Surprises spice up 3rd District debate

The candidates have appeared together so often they could finish each other’s sentences.

The standing-room audience packed into the Gaiser Hall Auditorium at Clark College was asked not to applaud, and mostly complied.

Still, there was plenty of opportunity to judge the six candidates running for the open 3rd Congressional District seat Thursday evening as they fielded questions on topics from the war in Afghanistan to the economy at home.

There were a few surprises:

Democrat Denny Heck said “every member of Congress ought to take a 10 percent pay cut” until the economic crisis that is crippling middle-class families has passed.

Republican David Castillo, responding to a question about national energy policy, called climate change “bunk.”

Republican David W. Hedrick said, “climate change may be real, but there is no evidence whatsoever that humans caused it.”

Heck emphatically dissented, saying, “climate change is real, and the fact is we have an imperative to reduce our use of fossil fuel.”

Candidates sparred over immigration reform, health care reform, the war in Afghanistan and tolling Clark County residents to pay for a new bridge over the Columbia River.

Political newcomer Norma Jean Stevens, an Independent who lives in Ocean Park, answered most questions by reading from her website issues page, but she took a pass on a question about impending water shortages, admitting that’s a topic she hasn’t studied.

Olympia peace activist Cheryl Crist, whose son is on active duty in the Air Force, called for bringing American troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, closing some of the nation’s 800 military bases around the world, and redirecting billions of dollars from the Pentagon to solving critical problems at home.

The questions developed by Leadership Clark County, one of the event’s sponsors, were wide-ranging. But the most heartfelt comments were on the subjects of the federal deficit, Southwest Washington’s lagging economy and Clark County’s 12.6 percent unemployment rate.

The three leading candidates all touted their qualifications to address those issues.

“I’m the only Republican running who has actually created jobs,” said Castillo, an Olympia financial adviser and former George W. Bush administration official who once co-owned a technology company that fell victim to the dot.com bust. He said the most critical issue facing small businesses right now is their inability to get credit.

“I’m the only candidate with a track record of successfully creating jobs,” said Heck, an Olympia entrepreneur who has helped found several companies over the past 10 years, including RealNetworks. He said he’d use that experience if elected to Congress to create good-paying green energy jobs.

“I am the only candidate who has a record of voting against wasteful government spending,” said state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Camas, the only candidate in the field who currently holds elected office. “We have got to stop the drunken-sailor, hand-over-fist spending” by the federal government, she said.

With primary election ballots scheduled to go out in late July, both Democrats and Republicans are closely watching the race for the seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, a Vancouver Democrat. About half the district’s voters live in Clark County, but the Tuesday forum was the first to bring all six candidates together on one stage.

Race wide open

“The successful candidate here has big shoes to fill,” said attorney Steve Horenstein of the law firm Miller Nash, another event sponsor. Horenstein said he recently polled the lawyers in his Vancouver office and not one had yet decided which candidate to support — indicating that the race is still wide open.

Hedrick, a Tea Party Republican who got into the race after confronting Baird at a health care forum last August, offered the most provocative views of the evening, calling Social Security “a pyramid scam” and predicting that the health reform bill passed by Congress will bankrupt many insurance companies.

He also accused President Barack Obama of “pandering to the left . . . and also trying to pander to the right” by committing more troops to Afghanistan but then setting a date for beginning to withdraw those troops.

“Get them in and win the war or get them out,” Hedrick said.

Herrera complimented President Obama, saying he “did the right thing in dismissing Gen. Stanley McChrystal” over disparaging comments he and his staff made to a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. She said she agrees with his comment that “We need to have a unity of purpose” in Afghanistan.

Heck was more critical. “Afghanistan is now the longest war in our history, and frankly, I’m not sure what we have to show for it,” he said. The Obama administration needs to define success and decide if it’s achievable, he said. “We cannot afford this indefinitely.”

On immigration reform, all agreed that the current policy has failed to secure the nation’s borders. Consensus ended there.

Castillo, who worked in the Department of Homeland Security, said he favors securing the nation’s borders with fences and electronic surveillance, requiring all businesses to use E-Verify to check the immigration status of their workers, and deporting every illegal immigrant who is incarcerated.

Heck said the toughest issue is what to do with the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants who are in the country now. “We can’t afford to deport 11 million people,” he said. Instead, they should be required to pay back taxes and learn English on the path to citizenship.

Kathie Durbin: 360-735-4523 or kathie.durbin@columbian.com.