charge wants to take away to find benefits wants to make it a contribution plan the trs pension alone is upside down by a billion dollars and so my concern is that we are not keeping our promise to those who made a promise to our children and our public employees in the workforce and so getting them a raise and giving them the respect and dignity they deserve is very very important this is a question from our audience and they're asking because it has to be done by the state of texas to raise the wages for attendants and care providers would you advocate for the attendance and care providers absolutely you know i think that you know again that was very symbolic of my attempt to raise the minimum wage for the entire state the last person to wait raise the minimum wage in the state is senator joe bernard sitting right there in the fourth row he did it back then and it wasn't easy then it wasn't senator but he never gave up he kept trying he kept trying he kept trying and he prevailed the fact of the matter is raising wages does more than improve the life of the employee it improves the life of the employer it makes our economy better it's a henry ford scenario the more money you pay somebody the more money they invest in their community this makes sense and when you look at wages h e b is one of our largest employers in the entire state of texas and they pay fair wages and they do a good job and you do not see h e b's closing unless they're getting bigger this is what we need to do at the state level and when we incentivize those to think that way then it makes sense to do it for our public employees public employees do not go to the workforce for riches they do not go there because that's their path to millions they do it because they're committed from their heart the least we can do is pay them a fair wage give them benefits and when they retire we take care of them because they took care of us i agree we can take that a step further we need to look at the fact that some cities and some states provide tax incentives to corporations and companies to move in so we should go back and review all of the agreements that we've done and not agree to have any incentives for any corporation or any company that does not pay a living wage if they're not going to pay a living wage to their employees and we should not provide them any tax dollars to help them come here they either pay a living wage or we don't have them come here and that way we can show corporate america that we're being very strong and honest about our interest in them providing we don't we don't need to subsidize their profits okay and with that we have come to our final question who is uh it's from ray gonzalez in the audience and ray is asking either of you understand the concept of the 11th political commandment which is ronald reagan's mantra thou shalt not speak evil of fellow republicans in this case democrats i'm sorry what was the question do you either of you understand the concept of the 11th political commandment which is what ronald reagan's mantra was do not speak evil of each other yeah and and and i guess it's my turn this time and so yes i i i agree i think this is a shame that we're even in this position um you know tray has been a tremendous leader he was the chairman of the caucus in the house he did a great job in the house killing many many bills uh many of our democratic institutions asked him to stay and continue the fight in the house whether it was the teachers groups the union groups the trial lawyers and many others asked him to continue the fight because he's the best prepared he was going to be the dean of the delegation now with the retirement of our friend ruth jones mclendon and so i didn't create the situation it's it's a situation that many people have asked why i can't answer the question i can't answer why all i can say is that he has had a tremendous record in the house he's been a tremendous state representative a very good leader and and but i feel that that doesn't diminish my track record in the senate and so obviously we have to come here and we have to explain to the voters the reasons why we feel we deserve we've earned the right for their vote and so that's unfortunately sometimes it does make things a little bit uh testy i'm not so sure ronald reagan would ever vote for me and so you know jose is right and i'm a little bit old school old-fashioned i believe that voters decide who serves them in austin and that's why we have elections we have differences of opinion we debate we're passionate about it but we're also respectful about it and ultimately you are the judges you decide who do you want to be your voice in the texas senate okay with that i want to thank the two candidates gentlemen for being here with the debate and answering all these questions it's time for some closing remarks and according to our coin toss at the beginning of the event um you will go last second are you second you're going to go second tre martinez fisher goes first two minutes two minutes okay wonderful thank you sarah thank you arp thank you all for attending you know 1957 a young san antonian went to the texas senate at the age of 40 made a name for himself in city council when people try to raise the water bill he said no when they try to deny poor communities the right to get services he stood up and said no and when he arrived in the senate they didn't call him the senator from san antonio they called him the mexican senator because he was the first one ever elected instead of texas and texas's history and when he got there they told him one of the first things that was going to happen is they were going to debate 10 bills on segregation to separate minorities from non minorities and he said no and even though he was outnumbered he had the will and so he stood up and talked and he talked and he talked for 21 hours this senator talked and he talked so much that another senator he stood up and started talking and together they talked for 36 hours a day and a half straight making it clear that they would speak to the end of the earth to defeat those segregation bills and they did that is the power of the voice in the texas senate that was henry b gonzalez he served the senate district with distinction and with honor following in those big shoes have been so senator joe bernal senator bob bail senator greg luna senator vandepu this is an important job and you get to make that decision and the decision comes down to who do you trust to look out for the issues that matter to you who do you expect will be there when the times are tough and who is not afraid to go at it alone if that's what it takes to be the voice for the senate district make no mistakes the bad ideas or the same bad ideas that henry b dealt with just the jerseys have changed colors i want to be your senator i want to be your voice i want to live up to the honor and the commitment made by those who serve before us and that's why i need your vote in the texas senate sada thank you uh to arp thank you for being here thank you all of you all for being here i want to say it's been a pleasure uh you know it's been educational i want you to know that uh many times you'll hear elected officials say things especially this this election and i'm not talking about this stage but on the national level you're hearing all of these things being said it's hard to sometimes decipher what's true and what's not so what i'd like to do i'd like to invite you to join me at any time that you'd like uh come and visit with me personally one on one and we can open up the books and we can show you what you know any questions that you may have so that you can figure out for yourself i think that the most powerful thing in life is an independent search for the truth and you have that right to do that and at the end of that independent search for the truth then you make your decision on who you think is your best senator i'm not going to sit here and tell you that i'm the best senator but i can tell you that the texas classroom teachers have nominated me the educator of the year that the troops for progress the most likely to support the troops the naral named me their new champion freshman of the year by the district attorneys association texas public power combined law enforcement says that each of his legacy foundation and and the bear county consumer and family support conference you know this last session was not a picnic but i got to the table where the decisions were being made so you have to make a decision you have two democrats up here before you but you have to get to the table where the decisions are being made or unfortunately you don't want to suffer the consequences that we've had in a senator before where the senator found themselves on the outside looking in and didn't even get recognized to speak so you have a decision to make do you want an effective senator one that's passed 40 bills last session or someone who didn't pass any bills last session that choice is yours and so your choice to make it whether you get a senator that gets to the decision where those tables are made so that we can take care of the home team that's your team here in san antonio and finally if you're available on on tuesday september the second we're going to have a veterans round table from two to four with senator carlo sudasti we'd love to see you there and i'm beginning to oh real quick if you have pen and paper 4735951 that's my cell phone give me a call anytime send me a text let's just talk to you thank you thank you both so very much can 4735951 you can call when i gave you my opening remarks i said we have two very honorable men who are truly devoted and care about their community and i think they proved it here today both did thank you so very very much and on behalf of arp sarah thank you for a great job we truly appreciate your time lunch is ready on your way out or whatever you may pick up your little box lunch thank you so much