SAN ANTONIO – A high-stakes congressional debate took place between Republican Brandon Herrera and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout on Tuesday, right here on WOAI\/KABB.<\/p>\n
The race is for Texas’ 23 Congressional District, which stretches from El Paso to San Antonio and is one of the state’s largest border districts. Both candidates are seeking to replace former Congressman Tony Gonzales, who resigned earlier this year after admitting to an affair with a staffer.<\/p>\n
Herrera, a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, secured the Republican nomination after challenging Gonzales in the primary and advancing to a runoff.<\/p>\n
Gonzales dropped out of the race before the runoff, opening the door for Herrera. Padilla Stout, a San Antonio attorney and former teacher, is the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n
Yami Virgin and Robert Holguin moderated the event, which was featured both on air and online via YouTube, Facebook, as well as news4sanantonio.com and foxsanantonio.com.<\/p>\n
Opening Statements<\/p>\n
“My name is Brandon Herrera. I’m running as the Republican nominee for Texas District 23. This has been my family’s home for five generations. I’ve got family from Laredo to Dilley, all the way up here in San Antonio, and Texas has offered me a lot of beautiful opportunities to grow my manufacturing business, and it’s it’s become my home. I love it to death, and I want to see it defended, including its values, and that’s where I think there’s some major differences between myself and my opponent tonight. I think Texas District 23, being the biggest border district in the entire country, me and my opponent have very different views on how to deal with the border. I think it needs to remain closed. I think we need strong border policy. My opponent wants to return to Biden’s catch and release. We have different views on affordability. I want to lower taxes for working families. My opponent wants to raise them. We have different views on who owns your children. My opponent thinks that the government does, or that the community does. I think parents have the right to decide.”<\/p>\n
“My name is Katie Padilla Stout, and I am a native Texan. I am a teacher. I am a child welfare attorney, and I am also a mother of four. I am running for Congress for three main reasons: that is, cost, corruption, and children. Cost. Everything from gas to groceries is too expensive right now. I will fight Trump’s failed policies to ensure that prices are lowered for your family. Corruption. Members in Congress right now are trading stocks and making millions of dollars while we are just trying to make ends meet. I won’t participate in that, and I will vote to stop it. Children. They are my heart and my life’s work. I will work to continue to fight for them. It is why I believe in universal pre-K, access to health care, and keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. My opponent is unfit for this office for a multitude of reasons, but there’s one in particular. He went to Robb Elementary three months after the tragedy that occurred there and fired a gun at child-shaped targets. He said things like, ‘That’s a kill shot.’ He makes millions of dollars doing just that. Don’t believe me? Go to hereallysaidit.com. He’ll call back about my work and call me a radical, but I’ll let you know that Texas values include affordability and taking care of your family. “<\/p>\n
Policy Positions<\/p>\n
Herrera emphasized stronger border enforcement, tax reductions for working families, law-enforcement funding, armed school security, expanded veterans\u2019 community care, local control over data centers, and opposition to a physical border barrier through Big Bend National Park.<\/p>\n
Stout emphasized affordability, anti-corruption measures, universal pre-K, healthcare access, stricter firearm policies, full law-enforcement training, and federal minimum standards for data centers.<\/p>\n
Both candidates opposed a physical wall through Big Bend, but disagreed over whether a technology-based \u201csmart wall\u201d would still damage the park or require eminent domain.<\/p>\n
Uvalde School Shooting <\/p>\n
School safety was one of the major debate topics. The discussion included the deadly mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde four years ago which claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real question is, how do we make sure that that never happens again?\u201d asked Herrera. \u201cAnd in order to answer that question, we have to ask ourselves exactly why was it targeted in the first place? And the answer is that it’s a soft target, as are many of these school shootings and many of these mass shootings. Now the question is why we don’t have armed security at schools protecting our children as a country?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s clear that Brandon Herrera hasn’t done much research into school shootings, or he would know that there are plenty of school shootings where we had armed officers on the scene like in Uvalde,\u201d said Padilla Stout. \u201cWe had plenty of armed officers there at the scene for over 45 minutes, and yet our children and our teachers were not safe. That does not work. Let’s talk about things that do work – investing in mental health, raising the assault weapons age to buy to 21, which I’ve spoken with local gun owners and they have gun businesses and they’ve stated it wouldn’t really affect their business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elections<\/p>\n
Early voting runs from Monday, Oct. 19 through Oct. 30. Voters who are applying to vote by mail must do so by Oct. 23. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – A high-stakes congressional debate took place between Republican Brandon Herrera and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-465418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}