 Lakeland Public Television, the Bemidji Pioneer, the Brainerd Dispatch and Northern Community Radio are proud to present Debate Night 2016, a look at our area legislative candidates. And now the State Senate District 9 debate, your moderator tonight is Ray Gildow. Good evening and welcome to Debate 2016, 11 state legislative debates over four nights. And we're coming to you this evening from our studios in downtown Brainerd. Our candidates this evening are for the Senate District 9, and the incumbent is Paul Gezelka, who is representative of the Republican Party, and Jason Weinerman, who is a DFL. Our panel is Dennis Wyman, who is Lakeland Public Television News Director, Zach Kaiser, Brainerd Daily Dispatch, or I should say Brainerd Dispatch, you don't say Daily anymore, news writer, and Heidi Holton, News and Public Affairs Director from Northern Community Radio, KAXE, and KBXE. I'd like to take just a minute to read the rules, they're pretty simple and I think easy to follow. Each candidate will have three minutes to make an opening comment, a panel will ask questions after the opening comments, some will be their own questions, others may be from the public. The candidates will rotate the order they speak, beginning with open comments and finishing with closing comments. Each candidate gets two minutes to answer the questions. Each candidate will have a one-minute rebuttal opportunity. And new this year, candidates will have the option of using one minute of bonus time to add on to one of their questions tonight, or answers rather, and this can be used during the answer to the initial question, or it can be done during the rebuttal period, but it can only be used one time. Questions continue until we are about 50 minutes into the debate when we move on to closing comments. So let's get started. Our first question will be coming from Zach Kaiser. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry, we need to do the opening first. I'm sorry, I got ahead of everybody. So Mr. Gazelk, we'll start with you with opening comments. Hi, my name is Paul Gazelk, I'm the current state senator, and just a little bit of background about myself. I've been married to my wife, Mary Lee, for 34 great years. We have five kids, ages 13 down to 23, and then a 15-year-old. And now we have three grandkids, which are totally awesome. My background is business. I'm a business owner in the Brainerd Lakes area. I've been doing that all my life, but in different locations. Prior to that, I was up in the northwest part of Minnesota for about seven years. Prior to that, southwest Minnesota for seven years, and go far enough back and I graduated from high school in Virginia, Minnesota. Some other things that I thought you should know about me is in the legislator I've served there for eight years as a legislator, I always get those two words mixed out. But I presently serve on taxes, commerce, state government, veterans, and rules. On taxes and commerce, I'm the lead Republican, and so I'm the one that probably is most involved in those two areas. In addition, I'm a Republican minority leader, the assistant leader, and so very active. It takes a while to get there, but I've had the privilege to rise up into places of influence, and that's good for our area. A couple of things that I want to focus on, moving forward into next election, if you re-elect me. The first one is we have to fix Minsher. I would prefer to repeal it. I hope we can repeal it. I hope Republicans win the House, Senate, and President and repeal Obamacare. But if that doesn't happen, and if we can't repeal Minsher in Minnesota, then I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and fix it. I serve, like I said on the Commerce Committee, that's the main committee that Minsher goes through. And I can tell you that Republicans had a lot of great ideas that were not listened to. It was passed without one Republican vote, and now we have the problems that we have with people having rates that are going up more than 50%. In fact, all the way up to 67% rates are going up. That's one area that I want to work heavily on. Another one is to pass the tax relief that both Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate agreed to. 87% of legislators voted for tax relief, and we thought the governor was with us. In the end, he did not pass that, but we had business property tax relief, we had ag property tax relief, we had credits for student loan, and then we had local government aid increase and many other things. One thing we didn't have was Social Security income tax exemption that was passed by House Republicans, but it didn't make it to the final end. So those are a number of things I'm working on, and I just appreciate having this opportunity for you to be here and to listen to us. Thank you, Mr. Guzolka. Mr. Wienerman. My name is Jason Wienerman. I'm the DFL endorsed candidate running for Senate District 9. Thank you for inviting us to this event, and thank you to the listeners and viewers who are taking the time out of their day or night or online for viewing us. You're going to hear some very differences of opinions, and some areas were Paul and I share opinions. This is the first time we're running for office, so I'm going to let you know a little bit about me. I've been in Minnesota for 10 years. I moved to the little falls there with my wife back in 2006. Before I came to Minnesota, I was spending eight years living in North Dakota, and I was living in a small town in Northeastern North Dakota, where the only radio stations I got effectively were ones out of Canada and ones out of Minnesota. So I learned to say A very quickly, and I also was fascinated by listening to Minnesota stories because when you live in North Dakota, North Dakota's got an incredibly conservative legislature who doesn't like to do a lot of things, and hearing what was happening across the river was a constant reminder of a state that does things right. So after about eight years in North Dakota, I decided I needed to move from a state that was having trouble doing anything to a state that was doing things right. So I moved to Little Falls where I was employed by the Board of Water and Soil Resources. The Board of Water and Soil Resources is a state agency that provides grants and assistance to our local governments in protecting the state's soil and water resources. As part of my job and our agency mission, we strongly value the role of local governments in decision making and having local authority. That's primarily the reason why I chose to run for office. Over the past 10 years of Minnesota, we've faced some pretty severe recessions, severe which resulted in us having to cut the state budget, which is a responsible thing to do during a time of crisis. So we need to help restore the fiscal stability to our governments because what we ask our governments to do is financially make up the fiscal shortfall with their own resources. So a lot of landowners see property tax increases to make up for state mandates that become unfunded. So as I'm running for office, I'm seeking to strengthen the foundation upon which Minnesota was made great and continue us moving into the future. So thank you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Our first question will come from Zach Kaiser from the Brainard Dispatch and Mr. Wienerman, you will have the first opportunity to answer that. Thank you. I support Hillary Clinton. She is definitely not the perfect candidate, but she is on the Democratic side and I believe that her issues are going to, she has a better focus on the working class, more of a commitment to equality of women's rights, gender rights. And I think that she's got a better platform that will bring the country forward and stand a better chance of unifying the country. Over the past couple of weeks, my decision to support Secretary Clinton has been reinforced by the challenges that Donald Trump has had both in terms of the released bus tape and then the recent spate of Republicans who are flinging his campaign, which tells me if you can't maintain the support of your party, you've got some serious issues that the state, that the nation and your voters need to consider in supporting that person for office. Thank you. That's a very interesting question, kind of a tough question for Republicans like me that are Christian, conservative, I will tell you that I was at a funeral for Senator Metz and another Senator, a DFL Senator from the Twin Cities came up to me and said, Senator Gazelka, you're the most moral legislator I know. How could you vote for Trump? And I returned the questions that how can you vote for Hillary? And I went down a litany of things that Hillary Clinton has been part of that were, I think, unacceptable. Ben Gazi was one of them where she was the Secretary of State, left her ambassador there, never sent help, and then actually lied about it to the people and said that it was a video when she knew it wasn't, when she was using her emails inappropriately with secure data, top secret data, and she was called on it, and then subpoenaed. She destroyed all those emails knowing that if you destroy emails, you know that something is wrong. She has the Clinton Foundation where they funneled money towards other things that were inappropriate. And then how she protected her own husband, then President Clinton who did a number of things that were very inappropriate with women actually did them, Hillary knew about some of them, and then she went after the women rather than her husband. And I probably will take an extra minute on this one because I want to give you the full reason why. But all of those things were actually actions that I cannot possibly accept. And Trump, on the other hand, he's crass, he's crude, which doesn't line up with how I want to be in life, how I expect to treat people. But as far as the issues go, he's pro-life when I'm pro-life. He says this is going to point to judges that will actually follow the Constitution rather than reinterpret the Constitution, and we know we have a judge that's going to be picked for the Supreme Court. He says he's going to close the borders, which I think is very important that we not accept illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants, yes, illegal, no. He wants to go after Islamic terrorists, I think he recognizes that there's a real battle there that is not going away. He recognizes that refugees coming from the Middle East are hard to vet, and so he wants extreme vetting. And finally, I think he understands what it takes to create a job. He's created a lot of jobs all over the world, not just in America. And so he knows what it's going to take to deal with trade issues. But is he my perfect candidate? No, he's not my perfect candidate. He wasn't in my top 10 candidates. But I am definitely voting for him now. Thank you. Mr. Wienermann, would you like to read what that was? So Senator Gazelka spent most of his time talking about why he doesn't support Hillary Clinton. And one thing I do respect about Senator Gazelka is his lifelong commitment to being pro-life. Standing by an issue like that, that's valuable and important to him, is a testament to his beliefs and his commitment to his faith. I'm not quite sure why he thinks that Donald Trump is pro-life. Prior to running for this office and needing the Republican nomination, Donald Trump was pro-choice and proudly pro-choice. So as on such a core issue where your presidential candidate is unwilling or incapable of maintaining an issue, I would wonder if Senator Gazelka, that puts questions into the authenticity of any of Donald Trump's positions. Thank you. Yes? My follow-up, I think that's a fair assessment. Donald Trump wasn't pro-life and now he says he is. So I say at least he says he's pro-life. Hillary supports abortion all the way until just before the baby is born, and she's willing to destroy that life. And so I'd rather have somebody at least says they do. And Donald Trump, seven years of the Obama administration, was a registered Democrat. And so it's hard for me to be passionately for him. But of all the things I mentioned that he's going to do, Hillary is going to do the opposite on those. And so I'd rather take my chances with somebody that wants to hand the direction that I believe in. Thank you. Our second question will come from Dennis Weyman from Lakeland News. And it will be directed first to Mr. Gazelka. Thanks, Ray. Senator Jim Aberly Abler, I should say, and Representative Rod Hamilton called for a special session today to fix the health insurance emergency. What solutions or ideas do you have to address the current health care and health insurance issues we are seeing? Well, I'm sure it has flopped miserably. And we said it would from the very beginning because they took no Republican ideas. And then they wonder why it's going up over 50% and why we only have two companies left in our area that are going to offer it. And so some of the things we could have done, first of all, is ensure had a board. And there was zero expertise from the health insurance industry on there or doctors or hospitals. And so if you have a board, you want people engaged there that actually know something about what they're dealing with. In addition, things that we can do to lower the cost, we could provide full tax deductions for anybody that has to have health insurance on their own. We should reduce the mandated coverages that are required in Minnesota. We require more than the federal exchange, which is why I want to go to the federal exchange. For example, our commissioner said that sex changes have to be covered under our health insurance. And he did that without legislation. We should re-look at a high-risk pool like EMSHA. EMSHA was a key factor in helping people get insurance where they were ineligible to get insurance. And we should look at that again. I'll tell you the rates for that EMSHA, high-risk pool, those rates were cheaper than the rates that anybody having to buy Minsher now, just the regular person buying Minsher. And so we did a lot of things that worked in the past. And there's no reason that we can't look at those again. And so those are just a few of the things that I think we should look at. There are a lot more, but that's a few. Thank you, Mr. Weinerman. So Minsher and the Minnesota Health Care Insurance, the government came out today, or actually yesterday, and said that Minsher is not working as advertised. So it clearly needs to be fixed. And as Senator Gazelka has stated in previous discussions, some of our rates are going up 50%, 67% for our small business owners. So there are clearly things that aren't working in the system. However, I was at a local government board meeting this morning where their health insurance premiums were going up 4%. So that particular unit of government in their insurance pool was managing to keep their health insurance rates under control. So I think we need to figure out what's driving the higher end of the rates and what's driving the lower end of the rates. Figure out, there should be a way we can go ahead and fix Minsher to better address the different issues and protect those folks who wind up in the higher pool. Senator Gazelka has some good ideas in terms of providing some return subsidies. I like his concept of developing a cluster pool where small businesses and individuals can come together and act as a larger group. So I think this year allows us to step back, admit there have been errors, go ahead, reevaluate our system, take some time next year. I don't think we should get rid of Minsher because I don't think turning things over to the fellow government is the way to go. Minnesota, working together across the aisle, hopefully next year we can go ahead and fix this, have the discussion and create a better, stronger system that better meets all of Minnesota's needs. Thank you. Mr. Gazelka, would you like to talk about it? So Minsher, to set it up, it costs over $300 million and $40 million a year to run and you're still buying health insurance. So there's no way it's ever gonna be less expensive than if you just went out and bought a health plan and that's why group health plans are less expensive. Some of the solutions that I've heard from the other side is let's do a public option which means we're gonna buy more coverage or get people more into coverage that the hospitals and doctors in our area already lose money on, therefore exacerbating the problem in rural Minnesota. So that's not the solution. I will roll up my sleeves to fix this. I think there's more listening years on the other side. I think I said once already, but not one Republican voted for it. In the beginning, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce wanted it in Minnesota. By the time they finished drafting it and put it in together, they said it's not good for Minnesota. So that's why I say we should have a federal exchange. I'd rather not do that either, but that's why I say that. Thank you, Mr. Minerman. So unfortunately, Senator Gazelka has set the table for bargaining and already taken items off the table. So if his entire party accepts the premise that a single payer system is off the table, we don't wind up addressing, exploring all of the solutions. So by not be willing to address all of the solutions and exploring each option and coming to logical and rational decision-making that can better benefit all people in Minnesota, we wind up having unfair bargaining, which is gonna wind up splitting the parties and creating further division when we need to come together to solve this issue. Thank you. The next question will be from Heidi Holton, and it will be directed to you, Mr. Minerman first. Mr. Minerman, my question has to do with energy. The state's two biggest utilities, Minnesota Power and Excel Energy, are taking serious Minnesota's renewable energy goals by installing wind and solar energy systems. What's your vision for a clean energy future in Minnesota? I commend the two large utilities. I also commend the electric co-ops who are helping our rural citizens to better meet their energy needs. Going forward, I would like to see, reach, leave the 2025 standard, so work through that, see how it takes to go ahead, and if we achieve that standard in time, I'm not in any great rush to raise that standard. I would like to see it raised over time. Minnesota is a state that has no fossil fuels, so all of the energy we produce from fossil fuels must be derived from other states. We do have tremendous wind resources. We do have solar resources. There's tremendous opportunities to invest in that. It would be nice to see the state provide some resources to help folks invest in that. One of the truly revolutionary, innovative things that are happening in District 9 is Camp Ripley is going ahead and putting in a huge solar array on the camp. I believe either it's completed or near to be completed, and it's gonna produce more electricity than the camp needs on an annual basis. Those kind of activities are a true testament of where Minnesota can go. There is some technology regarding batteries and long-term storage of renewable energy generation, but I do believe it should be a critical component going forwards, and we should see to continue the phase-out fossil fuels. Thank you, Mr. Gazelka. 25% renewable requirements by 2025 was forced upon our state back in 2013, I believe. It was the year that Democrats had House, Senate, and Governor, and their goal was for much higher numbers than that, and I'm not opposed to solar and wind. I think they're important, but I think it's all of the above. I think it's nuclear, which we refuse to even look at in our state, fossil fuels, and then wind and solar, and so I don't wanna force our state or country to go faster on this than we need to. We have clean coal today in our country that are far cleaner than it used to be. We have natural gas, and we use a lot of gas and oil, and so for me, it's all of the above. I think we have to have a balanced approach on how we approach this. My concern is that if we make it so difficult for businesses in the ag community to try to move forward because we're putting such a high emphasis on wind and solar, I think that's a mistake, and so I wanna look at our regulations very cautiously on this area, but also across many other things. For example, we want polymat to mine copper and nickel up on the iron range, and yet it's been over 12 years of trying to get through the permit process just to do it, and so either don't do it or do it, but don't make it so difficult that people have a hard time doing it, and so that's kind of a general perspective on where I am with energy and renewable energy. Your bottle? Yes, thank you. Senator Dzilica talks about an all of the above energy policy, and he falls back on the classic traditional energy uses, natural gas, coal, and nuclear. I do believe it's worthwhile to look at nuclear energy, see if the technology's improved for that, but one of the things in the room is global climate change, and not only that, much of our lakes and streams in Minnesota, one of the high quality resources we have here, are polluted by mercury. That comes from the burning of coal in the western states. So we're only seeing global climate change, which is changing our weather systems, leading to higher events, higher intensity, shorter duration events that lead to localized flooding. We're also seeing long-term damage to our ecosystem and destroying the very things at Minnesota's value, particularly our natural resources. So we disagree slightly here, because I do want to take care of the environment, but I don't want it to be so difficult that we ruin some of the economies and businesses that are here. For example, Sandpiper wanted to put a pipeline through Minnesota. They made it so difficult that they changed their mind in the end, and why not have oil go through a pipeline rather than through the trains? But the process was just difficult, and so we've got to figure out how to have that balance between using the resources we have, staying energy of independent as we compete against the rest of the world, and then looking at some of the renewable resources that we have as well. Thank you. Our next question comes from Zach Kaiser, and it'll be directed to you, Mr. Gazelka first. What's the single most important social issue to you, and how should the state address it? I'll probably answer a couple if I can fit it in. Social issues for me, life. I'm pro-life, I'm endorsed by MCCL and my opponent is on the opposite side of that, and I think that it should be unborn all the way until the elderly that we value the preciousness of God-given life. And so that would be my number one. I think we should end taxpayer-funded abortion. I think we should continue to work towards adding money towards positive alternative acts. That's where we help pregnant women bring their baby to term, and then through adoption, or helping them and the father learn the skills to actually raise a family. One other one that's pressing right now that I want to address though, is right now, in just the last couple of years, President Obama, Minnesota High School League, and Governor Dayton, all said that transgender boys should be able to be in girl showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms with the girls, and then be on their sports teams. And I just find that totally inappropriate. This is a very sensitive issue, a biological male that thinks themselves a woman. It is very difficult. We have to be very sensitive about that, but to change our whole system and allow them to be in those showers, locker rooms, and bathrooms with the girls is a privacy issue for the women that I will stand up against, that I was for the privacy of the women against that policy. And I can tell you in Virginia, Minnesota, there's already a lawsuit where there was a transgender male in the locker room with the girls, doing a dance, and offending some of the girls. And so, this is a delicate issue. I can tell you my opponent and I have already talked about this in disagree, but those are some of the key issues that I will work on when I'm down there. Thank you. The next question comes from Mr. Weiman. Oh, you wanted to do a rebuttal. I'm sorry. I'd like to give an answer. Oh, you didn't give your answer. No, not yet. I'm sorry. You're going to rebuttal. Do you want to rebut yourself? Yeah. I think the biggest social issue right now is a universal issue. We're actually beginning to have an in-depth discussion on the issue of equality across all classes in society. When Senator Kozalk is talking about being pro-life, I'm a proud member who's a pro-choice Democrat. When I look at the issue of being pro-choice, it's an equality issue to me. Women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies. They can have the right to have sex when they want to and not be imposed upon by men. They have the right to go ahead and be secure in their body and not assaulted by having people grab their journals or sticking tongues down their throat. They should have the ability and authority to decide if they want to have sex, what kind of contraception they should be allowed to use, and whether or not they want to carry a child to term. That is within the sanctity of the women's equality issue. And we need to make sure we maintain equality within the women's rights. In addition, there's a big issue on gender rights. Senator Kozalka talks about the transgender bill, and he's giving the impression that it's a linebacker who shows up to the game and says, I'm feeling kind of like a woman today. I'd like to play in the women's hockey team, field hockey team, so I'd like to share with the women. That's sexual assault. That's sexual violence against women. The Minnesota High School League has a program, and it's not just where the person says, I'm transgender. There's this long policy the person has to go to to identify and clarify the role of their transgender issues and how they want to engage in the system. So we want to make sure we're having an awesome debate right now across many different areas. We're actually beginning to accept the phrase that all men and women are created equal, and we need to drive that forward and embrace equality and continue the fight so we finally can reach the standard where all men are created equal and women. Thank you. Mr. Kozalka. So without a doubt, God created men and women equal, but different, and that difference is something we should honor and not try to merge them all together into bathrooms and showers and locker rooms. I just think that's silly. And so we've got to figure out a way how to honor people, honor women. And I have four daughters. I am passionate about them being the absolute best and highest that they can be in this life, and I cherish them and I protect them. You know, when there's some predator guy that's treating them like furniture or ogling them, I'm going to stand up and protect them. And so, but we are different on this and we're different on life, and those are some of the differences that you have to decide what you believe in. Senator Kozalka, a really interesting point. Conservative, the conservative value and the libertarian value, generally respects the role of individuals to make the decision about their own destiny. What we're hearing from Senator Kozalka now is he would like the state to make that decision for the individuals. He would like the state to define what it means to be a man, define what it means to be a woman, and define what the individuals can do with their own body. I think that individuals have the right to choose who they are, to be what they want to be, and we need to make sure we embrace that concept and drive that forwards to allow people to express the fullness of themselves and not run the risk of being ostracized in society. Thank you. Okay, our next question is coming from Dennis Weiman, and it will be directed to Mr. Wienerman. What can be done to reinvigorate the economy in this part of the state? There's a lot of, a tremendous level of innovation in this part of the state. We have a lot of natural resources. We have a tremendous ag community. We do need to make sure that the folks out here have access to the larger markets. So two of the primary things that I believe the state government, in cooperation with the local government can do to better enhance the strength of our local economies, is number one, ensure we have an infrastructure system that allows goods and markets to flow from markets across markets. So products can come to the rural areas, be assembled, be manufactured, be developed, and then shipped back to areas. So if we have a solid, stable, functioning, well-run infrastructure system that allows goods and markets to move to their natural areas, that would be a vital way to go ahead and ensure our vital economy. It also provides jobs as we maintain our roads and bridges. In addition, we need to make sure we get rural broadband across the system. Rural Minnesota is suffering from rural broadband. I talked to farmers who are working with their ag co-op producers and their crop advisors, and the crop advisors working in the city or the town, generating tremendous amounts of data that would be useful to the farm. The crop advisor sends that to the producer, and the producer has to wait three or four hours on dial-up to get that down to a system, which means that he or she is unproductive in the field. We need to make sure rural broadband comes across Minnesota and that it's affordable and available to everyone here, so we have an equal opportunity to connect to the state, national, regional, and international markets. Thank you, Mr. Duzoka. Well, for us to have a prosperous economy and a prosperous area, we know that our private business owners have got to be successful. They're the ones that create the jobs and provide things for us to have a job and to have a livelihood here, and so I look at that and I say, how do we help them? Because often we penalize them, and I would include the ag community in that as well, we penalize them. We miniaturize one thing we can fix to make that more competitive so they'd rather be here than somewhere else. Our regulations are often very onerous and difficult to navigate through, and so we need to work on that. I can tell you when Republicans were in control a few years back, four years ago, we had the House and Senate, and the permitting process, we lowered that to 90 days. We said, look, if people are trying to get a permit to move forward, the DNR and the PCA have to get that done in a timely fashion because that was slowing things down. I mentioned PolyMet's been waiting 12 years, I think that's a little bit long. Taxes, right now we are the second highest tax rate for business property tax in rural Minnesota, second highest in the nation, and that's part of the property tax relief that we talked about is giving some business property tax relief to our small business owners. Technology has already been mentioned, but getting broadband all across rural Minnesota is critical for businesses, for our medical communities, for our education. We can do things like the angel investment credit which skews some money out to rural Minnesota to help people start up, and then education is key, that we line up jobs that are there in the future, the education that they take gets them to that job. We don't always do that in education today, and we need to get better at that so that when they get to that place where they graduate, there's a job waiting for them rather than a student loan that they can't pay off. So those are a few of the things we can do. One last thing I'll say is, back in 2010, Minnesota was number 43 as the not a very good place to do business. Now we're up to 47, we gotta work on that. Thank you, Robert. As I mentioned in my opening statements, one of the things that Minnesota has, the Minnesota state legislator's done over the past several years in fighting recessions is we've gone ahead and cut state funding. So many of our local governments have had to raise property taxes to meet the requirements the state places on them. We've had a couple years now of budget surplus, and one of the things that the Republicans tend to kick reflex do is we're gonna send that money back and we're gonna return it in tax relief. There could be some minor tax relief, but it's worth reinvesting in our local government so the businesses have the foundation upon which they can build. We've seen too many cuts to our local government that winds up requiring our local governments to raise property taxes to meet the state mandates, which leads to a gap and we need to make sure we fix that problem. Thank you, Mr. Gazelka. Well, quickly, I just want to clarify that the last four years, the budget has grown from 35 billion four years ago to 42 billion today. That definitely was not a cut. That was a significant increase, but we also shouldn't pass down unfunded mandates to local governments. We should not do that as a state level, but to be clear, we have not cut anything. Some areas we sometimes reduce spending growth, but it's from 35 billion all the way up to 42 billion. That's an 18% increase, and so we gotta be careful when we use numbers. And I'll tell you too that four years ago, Democrats had House Senate and Governor and they raised taxes over $2 billion on everybody. And so now that we have a surplus, I want some of that money going back to the taxpayer. They're the ones that paid it, they should get some of it back. If I can respond to that. Yes, we've seen $6 billion budget increases in the past couple of years. I would go back 10, eight, six years when we had $6 billion budget deficits, $4 billion budget deficits. So we are not back to where we started. We can say we've raised money and that was done over the Republican objections. If we had the Republicans in charge, we would probably see ourselves in budget deficit again. I encourage folks to look at what's happening in states like Kansas and Louisiana that are run by Republicans where those states are incapable of funding their governments. They're cutting school short. They're seeing a flight of employees and workers leaving their areas. So we need to realize there's a history here and we've had serious budget cuts and we haven't even come close to replacing the shortfalls we had in the past, let alone accounting for factors of inflation and other items that raise the budget. Thank you. For the record, I believe you've both used your minute, one minute bonus. Thank you. Our next question comes from Heidi Houlton and it will be directed to Mr. Gizelka first. Senator Gizelka, our medical care system is prepared to aggressively treat people with cancer, diabetes and other serious health problems. It's not so true about how we treat people with mental illnesses. How can we do better? Well, mental illness is complicated. I'm trying to learn more about it. I can tell you I participate in a group called the Wadena Group and I've been to a couple of meetings in the brain area trying to figure out what can we do to help people with mental illness. It is complicated. And so some of the things that we talk about, I can say that we move from a regional treatment center concept into community based treatment for mental health. And a lot of that has been really good for some of the people that struggle because they have people around that can help them. But there's been a number of gaps where people have gone through the cracks or that we haven't figured out how to handle. One of those is those that are more violent. They're passed from the county sheriff to the hospital to a treatment center and there's no good way to solve it yet. And so what I've been doing is meeting with groups to say, okay, you guys are the experts. You guys work in this field. Help me find a solution. And I told them, if all of you agree, if the police agree, the hospitals, all the different sides of this, then I'm gonna push for it and I'm gonna support it. So it's one idea I thought is we should have urgent care for mental health. In other words, get your prescriptions ahead of time before you go too far. We catch them early because a lot of times they have to wait a week or two to even go in to get some care. And I just wanna address one quick thing back on a last question. The $6 billion shortfall, I was in the Senate at that time and that's what we inherited. And I'll say we took it over, we reduced the growth of spending and we were able to balance the budget and we brought in a whole lot of reforms, including one thing called the Sunset Commission where we looked at every agency and every board and said, why should you be in existence? And it was very effective until the Democrats took over, then they repealed the Sunset Commission. But a prominent DFL senator came up to me and said, you guys did all the hard work, we're gonna get all the credit. And he wasn't being, he was just telling the truth. So that's it. Thank you, Mr. Wienerman. So when we look at mental health issues, Senator Paul Wellstone several years ago began the process of destigmatizing healthcare. I think there's a destigmatizing mental illness. I think there's still a lot of stigmatization around the concept of mental illness. I think we don't treat mental illness like other physical disorders. If you go in and you're diagnosed with cancer, you treat that as a chronic and possibly curable condition. If you have diabetes or other physical illnesses, we treat those symptoms as a physical illness within the healthcare system and we don't stigmatize those many of those illnesses. However, mental health does still have a stigmatization to it where people who are, some people who have, some people consider those who have mental illness to be somehow flawed. We need to continue destigmatizing the process and we need to go ahead and ensure that mental health treatments are treated just the same as physical health so that those folks who are in need of assistance and support can receive both emergency, urgent care when needed and also be fully supported in the process of long-term mental health maintenance so that we treat our folks who are suffering equally to those folks who are, so we treat folks who are ill in mind the same way we treat folks who are ill in body and we have that equality across the system. Thank you, Mr. Guzalfa. I just wanna say, I think in this regard, I think Jason and I are pretty close that we agree. It's very important. I have relatives, I have nine siblings, all their kids and so I just can be general and just say that I've had serious struggles with mental health and in those moments, you're desperate and so we're trying to find ways through that and I totally agree that they should not be stigmatized and in fact loved even more if we can because those are difficult seasons of their life but it's amazing with just a little extra effort what can happen in a person's life. So one of my relatives was bipolar and had to be institutionalized and that was a while ago and now through treatment on his own, still in a career, married and living a good life and so if we can make a difference either early in some cases or during, it makes all the difference in the world. Thank you, Mr. Wienerman. I would just repeat what Paul said. One of the important things we need to realize is most of us are gonna wind up having a person in our family who has mental illness either in acute condition or chronic condition sometime in their life. We need to make sure we embrace those people, we get them the help they need, we return them to the functional standard we have and we treat them with the equal respect of somebody who would have an injury or a physical illness or ailment. Thank you. Our next question will come from Zach Kaiser and it will be directed to Mr. Wienerman. What more can Minnesota do to prevent terror attacks such as the mass stabbing in St. Cloud in September? So the mass stabbing in St. Cloud in September was a one-off incident. Again, we need to make sure we embrace those communities. The police, the law enforcement, I know in St. Cloud, I work in St. Cloud, my office is based out of Wake Park, so I listen to what happens in the St. Cloud area. My wife works on the university account and university campus. So we hear what's happening in that community and there's a tremendous rift between folks in the St. Cloud area, the Caucasian-European population and the Somali and other minority populations in St. Cloud. We need to make sure we bring those communities into the system to go ahead and provide us the kind of information they would happily and gladly do if we didn't ostracize them and treat them as if they were terrorists. We also need to realize that the stabbing at the mall in St. Cloud was horrible but Minnesota also has a history of school shootings. Those school shootings weren't conducted by Muslim students, they were conducted by white students or Native American students, so violence in our community is something we need to deal with and fortunately in Minnesota, we do have communities that are supportive and abrasive, I mean, supportive and embrace change and diversity. We need to make sure we continue embracing the deep reverse in our community and encourage folks to be part of the community and feel welcome in our areas. Thank you, Mr. Gezalka. I support building bridges with the Muslim community but I also want to acknowledge that it was Islamic terrorism and we have to figure out better ways to identify when somebody suddenly moves that direction. This was a student that was an honor student and suddenly he's knifing people in a mall and so it was Islamic terrorism and what do we do about that? I had a chance to go to Germany where they've accepted one million Islamic refugees in the last year and in the 10 days I was there, there was a knife attack, a gun attack, a bomb attack, a machete attack, all from Islamic terrorists and so to deny that is a mistake. We have to be aware of what's happening and so with refugees coming to Minnesota, I think we should be more careful. I would rather not accept more refugees from the Middle East into our area. What happens is when they come, we get secondary migration of refugees which means Minnesota gets twice as many refugees that come from other states into our area and it's also an economic problem. We can only handle so many people and so when you have a town like Wilmer that has suddenly grown to about 20% Somali, it's been difficult for them and it has dramatically changed their culture and so this is a very, very difficult issue and situation. If my neighbor was Muslim, I'd be going across the street and building bridges and finding ways to figure out how we can both make America great again but there are situations where we have to be more aware and not put our head in the sand but look at it for what it is and those are Islamic terrorist things that have happened here and many other places across America. Thank you. Senator Zulka brings up two interesting points. One thing we need to be very careful of is overreaction. We had a single incident of a single person who claims to be influenced under Islamic extremism or may have been radicalized or self-radicalized conduct an attack in the same cloud. We do not wanna overreact. We have a tendency of jumping to the horrifying conclusions when we see something happening. We need to maintain our cool heads. Was this a one-off incident? If so, let's just keep our heads on and see if we can go ahead and de-radicalize these folks and understand where they're coming to. Second, he talks about Wilmer. There was an article in the same Cloud Times recently that highlights Wilmer for the outstanding work they've done, particularly in the school system, to integrate students of different ethnicities into the school system. And Wilmer's not something wrong. Wilmer is something that has gone right and as a community we need to be able to embrace diversity and not be scared of people who might be changing the traditional ways we view things. Thank you, Mr. Gajalka. Well, I have a brother that lives in Wilmer and he would share a different story and he's very active at reaching out to the Muslim community, but it has changed Wilmer and many people there do not think it has changed it for the better. And so the other thing I'll say is 20% of all homegrown Islamic terrorists are out of Minnesota and so we ought to be looking at this seriously and at the same time not forgetting to be compassionate to people. I mean, it's such a balancing act. But like I said, I'm not gonna put my head into the sand, I'm gonna see it for what it is and then try to find solutions for it. Thank you. Our next question comes from Mr. Wyman and it will be directed to our Mr. Gelt, because Alka. Missouri recently enacted a constitutional carry law that allows law abiding citizens to arm themselves without state permits or licensing. Currently a permit is required to exercise the right to bear arms in Minnesota. If elected, would you vote to implement constitutional carry in Minnesota? So I'm the NRA Endorse Candidate and Galka Candidate and I have my permit to carry and I wouldn't push that legislation but I would vote for that legislation, absolutely. Something that I'm more interested in working on is that Minnesota would have its own second amendment, so to speak, so that if our federal judges, if the courts flip and they decide that they don't wanna honor our second amendment rights, Minnesota would have in place a, quote, second amendment. So I do support that, but that's not what I'm pushing. If I carry, it'll be concealed. I think it gives a sense, some people get nervous around guns and I don't wanna do that, but I still wanna be able to protect myself. We are in a changing world and I think it's wise that people carry. I'm glad in St. Cloud that there was an off-duty officer who also was a concealed carry permit teacher that he was in there and able to stop that Islamic terrorism. Thank you, Mr. Lee. So I, in terms of the second amendment, I believe that every individual who is legally allowed to purchase and acquire firearms should be do so and allowed to purchase whatever firearms they legally choose in the quantity and number and variety they choose to do so I don't think Minnesota should go ahead and pass a law restricting the acquisition of firearms. When we look at the concept of concealed carry and the Missouri issue you're talking about, it actually brings up the interesting question about the first part of the second amendment that the NRA chooses to ignore in terms of a well-regulated militia. When an individual is choosing to carry a concealed carry firearm, I believe there's an assumption on that individual, they're willing to use deadly force to settle in and protect themselves. So they are becoming part of our law enforcement system by being willing to kill somebody in the name of protecting themselves. I don't think people are carrying concealed weapons to balance out their hip strength or anything. So when we look at the idea of concealed carry, I would actually encourage stronger concealed carry training so we have our individuals who are out there trained and knowledgeable, similar to what we have our law enforcement to understand the responsibility and how to react to the situation where they may want to use their firearm. So I would not support that law because I don't think, I think we need to improve the training for our folks. So I know in some of the shootings in other states, the law enforcement community has had issues where they have to filter out whose concealed carry versus the person who's committing the crime. So we need to make sure that people who are concealed carry know the responsibility and obligations they have and are also trained to effectively manage themselves in a situation where they may draw their weapon to use deadly force. Mr. Kozalka, rebuttal. Yeah, just a couple of quick comments. The concealed carry class that I took, it really teaches you just to be aware of your surroundings. I don't want to have to shoot somebody, but if you're backed into a corner, then you have the ability to defend yourself. So people that are armed that way, I think would be great. The other thing, a legislation that I have pushed is that we armed more of our national guard. I will say a little fire under the governor and he worked with the general, General Nash, and now Camp Ripley has guards that are armed at the gates. They didn't. And I think some of those guards should also, that we should consider some of the guards with the potential to be able to carry when they're out and about. Not everyone. I think I want to work with the generals to make sure that we're doing that right. But I think the more people that we have armed that are safe, that they know how to handle a gun, that they know what it is to approach somebody that has evil in mind, I think that's a very healthy thing. Thank you. Mr. Wingerman. Yeah, just for a little bit. Interesting that Senator Gazelka says that we should have people who are armed, but not everybody. And I believe that stands in contrast with the NRA position. So I question the NRA's endorsement of Senator Gazelka who has just expressed the position that perhaps not everybody should be armed. So we do need to be aware that people who are concealed carry and using their firearms potentially for personal safety and protection are well-trained and can respond in a required manner. In an event that's gonna be very stressful and take split second decision making that law enforcement and the military trained for years to go ahead and respond in those kind of situations. Thank you. That concludes the question portion of the debate and we will now go into the closing statements and Mr. Wingerman, you have the opportunity of being first. Again, thank you for inviting us here. Senator Gazelka and I have had several opportunities to talk to each other. So it's been an honor to speak before your audience and I hope the folks who are watching has learned from both of us. This election, we share some ish similarities on our issues but as you've seen, we have some very different viewpoints on many of our different issues. So when we're looking at the issues, one of the reasons I'm running is because I do firmly believe in the authority of local government. I think there's a partnership in civil society between the individual, civic organizations, businesses, local government, the state government and the federal government. I think come November 8th, whatever we see on the federal level, we're not gonna see a whole lot of change in the federal government but we can do better to help make sure the state government is the foundation upon which we build our future. And we go ahead and that foundation supports the local government where the local decision making process lies with the local people. So as I'm running for office, I wanna return authority to the local folks who are elected by the people in their community and who can make decision making in local board meetings, in city halls, in township halls, in county commission rooms, in conservation districts where folks can hash out the best solutions locally. So I support and I'm running to better rebuild the foundation that Minnesota had and return us to where we are a decade ago, a strong, prosperous state that we're the envy of much of the nation. Thank you, Mr. Griselka. So just to clarify, if I said it wrong, I don't know if I did or not but I just to make sure if a general should be able to decide which soldiers that they want to carry out in the public. But I wanna talk about, first of all, endorsements because I think they matter. They say which direction I'm likely going on issues and so I'm endorsed by MCCL, that's the pro-life group as the only endorsed candidate. I'm endorsed by the NRA and Gokra for gun rights. I'm endorsed by Farm Bureau for farm issues, Minnesota Family Council for family issues and the NFIB in the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce for jobs and business issues. And so that kind of gives you an idea of where I'm looking at and what direction I'm heading on issues. Where Jason and I differ are significant. I support life, he supports choice. I do not support light rail, we didn't talk about that but it would take too much money away from buses and roads and bridges and I think it's a big mistake. I don't support the gas tax, he does. We talked about the showers and locker rooms for boys being allowed to be in the girls and I disagree, we're different there. I think we should repeal Mencher if we can. He would disagree there. So those are a bunch of the areas where we disagree. And then finally what I wanna do when I'm down there, we need tax relief, ag tax relief, small business owner tax relief, student loan tax relief, exempt social security income tax. We were one of just six states that still taxes social security income. We can do better on those. One of the highlights I forgot to mention is that I was the chief author of the military pension exemption in Minnesota. For the first time ever, we finally stopped taxing our veterans that are retiring. So we have a lot of work to do. I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and put in four more years. I hope you consider voting for me. I appreciate that I've been able to serve you in these eight years, thank you. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank both of the candidates for their civility, their integrity and their willingness to stay on time. I think our national candidates could learn something from both of you gentlemen. Thank you very much, much appreciated. If you missed any portion of this particular debate within 24 hours, this will be posted on the lptv.org website. So you can go there and see it again. You can also pick up a copy of Tomorrow's Brain or Dispatch and there will be a recap in that. Or you can go, if you wanna listen to it, you can go to the audio portion of it at kaxe.org. And you can hear this debate again. Don't turn your dial. Stay tuned at eight o'clock. We have our candidates for the House 9A coming up Meglitz and John Poston. So good evening and thank you very much for watching.