let's pass the conferenc conferf immigration bill for of immigration bill for december but this is, by the farming community, by pretty much everyone. >> moderator: thank you, gentlemen. it's now time to move on. we will give our panelists a break and let each candidate ask each other a question. this is agreed to by both candidates, and by going to ask doug ose does get to go first. representative bera has 90 seconds to respond with a 30-second response available for mr. ose. go ahead. ose: congressman bera, 10 times you voted to protect legislation that strips $716 billion of future funding for medicare recipients. ytd that? that's just bad policy. bera: déjà vu all over again in the same debate. we will leave it up to the bee in the media to decide whether the claim is a lie or not. when it comes to medicare though i look at this as a doctorate my peers are on medicare. we have to get over the weekend not only to protect medicare but

to strengthen it, to make sure it's there not just for today's seniors but also for kids and grandkids. that's what i have thought against the kings to cut medicare. the president, my own party, wanted to cut the affordable care act and medicare advantage. we want to cut medicare advantage to i stood up as a doctor and pushed back. because medicare advantage actually is working. it's offering benefits, diagnosing diseases early and keeping people healthy. we thought back. we rallied folks both democrats and republicans and we pushed back into one. that's because this is about protecting medicare. now, you support a budget that turned medicare into a voucher plan and into the medicare guarantee as we know it. that is in protecting medicare. this is about making sure my patients, our parents, have the care that they need. >> moderator: you have an opportunity to respond, mr. ose. ose: congressman, there's no way

around it. you voted to cut $716 billion from medicare, the congressional budget office, nonpartisan congressional budget office the works of congress which is where you work says, this bill cuts $716 billion for medicare funding. i don't understand why you can't say why you strip that funding. 10 times, congressman. 10 times. my parents can your parents, our neighbors, they all are going to be thrown -- who knows where they will be thrown? >> moderator: we need to move on. this will be asked by congressman bera. bera: congressman, in your three terms in congress, can you name three votes where you stood up to wall street bankers? ose: you bet. the first was when the wall street bankers decided that they wanted to hide behind the

campaign finance laws and not disclose who -- to whom they were giving money. i was a cosponsor of mccain-feingold that allowed americans to know where the money comes from -- try 53 votes, congressman. ose: just bear with me. where money comes from and to whom it goes. in contrast, congressman bera has made a career so far out of taking money from wall street and then return granting them an exemption from the affordable care act. bera: one vote, congressman. ose: the other items i stood up to wall street on have to do with their desire to special treatment under tax laws and special provisions for their unique enterprises. something that you routinely and regularly voted to defend. you carved out an exemption for yourself and your colleagues from the affordable care act. also carved out an exemption for wall street. i just don't understand what

your fealty is, what your loyalty is to wall street. i mean, it's just totally cocked to edge in my mind that you do this. >> moderator: short reply? cut but he couldn't even name one but where he stood up to wall street bankers. it's because he is protecting wall street banks. he voted to deregulate wall street bank but the game too big to i took us into the recession. i'm going to stand up to the middle class and protect our seniors and that's what this election is all about. >> moderator: very good. thank joan. it's time to move back to our panel and questions. the next question is for congressman bera and would asked by michaela. >> congressman bera, california just adopted the yes means yes which greets the skin on all california campuses that the absence of know does not mean consent to sex. sexual assault on college campus is not just a california issue

but a national one. do you belve congress should adopt this similar policy? bera: apps will be. as the father of a daughter yes means yes. this is about domestic violence against women has gotten out of control and we have to get a handle on the. congressman ose and i agree on this. we both our supporters of the violence against women's act. it is important, and i'm sure he looks at th it the same as i dos a father of a daughter. that we have to address violence on campuses. we have to make sure all women are protected and that's what i advocated can i spoke on the house floor to pass the violence against women's act that protects all women. so yes. ose: i'm a strong supporter of making sure our campuses are safe our young men and women, including the threat of violence against women. i am delighted that the california legislature passed and the governor signed the legislation you are referring to. this has been a central theme of

my previous public service, that we cannot allow him inappropriate behavior by young men or women on our campuses. of violence against women act provide significant funding to address these issues and local law enforcement and the like. i was one of six republicans at the time to vote in favor of that. one of six. there is within title ix a provision that requires different campuses and universities provide reports on the incidence of such crimes. some comply and some do not. i think it's an appropriate role for a membe number of congress o insist that universities comply with the thailand provisions of these reports. the reason they don't do it has to do with the fact that they did not want to put out in public adverse information for future students and families to consider when they get around to

thinking about college. this is something that strikes right at the foundation of representing government. you either stand up and try to address this or you shouldn't be in office try for this sounds like you both agree that yes means yes law should be nationwide. correct? bera: absolutely. ose: correct transfer would you like a rebuttal? spent it shows we can agree on things and put people first and put her kids first we can get things done. >> moderator: in that case we will move on. marianne russ has next question. >> the ebola crisis became more real for americans today. we're the first person to be diagnosed with the virus i in te us died but also debate the obama administration announced it would begin screening for the disease of several u.s. airports. what additional action should the government take to make sure the public is safe, especially with regard to hospitals and transportation systems? transit stephen with a challenge like people, is extreme

difficult. ose: dealing with a chance like a bull is extreme difficult. the administrator adopted rules that were put in place until 2010. the point of which was to allow screening from areas were ebola or other priest diseases break out in terms of trying to keep it from coming to the united states. in 2010, much to the dismay of many, the obama administration repealed those rules and went back to what existed before. so essentially we were defenseless at that point. i believe 10 days ago there was a hearing in the house foreign affairs committee at which the three american survivors who were airlifted out of liberia were asked to testify. i believe congressman bera you were there. there wasn't a single question posed by congressman bera to those three people about what protocols need to be adopted to protect this country from having

ebola hundred and affect our population. i think the administration has finally stepped up and started taking the ebola threat seriously. i applaud them for doing that but i wish they had done it weeks ago when it first broke out in august, if i recall. because i think would be far further along to making sure the homeland is protected. try for congressman bera, are we behind be able on ebola? cut but i look this as a doctor and public health expert. we did a lot of work when we were about anthrax, potential smallpox and how you get into things like this, contain and triage. i was on the phone with tom frieden, dr. frieden, head of cdc last week. i've been paying very close attention to ebola looking at from the perspective as a doctor in public health expert. in that conversation, tom reassured us that we are safe here, but we do have to step up

screening mechanisms. i support the president to accept that screening mechanism. we have a terrific public health infrastructure here but we have to screen people and country in west africa and they would also to work with the border and customs agents here in america to make sure that people are developing symptoms that were isolating and identifying them. if we want to get head of ebola it's going to have to happen in west africa and i support the president said in some of our resources there to build the infrastructure, to build those isolation suites and so forth. it's incredibly important. but again we have a public health infrastructure here that is fantastic, and that will help us. we don't need to panic. will we do need to do is we need to get ahead of this in country. i sort the president's plan to cut for those. ose: people is nonpartisan. it affects everybody without regard to your party

registration. my point here is that, i stably that congressman bera knows more about public health than i do. my concern here is that he said through a public hearing of the house foreign affairs subcommittee that he sits on dealing specifically with testimony from ebola victims who have been airlifted to the united states the event, and he didn't ask a single question about the protocols necessary to protect the homeland. >> moderator: there's a specific address to you in a hearing. you want to reply? bera: again, i've been at the forefront of this working with the cdc talking to the cdc, and working with the cdc to get ahead of us. they are the preeminent health care organization in the country, or in the world actually. better than the world health organization and they're taking a lead. i conversation on drug with ahead of the cdc's. >> moderator: we will move on from ebola to dance that's what the question for -- i'm

certainly of a follow-up. >> mr. ose, you mentioned protocols that interest them what protocols specifically you would support works restricting flights from west africa? ose: i think protecting the homeland is the number one job for the federal government and its elected representatives. if that involves under circumstances that hopefully the cdc and dr. baron will share with us, then yes, i would restrict air flights. i do think that the testing at the point of importation as opposed to the point of deportation in the united states makes sense. this is a very real serious threat that cannot be dismissed. because you didn't return national security briefing or you were willing to ask questions. this is something members of congress need to jump into and get their hands all over. cut for congressman, banning flights at the i agree with them congress has to takes this susan which is why i do.

i would not been flights at this juncture but i would surely step up screening in country as well, so before people get on that flight. then i would work with them, customs and border security here in the homeland when people and to also do the screening. and again, in conversation with the cdc, with dr. frieden, that is the protocols been put in place. >> moderator: now we will move on to dan smith come to be with the question for congressman bera. >> congressman bera, congress has not updated its war authorization but the united states is conducting airstrikes against islamic state. we asked readers for questions and judy from sacraments submitted this one. she says i think it is more likely that i'll be killed by a drunk driver, criminal or mentally unstable person and by a terrorist. do you think going after the islamiislamic state is an effece use of our limited dollars?

bera: these guys, the islamic state, isil, these guys are terrorists and these guys are the worst of the worst. that said, this is a challenge that has to be dealt with by the people in that region, the iraqis, the jordanians, the saudis. i did support the presence limited airstrikes and so forth because was to degrade isil. we hav had to combat them. we have to set them back. but i'm against putting ground forces in the middle east again. we've been down that road before. the iraqi people have to willing to fight for the country. we can't send our men and women into harm's way to fight for their country. they have to be willing to do. the syrians have to be willing to do it. it. and the saudis and others have to be willing to do it. i also believe the 2002 aumf has expired the we have to repeal but that we have, if we're going

to do this it has to be a limited authorization. contrast that with congressman ose. we were at a forum last week, two weeks ago, a candidate form in the same issue came up. you were in congress and voted for the biggest foreign policy failure of our lifetime, the iraq war. in that forum you talk of wanting to put troops on the ground again. that come in my mind that is the wrong approach. >> moderator: mr. ose, human opportunity to respond. ose: this is a great question. congressman bera, you were not listening last saturday. so the authorization to use military force in 2002 which is given to president bush under same circumstances, the same set of facts, i would go ahead and vote for it again. because protecting the homeland and prevented people from getting away with killing 3000 americans is very much a responsibility of the federal

government. i wish that those like congressman bera who wish to monday morning cornerback had stepped forward when we were confronted with 9/11 and told us all they knew so we wouldn't have made the mistakes we did. we didn't have his counsel at the time and that's a loss for the entire country. i do believe that the president has not paid attention to isis, that it has manifested itself into something that is quite serious that will require a joint effort. i'm very concerned the president's efforts on the international front are failing to create the coalition that will address the very real question that every military expert has said, which is we have to have boots on the ground. i've got to chile, i'm really tired of war. by denise jobs like a member of congress, you can be tired but you still have to confront it. this however is not the number one national security issue we

face. i'm hoping we get to number one, which is the possibly of iran obtaining nuclear weapons. that cannot be allowed to happen for congressman bera commuting opportunity to reply to look, i will give congressman ose the benefit of 2002, but in hindsight knowing what we know today, was that vote to authorize the iraq war a mistake? >> moderator: you can reply, mr. ose, each opportunity. ose: i think the number one foreign national security issue, rather than talk about something 10 years, 12 years ago, remains the possibly that iran is going to get nuclear arms your we have had a parade from the president and his allies in congress like congressman bera that says we can't trust the iranians, we've got a paper document to it reminds me of neville chamber in the '30s to the iranians are not to be trusted. the reality of them having an operable nuclear weapon is a

catastrophe. he's done nothing to address that. >> moderator: okay. we need to mov move on to our nt question and this will come from michaela the mr. ose. >> mr. ose, the images in ferguson, missouri, were impossible to ignore the summer. many americans have begun to focus on the increased militarization of our police forces. these military grade weapons and equipment are supplied by the cover. do you agree our local police are becoming too militarized? why or why not? ose: this is a great question because it affects everybody slept on a daily basis. this is the kind of questions i have to deal with. we have a history in this country providing assistance to local law enforcement by discharging to them equipment from the military that is out of service or out of date but there have been instances where those discharges have proven excessive. we need to carefully examine the

parameters under which we released this equipment to local law enforcement. i will tell you, local law enforcement is up against the wall. the people there having to deal with to protect our neighborhoods and schools and our families are increasingly well armed with heavy ballistic equipment. i do not want to send local law enforcement out into a situation where they're outgunned. just by orders of magnitude. so i'm very sensitive to that we address that. what happened in ferguson is a tragedy. i'm hoping we get to the bottom of what happened. i'm hoping that attorney general holder, ma his task force will share with us the facts in a timely manner. and if someone has done something wrong, they need to be held accountable. >> moderator: congressman bera, our police too militarized? bera: absolutely. i don't want to see tanks went down the streets of sacramento or battalion uniforms. i agree.

law enforcement is doing a wonderful job. they have a tough job but don't want to see militarization of law enforcement. the other issue in ferguson so is the issue of race relations. we've seen a number of incidents in california with a chp officer and homeless woman. it just reminds us that we have a long ways to go on race relations. we are not there when we need to be. we still have a ways to go but again, it's a stark reminder. >> moderatoryour original questh i don't want to see militarization in our local officers. ose: i think that reflects congressman bera's lack of understanding of the kind of situations local law enforcement, finds itself in increasingly. notwithstanding what happened in ferguson, which was a tragedy, and equipment that was used that shouldn't have been used, the fact remains that in our

neighborhoods, in our communities, the people who are significantly heavier armed that our law enforcement people. we have to find a way to protect our neighborhoods and our people. >> moderator: congressman bera. bera: i'm a strong supporter of law enforcement. we have worked close with the sheriff and local law enforcement agencies, and they need the equipment that they need. i don't think they need heavy armored vehicles and so forth. i just think that crosses the line and i think many would agree. if they have them they will be tempted to use them. >> there is some legislation to limit the amount of equipment that is going from the federal government, the pentagon, to local police departments but it sounds like you would support the legislation transit and i'm not summit with the legislation if it has limitations i would support a. i do want to make sure that the listening audience is aware i have a long-standing history of law enforcement. i'm indoors by the district

attorney. i'm indoors by the sheriff. i'm endorsed by law enforcement union groups all about this dish it. they trust be. they know that when i talk to a talk to them straight and they know that if i say that's unreasonable, then they know i mean that. they also know i deliver. >> moderator: we are running out of time. we have time for one last question to one response each and we will give you one minute each. we will start with marianne russ. >> more oil is coming to california by rail and about one-fifth is highly level bakken crude oil. after disasters come explosions also in the custom state lawmakers have made some against improve public safety. i really it's a federal issue. what would you do to increase the state of rail cars moving through our community. >> it worries me because those rail cars come right down the middle of sacramento, right down the middle of elk road. if one of those cars were to let that would be a disaster. we've been pushing the

department of transportation and more transparent. we need to let them know when those cars moving through. yes, i support working with the state and with the state of california is doing in terms of increasing standards. first and foremost we got to keep our communities safe. if these timebombs are going through our communities, at least let us know when they're coming through. i think we've got to think about how to make this more safe. >> moderator: mr. ose. ose: i actually support the legislature's efforts to advise communities of the safety questions. i've seen enough accidents at rail crossings to know that i can quickly get out of control. i actually was shaken out of my bed in 1972 when the bombs and often roseville have been ignited by verge of a relic our fire. so i had more than a personal expense in this. one of the things we need to do so in addition to improving the safety of the rail cars with double holds and picking up the

skin on the outside is we need to get the railroads to go back into the rail beds and fix the foundation on which the rails are sent to that's the primary safety issue is if the rail bed isn't safe, the cars, doesn't matter how thick the sidebar, the cards are printed over and will have a catastrophe. >> moderator: thank you, jim and. we're out of time for questions. we do need to move on to closing statements. and for those you do each have 90 seconds. and by coin toss again representative bera gets to go first. bera: i want to thank the moderate. want to thank the audience and those watching on television. you saw two different visions of leadership tonight. mine is leading by example. when i ran for congress iron man three simple promises. i promised to introduce and help desk no budget no pay. and lawlessness of members of congress don't do the job and past responsibly they don't get paid. i kept that promise. i promised to fight against efforts to privatize social security and i would return my

attention until we strengthen those is good and medicaid. i kept that promise. i promise not to take any pay raises and work across the aisle to get sacramento county working again. i kept that promise. that is leadership by example. contrast that with congressman ose when he was a member of congress he took multiple pay raises. he voted for ta for a tax breakr companies that ship our jobs overseas. he voted to privatize social security. and tonight we talked about the iraq war, the biggest failure of foreign policy in our lifetime. he did move away from the boat. even in hindsight knowing what we know today. it's been an honor serving our community for the last 19 years as a doctor. it's been my privilege of being your member of congress these past few years. i would be honored to have your vote on november 4. >> moderator: congressman,

thank you. mr. owes. ose: ladies and gentlemen, thank you for letting me spend as our with you in your homes and in this audience. jason come you've done a great job. leadership matters, ladies and gentlemen. we see that across the country and around the world. right now we don't have it. washington is broken. simply put, our country is on wrong track. congressman bera is in washington and he's not doing anything to change the direction of policy or our prospects. he has voted to increase taxes by $2.6 trillion. he voted to those of you who own a home, his voted to deny you to take away the home mortgage interest deduction. he's voted to take $716 billion away from medicare funding over the next 10 years. he has voted to increase fuel taxes on the task we bought for our cars and our pickups. he has done nothing to protect our water. in fact, he has been silent on controlling the releases from

folsom that amount to thousands of gallons per second of water that we desperatel desperately . antisense the south. that's not leadership. that's abdication. ladies enjoyment i have a record in this community of getting things that john -- getting things done using real-world expense but i'm asking you tonight to join in my quest to get our country like on track. we can do this. leadership matters. god bless the united states of america. >> moderator: thank you both. i think you both agreed we covered a lot of ground and give folks something to think about on all the various issues. of course, also want to make sure i say thank you to extend panelists -- eckstein panelist. who understand -- thank you to her studio audience tonight. they did keep the applause down as the opportunity to applause

comes basically now as we can. we want to also think there's a dump to you're informed now. you've heard from both candidates. it's not your job to go out and vote on november 4. good night. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ >> c-span's campaign 2014 is bringing in more than 100 debates for the control of congress. stay in touch with our coverage and engage. follow was on twitter at c-span, and like is that facebook.com/cspan. tonight to the third debate between the iowa senate candidates, democratic congressman bruce braley face of republican joni ernst for the seat being vacated by retiring five term senator tom harkin.

live coverage from morningside college in sioux city starting at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span's 2015 studentcam competition is underway. this nationwide competition for middle and high school students will award 150 prizes totaling $100,000. create a 5-7 minute documentary on the topic the three branches in june. videos need to include c-span programming, show varying points of view and must be sedated by january 20, 2015. go to studentcam.org for more information. grab a camera and get started today. >> here are just a few of the comments we have received our viewers. >> i am calling in reference to this ebola thing and am watching it. we have multi-million dollars resort in cuba called guantánamo.

the people from west africa heading to the united states, i don't think they would mind a couple weeks late over at guantánamo to make sure that there healthy enough to finish their trip. >> i don't believe a thing that this government that's in control now tells us about ebola. ..

>> and continue to let us know what you think about the frames you're watching. call us at 202-6 626-3400 or send us a tweet at c-span @comments. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> now to the florida governor's debate between incumbent republican rick scott and former governor charlie crist who while in office served as a republican, but is running this season as a democrat. this is the second debate between the candidates, and the cook and rothenberg political reports have listed this race at a toss-up. >> decision 2014 before you vote the a special election year series brought to you by broward

college, providing exceptional programs and resources to prepare students for high demand careers. find leadership florida, putting florida first. and by the florida press association. the trade association for florida's newspapers, providing communities across florida with the news and information relevant to their life. with underwriting by the florida league of cities, the united voice for florida's municipal government, by the florida association of insurance agents, florida's trusted choice independent insurance agents, by the florida credit union association. credit unions in florida are giving banking a better name. by aarp florida, helping floridians 50+live better lives and dedicated to enhancing the welling being of florida's senis and preserving american democracy. now, from the beautiful campus

of broward college, decision 2014 before you vote presents the candidates for the office of governor of florida. and now, your host from wfor-tv, elliott rodriguez. >> moderator: and good evening, everyone. we are live from broward college in davy, florida, broadcasting to 11 florida television markets from bailey hall where we are prepared to have the two major party candidates for florida governor square off for the next hour. good evening, everyone. i'm elliot rodriguez, anchor at wfor cbs miami. joining us on the panel tonight are rosemary goodrow, the editorial page editor of the south florida sun sentinel, and frank den northern, editor of the florida times tune in jacksonville. we would like to thank and welcome all of you who are

watching us, and we'd like to thank our tonight, broward college, and its president, jay david armstrong jr. who is joining us here in the the audience along with a group of students. tonight's debate is set to be interactive. we want to hear from you. we have a panel of journalists who will be monitoring all of your questions and comments on facebook and twitter at hashtag flgovdebate. on the panel are manny gasser ya, executivered to have of the naples daily news, and patricia, a reporter for the miami herald. also joining us is bob, the executive editor of the tallahassee democrat. and jeremy wallace, the political editor of the sarasota herald tribune. and right now we want to take a shot of the stage here at bailey hall in broward county, and as you can see, the two candidates

who are invited to take part in this debate right now are not stepping up on the stage. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now. [laughter] we have governor charlie crist -- [cheers and applause] governor, florida governor rick scott, our incumbent governor and the republican candidate for governor is also in the building. governor rick scott, we have been told that governor scott will not be participating in this debate. now, let me explain what this is all about. governor crist has asked to have a fan, a small fan placed

underneath his podium. the rules of the debate that i was shown by the scott campaign say that there should be no fan. somehow there is a fan there, and for that reason, ladies and gentlemen, i am being told that governor scott -- >> really? >> -- will not join us for this debate. ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, this is a debate, rosemary goodrow, i don't know, what can we say? >> well -- >> that's the -- [inaudible] i've ever heard in my life. [cheers and applause] wow. yeah, it is. i'm sad people of florida -- >> governor, we're not --

>> -- going to get to hear -- >> we're not asking a question of governor crist. i'm asking rosemary about the situation that we find ourselves in. >> governor crist, do the rules of the debate say that there should be no fan? >> not that i'm aware of. >> so the rules that the scott campaign just showed us that no electronics can be used -- >> we really going to debate ant a fan, or are we going to talk about education and the environment and the future of our state? [cheers and applause] i mean, really. there are serious issues facing our state, and it's like funding education appropriately, protecting our environment, making sure we have ethical, honest leadership -- >> governor -- [cheers and applause] >> i mean, if he's going to give it to me, i'm going to take i. >> this is not -- [inaudible conversations] this is not a platform for one candidate. we're hoping that governor scott

will join us on the stage. >> that'd be great. >> and i am told that governor scott will join us on the stage. in all fairness to governor scott, i was shown a copy of the rules that they hoed me that said -- can they showed me that said there would be no fans on the podium. [inaudible conversations] >> moderator: my understanding is that governor scott will be coming out. >> not in my life. unimagined. >> moderator: frank, have you ever seen anything like this? >> no, i haven't. this is remarkable over sort of a trivial issue no matter which side you believe you're on. >> moderator: we were placed in the awkward situation of having to decide -- [applause] i don't think it's our role

to -- [cheers and applause] >> moderator: governor, thank you. ladies and gentlemen, that has to be the most unique beginning to any debate -- >> i don't think we'll forget it. >> moderator: not only in florida, but i think in the country. let's start with, first of all, the rules. the rules of this debate are one minute for the question to the first candidate, the second candidate will have a minute, and then the first candidate will have to 30 seconds to respond. we want to get a lightning rod in here with 20 seconds. let's ask the first question which was determined by a coin toss to governor crist. governor crist, you have spent millions of dollars in this campaign defining your opponent through negative advertising. and in the end, the voters are

unhappy with their choices. based on social media posts we have monitored, the public is frustrated by the tone and rancor of this campaign. tonight without attacking your opponent, define yourself for the voters and tell them why you deserve to be governor. crist: thank you very much. first, i want to thank you for sponsoring this debate and, governor, it's good to have you with us now. [laughter] i want to start out by saying i grew up in florida. i love this state. i've been here for 55 years growing up from st. petersburg, and i care deeply about public education. i'm a public school kid myself graduating from st. pete high in 1974. i think it's important that we reinvest in education because we need to. i also think that it's important that we do what's right for higher education. i'm a graduate of florida state university, and i know that our higher education institutions, our great universities need to have appropriate investment. and finally, i know that it's important for the future of florida that we get focused on

the middle class and job creation. creating jobs that pay well, not just minimum wage, although i think we need to raise the minimum wage, but we need to give an opportunity for people in the middle class to do better for themselves and their children. and it all starts with a great education. >> moderator: thank you, governor crist. [applause] governor scott, same question to you. scott: first, i want to thank everybody at leadership florida for the opportunity to be here. i want to thank my wife who's been with me since i was 19. we've been married 42 years, and we are blessed with two wonderful daughters, three grandsons who, hopefully, my almost 3-year-old is able to see tonight. he got poked in the eye today at school. but why should they elect me as governor again? i grew up in a family that struggled. you saw the ads in 2010, it's embarrassing my mom called me a good boy, but she was a wonderful mom. he was willing to divorce a husband that was abusive which gave me a shot. it should not -- if she had not

divorced that man, i don't know what my wife would have been like. she remarried, five kids, they struggled to put food on the table. she told me, rick, if you'll go to church a lot, if you'll study hard and make straight as, if you'll be an eagle scout, you have a shot at the american dream. i ran in 2010 because i believe in the dream. i've lived that dream. >> moderator: governor crist, your rebuttal. crist: i hi it's important we -- i think it's important we reinvest in education, and, unfortunately, rick scott cut education by $1.3 billion. you can't do that. you can't cut education to the bone that way and expect our children to get a good, solid education and have an opportunity going forward to have good employment and a great career. so i think we have to have a laser focus on that, in my view, and we also have to focus on our universities, as i stated before. again, unfortunately, rick scott took $300 million -- >> moderator: thank you, governor. the next question from rosemary

to governor scott. >> golf scott, you claim florida lost 850,000 -- 825,000 jobs because of governor crist. can you tell us what he specifically did to cause those job losses? scott: sure. actually, it was 826,000. between 2006 when charlie crist got elected and jeb bush left him with a great economy, unemployment went from 3.5 to 11.1 increase. here's what he didn't do, and here's what he did. step one, he raised taxes. he raised taxes on citizens by $2.2 billion. $2.2 billion. you should never raise taxes, especially after he said he wouldn't, but in a recession where people can't afford it? he said if you have a child that's going to go to university, it's going to cost you more money. he wasn't willing to call on companies. i talk to companies all the time. charlie wouldn't call on them. he wouldn't help economic development efforts. he raised regulation. if you think about building a

business, i want to build those businesses to be in florida. lower taxes, less regulations, streamline the permitting process. that's why we lost 832,000 jobs when charlie was governor. >> governor crist? crist: the people of florida know that i didn't cause the global economic meltdown. [laughter] any more than -- [applause] thank you. any more than rick scott caused the national economic recovery. people are smarter than that. i -- they understand and they understood that we were serving in a difficult time, and we had to make tough choices, and it wasn't easy, but we got florida through. one of the ways we got florida through was to work in a bipartisan way, to work with people across the aisle, to take the recovery money that helped us make sure we didn't have to fire 20,000 schoolteachers. that is something that rick scott said was an absolute mistake. what would he do if we have a double dip and something goes wrong with the economy again?

because of politics not seek help? scott: charlie's campaign slogan should be charlie crist, powerless for the job rest. he couldn't do anything. he wanted the job as governor, but he didn't want to call on companies, he didn't want to cut regulation. he didn't want to do the job. he spent all his time trying to be vice president and then running against marco rubio for the senate. 3,000 teachers lost their jobs while charlie was governor. 832,000 people lost their job. >> moderator: thank you, governor scott, frank? [applause] >> governor crist, you support, as you said, you support raising the minimum wage, and i think you've said you'd raise it to $10.10. the other side of that is points out that there are many small buzzes that are struggling to keep -- businesses that are struggling to keep the doors open. why should government tell them what they should pay their employees? crist: i hi it's important to

raise the minimum wage because it's very hard for people to get by on what the minimum wage is today in florida. $7.93 is not enough to make ends meet. raising it to $10.10 would be a 27% increase this income for hundreds of thousands of floridians. what a difference that would make in the economy. more money they would have in their pocket to be able to go to mom and pop small businesses around the state, have the opportunity to, in turn, help those businesses do better and pay their employees more. you know, things aren't great in florida right now. i've recently been on a kitchen table tour talking to real people, and they are challenged. some of them have to work two and three jobs to make ends meet. that's not right. florida can do better than that, and we deserve better than that. you deserve to have a governor who will fight for you, fight for raising the minimum wage, fight for equal pay for women. rick scott is against both. it's unfortunate, we can fix it, and i look forward to it. [applause]

>> governor scott? scott: so charlie is a lot of talk, but charlie's not a lot of action. he had the opportunity. he voted against minimum wage when he was in the senate. he didn't think it was the right thing to do, so he voted against it. but, you know, here is the problem: i want jobs. charlie lost 832,000 jobs and he wants to lose more? the cbo says 500,000 jobs will be lost if charlie gets his minimum wage increase. i don't want any of those individuals to lose their job. i know what it's like. i had parents that didn't have a job. i had parents that watched their home almost be repossessed, their car being taken. charlie doesn't worry about those people. he doesn't know what it's like to be about that. charlie is the zero-wage governor. 832,000 people went from low wages to zero wages. crist: rick, there you go again, trying to blame the global

economic meltdown on me. it is unbelievable that he would continue to say that, but he says it. and he also says that he created all these new jobs all by himself. you just can't trust rick, and it's sad, it's unfortunate. you know, he has spent so much money on television advertisements, the media themselves have said they're the most negative ads that have ever been aired in florida and the most dishonest, and he's continuing that dishonesty today. when he tells you that i lost a bunch of jobs -- >> moderator: governor, thank you. your time's up for the rebuttal. right now we want to hear from the voters. this debate is connected through social media through our social media panel, so let's find out what the voters are or saying through social media. let's go to manny garcia of the naples daily news and, manny, what's trending on social media right now? and we need you to ask a question of governor scott. scott: well, the fan -- [laughter] no, actually, one of the things trending is, elliott, you

started it off, but really i don't think the candidates answered it, so for governor scott, one of the things that continuously comes up is that between you and special interest groups -- and i think it also applies to governor crist t, but tens of millions of dollars have been spent what amounts to a scorched earth campaign between you two. so the question is why should folks, why should you be reelected when the campaign so dirty? scott: when i talk to voters, they tell me they care about three things and it's very similar to my family growing up. step one, they want a job. they want a job, they want a job, they want a job. they want a governor that gets up every day, i'm not going to be running for vice president, for senator, i'm going to get up and say how can i get more jobs, hertz, lockheed martin, how can it get northrup grumman to bring more jobs here? who's ing to travel to make

sure i get more jobs? number two, it's like my mom said, rick, get a good education. when charlie was governor, both per-student and overall k-12 education was less than it was when he started. and, third, they want to live in a safe environment. so what i work at every day, jobs, better education system, make sure you can live in a safe neighborhood. >> moderator: governor crist, do you want to address the nastiness of this campaign and the negative ads? people are turned off by it. crist: so am i. i've had about $50 million of negative ads thrown on me, you think i'm not tired of it? is. [laughter] this is a race about the future of our state. tough make a decision in less than three weeks about who you want to be to your next governor. rick scott has talked about the fact that he's called companies around the country to try to bring them to our state. that's true. he's also offered them about $266 million to come here.

and they've only come through with 4% of the jobs that they promised. that's a 96% failure on jobs in that program. now, what would i do with that $266 million? what i think is the right thing for you. what i think is the right thick for florida. -- thing for florida. i would invest in florida small businesses, make sure that they have a fighting chance. i think we need to protect florida first instead of bringing companies from outside the state that cannibalize our own businesses. it's important to be focused on the sunshine state, doing what's right for our people and make sure that they have a fighting chance and a fair shot -- >> moderator: governor scott, do you have a rebuttal? scott: sure. this is all talk versus action. charlie had the job. he didn't want to do the job, he can't want to call on the -- he didn't want to call on companies. why wouldn't he want hertz to move an office here, northrop grumman to add jobs, hertz, average income $172,000? we have 261,000 job openings in the state right now, average

income for the top 25 in demand, $27 an hour, and that's not what charlie wants? >> moderator: thank you, governor. [applause] the next question will be to governor crist. [cheers and applause] /. [applause] gop governor crist, we're on a college campus right now. we have students who worry about tuition and debt. you signed the bill allowing universities to raise tuition 15% a year. governor scott has prohibited further increases and has pushed state colleges to offer four-year degrees for $10,000. what do you say to kids now burdened with so much college loan debt? crist: well, let's look at all the facts, elliot. what governor scott did in addition to what you said, the first year he allowed tuition to go up 15 percent. so the premise of the question isn't correct. number two, i hi it's also important -- i think it's also important to point out to college students that if you had the hope of going to college on

a bright futures scholarship, 50,000 of you are not able to do so today because of rick scott. now, i don't know why they reduced them that much. facts are stubborn things, so if you want to have the opportunity to go to college and to do so in a way that you can afford it, i would seek your vote because i'll restore those cuts to bright futures scholar hardships because you need 'em, and you deserve them. there's a young lady here tonight named marcela. i went to her house in miami just over a week ago and sat down with her, and she was upset because she couldn't get a bright futures scholar hardship, and she had a 4.7 grade point average. that's unbelievable to me, but it's because of the cuts that rick scott has brought to education. >> moderator: thank you, governor. governor scott? the. [applause] scott: so charlie is not concerned about the facts. he'll say anything. if you want to get the facts, go to factsforflorida.com. you can follow the truth. so, first off, bright futures.

the legislature both under charlie and me raised the eligibility. but because of charlie's 15% plus inflation tuition increases every year, when you think you get a free ride through bright futures, you don't anymore because of charlie's increase. charlie, when you think about a prepay, think about a brand new parent. i'm going to save my money, make sure my child can go to a university. it was $102 when charlie started. when he left, it was $253. we today have the highest funding for k-12, highest funding for state colleges, highest funding for universities in the history of the state, and we stopped charlie's tuition increase. so now 18,000 families this month got back $200 million, $200 million back in their pockets. [applause] >> moderator: governor crist, your rebuttal? sorry. your rebuttal? crist: yes. you know, rick talks about

telling truth, that's an interesting thing to assert from a guy who ran a company who had to pay the largest fine for fraud in the history of the united states of america. [applause] the truth hurts sometimes. and, rick, this is also a fact. you pled the fifth 75 times so you wouldn't have to answer questions involved in it. [applause] that is not the kind of leadership that florida deserves. >> moderator: thank you, governor crist. audience, please hold your applause so we can get as many questions in as possible. the next one to governor scott. >> governor scott, environmentalists are unhappy you cut the budget for the water management board, eliminated the department that regulated big, new housing development, and in a record budget year gave only $17 million to florida forever. a budge says a hot about a leader's -- a lot about a leader's priorities.

where does the environment rank in yours? scott: sure. when i took office, it was a big surprise to me that charlie had sat on his hands while we had a decades-old lawsuit over the everglades. so i went about it, i sat down with department of justice, interior, epa, corps of engineers to try to settle that lawsuit. i got the environmentalists onboard, i got the ag community onboard, and we had a record settlement. i went back to the legislature, and they invested $880 million to restore the everglades, something charlie didn't lift a finger to do. on top of that, we put $100 million to protect our coral reefs, something charlie didn't put a dime into. we had record funding for our springs, something charlie wasn't willing to do. what charlie was willing to do on the everglades was go buy land we couldn't use to restore the everglades, stop projects that would have helped us, and on top of that, even on florida forever as we turned our budget around, we started investing.

charlie spent less money every year. >> moderator: thank you, governor scott. governor crist? [applause] crist: florida's a special place, and you need to have somebody who really cares about the state to protect our environment and our everglades. you know, marjorie stowman douglas wrote a wonderful book called "the river of grass." in that book she put forward the thought that if you want to protect the everglades, you have to buy it. well, we started doing that during my first term as governor, and we got a lot of it done. we got about 26,000 acres that we could now make pristine and restore the natural flow of water south. what happened after rick scott got in? what happened is he started the discharges that were coming out of lake okeechobee and polluting the river near fort myers and cape coral as well as the st. lucy river on the east coast of florida. in fact, when he went to the treasure coast to look at it and what was happening at the indian river that goon, he wouldn't even get out and talk to the people, they were so upset. 500 of them showed up.

he wouldn't show up to talk to them or answer their questions. it's a pattern. [applause] scott: go to factsforflorida.com, and you'll get the truth. so charlie stopped after the state had spent $272 million, $270 million of your tax money was spent on reservoir a1, charlie stopped it. if we'd finished that reservoir, none of the water would have been able -- would have had to be farmed out of lake oak choke by. so if charlie would have done the right things, maybe he would have spent some time trying to restore the everglades, but he did nothing on the environment. [applause] >> moderator: governor crist. >> florida's refused to accept $51 billion over ten years to expand medicaid. hospitals want it, doctors want it, a lot of other people are

asking for it. some states have found a way to accept it. florida has not. governor scott said he was against it, and then he was for it, but he didn't push for it with the legislature. should we end the medicaid money and, if so, under what arrangement? would we just take it, or would we have a unique way of doing it the way some of the states have done it? crist: this is such an important issue, frank, i'm glad you asked about it. medicaid expansion means an awful lot to about a million of our floridians who are currently not getting the health care they deserve and need. sadly, rick scott won't lift a finger to get it done, and i don't know why. what i do know is that they deserve to have those funds, we deserve to have a governor who will enact making sure we get that medicaid expansion money. it's money you've already sent to washington and you simply deserve to get back. people are hurting and suffering. in addition to the $51 billion it would bring to the state, some studies indicate it would create about 120,000 jobs.

that's the right thing to do. talk about, you know, all talk and no action? he said he supported it, we don't have it, no action. [applause] >> governor scott? scott: let's go back to the facts here. charlie was governor, he was sitting in the governor's office, there was a legislative session going on when obamacare passed. did he go to the legislature and say, oh, let's pass this because it's such a great idea? no. did -- oh, he called a special session that day. at that point did he, did he say this is what i want to get medicaid expansion done? no. obamacare is a bad law. people are losing their doctors -- [applause] they're losing their plans. ..

the candidates will answer your questions when we come back after a two-minute break. ♪ >> moderator: welcome back to our debate at bailey hall in

broward college in davie. we want to ask the audience here at bailey hall to please hold their applause so we can get as many questions in as possible. right now i want to toss it over to my colleague at cbs-4, anchor erica sergeant with our social media panel. erica. >> i'm eric is a sergeant. hundreds are interacting with facebook and twitter. right now the three top trending topics on social media, are one, economy and jobs, two, the cost of higher education, and the third trending topic is climate change and its impact on florida. we want to turn back to our social media panel. i will turn it over to patricia with "the miami herald." what is your question you have for governor crist? >> governor crist, a lot of viewers want to know how you can

think and solve problems, both you and governor scott. my question is, when science is at odds with religion, when you're faced with a question where science is not consistent with your faith, how do you deal with that problem? if somebody asks you is the earth 4.5 billion years old or 6,000 years old, what do you say? crist: my religion is very important to me. i have a very deep faith in god and every morning i read the bible. it is important to keep centered and keep focused on that. and so i take it very seriously and i also try to use a lot of science and learn as much as i can. on the issue of climate change it is pretty clear to me, that man is contributing to this problem. we're in south that tonight. and it seems to me that in south florida, as well as the rest of the state we're really ground zero for this issue. you no my opponent doesn't belief in it or says he is not a soon activity or whatever, but i

believe it is happening and i think we have an obligation to try to stop it. that's why i held climate change summits in the past. i signed executive orders to reduce emissions to address it. if you're on miami beach tonight and go to at ton road, you will find many days it is actually flooding when it is not raining. that tells you all you need to know. we need to address it. >> moderator: governor scott. [applause] >> well, i grew up in the methodist church. my mom made sure i went to church a lot. i my mom and grandmother are devout christians. i accepted jesus christ as my savior at very young age. i read the bible. i like to listen to sermons and my faith is very important to me and very important to my family and to my wife. now, when i think about problems, i think about solutions. so let's take global warming. what we've done since i got

elected is focus on the solution. we spent $350 million to deal with sea level rise. we spent $100 million to protect the coral reeves. we -- coral reefs. we spent 100 million on beach renourishment. moving water south. the $808 million to the everglades. my faith is very important to me. i believe in it. and i will solve any problems i need to be resolved. >> moderator: governor crist, you have a rebuttal? crist: i don't have a rebuttal too. that we all have a right to feel about our creator. i respect different people have a different point of view. for me i happen to be a methodist too. maybe it is only thing we agree on, rick. faith is very important. science is important too. my father happens to be a medical doctor and so is one of my threers is a medical doctor. so i think the combination of

science, is important and the core beliefs of your religion more significant than anything. >> moderator: thank you, governor crist. rosemary? >> governor scott, you say you're against discrimination but the courts said florida's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional because it is discriminatory. do you think the ban is discriminatory? david: let's think about where we are. none of us believe in discrimination. in 2008 part of our democratic process led by charlie. there was constitutional amendment passed said marriage would be between a man and women. i believe in traditional marriage, we have to understand people have different views it is going through the court system. my understanding going to the right directly to the supreme court. whatever the supreme court decides, they will decide what the law in florida is. i will abide by that law

all that was started with charlie as governor. >> governor, i don't bleep believe i got a question answer to the question. do you believe the ban is discriminatory. scott: i don't believe in discrimination. this is decision for the courts. they will ultimately make the decision. [applause] >> moderator: governor crist. crist: i don't believe in discrimination either. i don't believe in it so much i believe gay couples should have the right to marry. [applause] i, and i think the best way to capture this, rosemary you tried to get an answer, it is difficult. i think the best way to capture this.

to understand that, who is it for us to tell other people who to love? and what is it in our right to tell other people who to marry? i think we've come to a place in american society and certainly i think florida's is leading the way with the decisions that have been made. this is the right thing to do. we need to move forward. >> moderator: thank you, governor crist. told me his beliefs today. he gavish interview about issue before he took prior issues as political expediency. as way to win office. we don't know what charlie beliefs on this issue. he has taken every side of this issue. [applause] >> moderator: thank you. our next question from frank denton. >> governor crist, education research shows that of all the factors that affect a child's academic success 2/3 of them are outside the school.

mostly in the family and in the community. especially in poor communities, success in school can be undercut by poor parenting or some other part of unhealthy home life. should the state have a role in this crucial part of educating our children and if so, what should it be? crist: the state definitely should. the state has. when i went to high school i played high school football. it was an after-school program if you will. we had band. we had music, arts, sports and one of the things that really saddened me when governor scott cut education funding by $1.3 billion his first year some entire schools had to be shut down. you know, after-school programs across the state had to be mothballed. and in my home county of pinellas, ap classes had to grow their class size by almost 30%. that is not the right thing to

do to help a community or a school or a child. i think we have to as i said at the outset reinvest in education because of the dramatic cuts rick scott brought about. those are the facts. they're stubborn things. but we need to move forward. >> moderator: governor crist, that is investing in the schools. the question was about, does the state have the responsibility with family life, teaching people how to be better parents, preparing kids to go to school so they can perform? crist: i think the best way to do that is try to lead by example. any of us do that in our communities. you know whether you're working with the boycotts or you're working with whatever the organization might be. i think it is important that all of us play a role in that, whether it is the state or private sector. >> moderator: thank you, governor crist. governor scott? scott: i believe in parental rights. i was blessed with a mom who was willing to go through a painful divorce because she was pregnant to me because she was married to an abusive man.

i believe unless we see problems, we need to give parents opportunity to raise children. everybody has different goals for their children. they don't always do exactly what we think. we have goals for our daughters. my daughters have goals. their husbands have goals for our grandchildren. we need to leave as much parenting as we can to parents. for schools, the job is to educate them so they will be solid citizens to have great careers. i believe in parental rights. [applause] >> moderator: we'll move on to the next question. governor scott, the next question is to you, watching everything that involved around the shooting death of trayvon martin and trial of george zimmerman, do you think justice was served in that case? >> well the, i'll tell you here is what i did and, i first sat down with trayvon's parents, sabrina and tracy.

i wanted to make sure they feel comfortable that law enforcement would do a proper investigation. then i sat down with them to when i brought in the special prosecutor, angela cory, to try to make sure they were comfortable that justice would be served. it went through the system. i respect the system we have in our state. i want to really thank trayvon martin's parents because some of the issues that they have had in missouri we didn't have here, a lot of it was because of his parents. my heart goes out to them. i can't imagine losing a child, a grandchild but i want, i thank trayvon's parents, sabrina and tracy making sure we didn't have the props that we had in missouri. >> moderator: governor crist, was justice served in that case? crist: it is hard to say. neither of us were on the jury, so we don't know the facts as well as the jury in that case know the facts. i used to be the attorney general, i understand judging from afar is not a very good

idea but what i do know is this "stand your ground" law needs to be fixed. it's a problem. [applause] i know that we have the right to defend ourselves. i think everybody believes in that american premise and it is the right thing to do to be able to defend yourself and your property but when it gets to the point and you've got a statute on the books that allows initiate tore of an to end up killing a another human being after they started the incident, there is something fundamentally flawed with that law. you can protect the right to defend your sell and make sure we don't have laws on the book that end up with the tragic death of trayvon martin. >> moderator: let me follow up. governor, would you change the "stand your ground" law? scott: i would not change the law. i think the death is a tragic death and i believe the right to defend yourself. i can't imagine losing a child like that, but you know, i have

talked to sheriffs and police chiefs. 40 sheriffs endorsed me. police chiefs association has and i stand with them we need to have the existing law in place. [applause] >> governor crist, florida is the sunshine state yet we're not in the top 10 for solar powered development. georgia installed more solar power last year than florida's installed in the past three years. why isn't florida aspiring to be a leader in solar energy? crist: florida should be. we should be the global leader in solar energy development. my goodness we're the sunshine state. it doesn't make any sense not to do so. you have to ask why aren't we started to do that? we started doing that in my administration between 2007 and 2011. unfortunately with rick scott's administration they're the friends of the utility industry. they are funding his very campaign. they have laws on the books that make it incredibly difficult for

companies that want to develop solar energy in florida in the sunshine state to be able to do so. how do you fix it? you elect a different governor who beliefs in solar energy, believes in wind, believes in renewables and cleaner energy sources. is not beholden to the utility companies that keep jacking up the bills like duke and fb p&l. it is wrong. you need a governor who has a bright idea, no pun intended about solar energy in the sunshine state because it is the right thing to do. >> governor scott? scott: first off charlie doesn't worry about the facts. while he was governor utility costs went up 30%. they went from below the national average to above the national average. since i got elected utility rates come down 11%. now we're below the national average. with regard to solar, we need to have an attitude we want everything but, it has to be reliable, it has to be cost effective. if charlie had his way, we would to the path of california.

what is the path of california? it's a 40% increase in electric, electricity for their residents. if the average person pays in our state $208 in electricity a month that would be $80 increase. charlie can talk all the things he would like to do but it will come out of your pocket. a 40% increase because he wants to do. remember when he was there, a 30% increase in utility costs. [applause] crist: let's get back to the truth. the increase in your utility bills has happened under the last four years. you at home watching tonight know if your bills are going up under rick scott. i know mine is. and i'm sure yours problem is too. you know your property insurance bills are going up under rick scott. you may not know this he actually signed into law recently a law that says that the office of insurance regulation can not regulate insurance. does that make sense to anybody?

what does to the insurance company. >> moderator: thank you, governor. >> may i respond to that? it is not true. crist: it is true. scott: here is the fact, charlie's obamacare law has federal government hhs, deciding all the rates for those plans. why would the state do the exact same thing. they wouldn't do the same thing. they have no power to do the same thing. had hs is deciding all those rates. and charlie signed legislation that allowed companies like duke to pass on costs for power plants that were never built. >> that is not true. that was jeb bush. [applause] scott: go to the facts for florida. go to facts for florida and they will explain, show the bill that charlie signed. >> moderator: next question for governor scott. >> governor scott, florida is seeing a revolt over high-stakes testing in our schools. the federal government played

something of a role but florida lawmakers have added even more tests and tied them to teacher pay. are all these tests needed to preparing our kids for the future? scott: i think what we all belief in, we want to make sure children get a great education. we know measurement works. it does work. people are concerned about how much testing that we have. the latest concern is how much the federal government is involved. there, in a lot of areas including education. so, about a little over, a year ago, i said the federal government, we're not going to use the federal assessment standards, parc. we worked on legislation. got it passed. we worked on legislation that the federal government will not data mine our students. we will have decision made at local left. then we moved to florida standards. and this next year what i am going to do is go around and look at all the standard that we have, because some of the standards are at the state and some are at the district to make

sure everybody knows what the standards are, who is doing them and do we have the right standards. >> moderator: governor crist. crist: there is way too much testing in our schools today. [applause] there is. and, the reason that is that rick scott signed a bill, his first year in office that i had vetoed. i vetoed that bill because it put too much of an emphasis on teaching to the test. these learning centers have now become testing sensors, our schools. that is not right and it's not fair to our children. we need to have somebody like me as governor who served as education commissioner and understands these issues. under rick scott, we have had four education commissioners in four years. we've got to get our education system back on track. we needs somebody who understands it who actually went to our public schools. i will do that and make sure it is funded properly. we've got to get it right. [applause] >> look at results.

step one, our fourth graders are number two in the world in reading. our fourth and 8th graders had highest student achievement gains last three years of any state in the country. we have some of the highest graduation rates in the united states. overall graduation rates for high schools are up four or 5% since i got elected. our african-american students have highest student achievement gains of any state last year. national council for teacher quality, two surveys in a row says florida has highest quality teachers in the country. now when charlie was governor, 3,000 teachers got laid off. including inca silver, got laid off in 2008 because of charlie's cuts in education. he called her office and he wouldn't return the phone call. >> moderator: thank you, governor scott. i have a question for governor crist now. [applause] governor crist under your admin ages and under governor scott's administration, scores of children have died under the supervision of department of children and families. why are we unable to keep kids

safe? crist: it's tragic. you're talking about the challenges and the difficulties at the department of children and families. and even if one child dies it's a tragedy and it is awful but this is an area where i decided to reach across the aisle. when i got elected governor in 2006, i reached out to bob butterworth, a former attorney general. one of the smartest things you can do as a leader is to surround yourself with the best and brightest. bob butterworth was great. he was followed by george sheldon who is running for attorney general, did a tremendous job behind him. what is important to be transparent though. there is a story in the paper today, a lack of transparency on this issue from rick scott's administration, and i can't understand that. maybe he will talk about it in the rebuttal but what is important is, you have to clear, you have to be open or you can't fix the problems to begin with. one of the first questions i got from bob butterworth when he was secretary, when we had a challenge with a child very early in the administration, he said, what do you want it me to do? i said, call a press conference.

shine a light on it. we can't fix it -- >> moderator: thank you governor. governor scott. scott: sure, it is tragic right after the bell shootings i went and met with the survivors of that family and your heart goes out to them. we have grandkids. we don't want anything to happen to our children. so here's what we did. when i came in, first thing we did, we increased pay for our child protective investigators. charlie had cut the funning for child protective investigators. then we also brought in the casey foundation to review what we were doing. they made some recommendations. this last year i went to the legislature and asked for more child protective investigators. now we have 270 more. they're going to spend, they will spend more time per family to hopefully stop this but here's the positive. the number of child deaths has come down since charlie was governor. it is not zero. i wish it was zero because every

child's death is a tragedy. >> moderator: governor scott, thank you. [applause] governor scott, governor crist, now we'll have a lightning round with some shorter questions. you have 20 seconds to answer the question. i will ask you, governor crist. then i will ask governor scott a different question. the first question i want to ask you, governor crist, why did you insist on bringing a fan here when your campaign knew this would be a contentious issue? [applause] crist: why not? you know, it is, is there anything wrong with being comfortable? i don't think there is. having compassion with other people. we did fine. thank you, elliot. >> moderator: governor scott, why the delay coming out over a fan? scott: we figured out if he was going to show up. he said he was going to come to the debate. why not come out until he was

ready. >> moderator: governor scott, why do you keep your assets in a blind trust? scott: sure. the reason is so i don't have a conflict. charlie crist did a grand jury was governor said right thing to do what jeb bush did and alex sink did. charlie didn't do it. put assets in blind trust so you don't have conflict. i don't know what assets they have. third party runs assets. that's what i've done. >> moderator: charlie crist, say something nice about governor scott? crist: i'm happy to. i want to commend him how he has handled the ebola situation. i want to commend him. [laughter] better to be prepared than panic. >> moderator: you had extra seven sections. governor scott say something nice about governor crist. scott: that was pretty nice of him. >> moderator: on that note. >> the lightning round was over.

we were short on time. we started late, gentlemen, that concludes the question, answer portion of this debate. candidates now have 20 seconds for, will have, i'm sorry, will have one minute for closing arguments. governor crist, will go first. that was determined by a coin toss. one minute for your closing statement, governor. crist: thank you very much. i want to thank people watching at home. you've seen the differences between rick scott and myself. i care about education. i love this state and i love florida. i want to make sure that the middle class has opportunity to do better than you're doing under governor scott. i want to make sure we invest in florida businesses first. that they have a chance to employ more people instead of bringing big corporations from outside of our state. i wan to make sure we protect our beautiful environment. i love the water and i love being out on the water in tampa bay and my home. i want to make sure for future generations they have the opportunity to enjoy the future of this great state.

i'm asking for your vote. i would appreciate it. whether you vote by mail, you vote early or vote on november 4th. god bless you, and god bless florida. [applause] >> moderator: governor scott. scott: i want to thank, again thank my wife for standing by me through thick and thin. my mom is watching from heaven. i'm want to thank her willing to divorce a abusive husband. i want to thank my daughters for, you know, for being such great members of our family. four years ago my mom was embarrassed to call me -- i ran a campaign to get people back to work. 700,000 jobs in seven years. we're on a role. i would love to be your governor. it's a great honor. i would love to get your vote. i will make sure that this is state where you can live your version of american dream.

[speaking spanish] great to be here. >> moderator: governor. governor scott, thank you very much. governor crist, thank you very much. that concludes our debate. don't forget to vote on tuesday november 4th. governor scott, thank you. >> thank you very much, governor.

>> coming up tonight the third debate between the iowa senate candidates. bruce braley and joni ernst are vying for a seat of tom harkin. here is a look at their debate. >> seen a couple commercials there for and against each of you. ron steele from kwwl, cedar rapids. waterloo, iowa city and dubuque, will begin questioning for congressman braley. one minute on the response. >> thank you very much. welcome congressman braley. senator, great for you to be here tonight. much has been said about the advertisings. i've been given a great assignment to give you a chance to refute some of these ads being, super pack ads particularly. these are coming, millions of dollars in money coming from

forces outside of iowa. we understand those which you have no control over at all but they're driven by fear and scare tactics. i will begin with this one. i will change my order slightly because of gun control you just talked about. i heard an ad, congressman braley. in rr political victory fund insinuating that you and michael bloomberg are buddies now and you will take away my second amendment rights and i don't like it. what is the answer. >> the answer is, i never met michael bloomberg. i have no idea what these ads are based upon other than that a fear that i'm going to bring, balanced common sense to try to come up with reasonable solutions to gun violence like i have. working with a republican from pennsylvania, tim murphy. we held lots of hearings on failure to address the

connection to address the needs for mental illness. we learned the largest mental health treatment facility in the united states is los angeles county jail. we know we have to do more. yet when senator ernst was asked about this question, what we could do, she was asked about her ad that ran in the primary shooting a pistol in into the camera, take aim at obama care. came out before tragic shooting in santa barbara. she was asked if she regretted it. she said it was unfortunate about. i don't think it was an accident to victims and their families. >> senator? ernst: that is a horrible tragedy. i stated that already. where you stated you will work for mental health reform we have actually done that here in the state of iowa. working towards a better system around easier access for the most vulnerable in our population, to receive care.

they can walk into many places now and discover where they can go for treatment. whether you're in a rural area, whether you're living in a populated area. we want to make sure that there is easy access for those that suffer from, from mental illness and do receive the care that they need. but i will always be a strong supporter of the second amendment. our motto, our state motto, our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain. tonight the third debate between the iowa senate candidates, democratic congressman bruce braley faces republican joni earnings forethe seat being vacated by retiring five-term senator tom harkin. live coverage from morningside college in sioux city, begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. we're live at the migration policy institute here in washington for a panel discussion on possible changes to u.s. deportation policy since

2003 and how the changes could affect future immigration. this is just getting underway. >> this work that we'll be talking about offers the most detailed look yet at the record of removals and deportations from the department of homeland security since its inception. what we're going to be looking at today is data from 2003, fy-2003, through fy-2013. the work builds on a large body of work that the migration policy institute has developed over the years and has to do with various aspects of the enforcement system. this particular work today deepens a report that we released in the spring called the deportation dilemma. it digs more fully because we had more data, into the information and into the findings that we developed at that time.

you have bios on your chair of the speakers and you also have a copy of the report. so, i won't give detailed introductions for speakers and their background, other than to say, lead speaker is mark rosenbloom who is the lead author of the report. he is the deputy direct are here at mpi on the immigration policy program. his overall presentation of the report will be followed by comments from rebecca gambler, who is the director of the homeland security and justice team at gao, the u.s. government accountability office and our second comment will come from mark nefari, who is an enforcement fellow at the american immigration council and also works extensively on related issues and issues of the criminal justice system and immigration connections. so with that, i'm going to turn

to the mic over to mark. we will do the presentation and the comments and have time from q&a from the audience. again, thank you and welcome. >> thanks, doris and thanks to you and to the team at mpi for helping to pull this report together. it was definitely a group effort. i want to especially my coauthor kristin mcabe a coauthor and contributor to this report and unable to be here today. as doris mentioned this report analyzes every formal revolve implemented by dhs between 2003 and 2013 and basically what the report does, it gives a profile who is being, who has been deported from the u.s., a description of the removal patterns, where people are being removed, where and how they are being removed and we spent some time how the actual enforcement practices line up with dhs's announced enforcement priorities described in the morton memos in

2010 and 2011. then we explore how potential changeses to dhs's enforcement priorities could affect future removals. let me just briefly say something about how we did this the main thing that we did, is to analyze i.c.e.'s, administration records from i.c.e.'s enforcement integrated database which is their main removal database. the data were obtained by the "new york times" through a foia request, and we're grateful to the times for sharing the data with us. i.c.e.'s database includes removals and certain number of informal returns. my report and my presentation today focus exclusively on formal revolves. we're taking the returns out of the conversation. we also used dhs data to model the non-i.c.e. removals that don't appear in the i.c.e. data set but that are in the dhs data set because they were also removed. that is basically cbp removals

to mexico and canada, non-judicial removals to mexico and canada. and then throughout the report and my presentation the data measure removal events, not unique individuals. what that means some people are deported more than once and they appear more than one time in the data set. so it is a certain bias in the data towards these sort of repeat customers. all together 3:00 p.m. have been removed between -- 3.7 million people have been removed. between 2003 and 2013 that. is the data set we're looking at. basic profile of those who were formally removed. 90% were men versus half of unauthorized immigrants were men. half of all removals are to mexico and they northern triangle countries, mexico, guatemala and honduras.

so the system leans in those directions. some more sort of general information about who has been removed. this looks at previous criminal convictions. so this is lifetime. have people ever been convicted of a crime? simply, unauthorized immigration by itself is not a criminal offense. most people, 59% of all removals since 2003 are of people who have never been convicted of a crime. this tendency was especially pronounced during the bush administration when removals of non-criminals grew faster than removals of criminals. so the share of non-criminals among the removal population peaked at 67% in 2008. removals of non-criminals fell between 2009 and 2011 during the first years of the obama administration. so that drove the share of non-criminals in removal population down to about 50%.

you can see where the lines converge there. and then more recently, removals of non-criminals have once again grown faster. we've actually seen removals of criminals tick down in 2013. so in 2013 about 55% of removals were of non-criminals. the report, the data and the report allow us to get into much more details about the types of crimes people have been convicted of, people who have been removed have been convicted of. so, what you can see on the left side of the slide, the left pie graph is describing for the entire period that we're looking at. the right side is just looking at zeroing in, zooming in on 2013. as i mentioned 59% have never been convicted of a crime. and then looking at the specific types of crimes, about 13% of people removed have been

convicted of a violent crime. about 9% have been convicted of a drug crime. about 8% have been convicted only of an immigration related crime. then the remainder are other non-violent crimes and drug crimes, except i think, and yeah, drug crimes. focusing in on 2013 you can see that the share of non-criminal removals has gone down a little bit. the share of people convicted, exclusively of immigration crimes has gone up. the other wedges are all within about 1% of their decade-long average. so, one of the, sort of key findings of this report, looking at aggregate data i just described hides differences between people apprehended at the border and people apprehended within the united states. this picture is border removals. what you can see here the great majority of border removals are

of non-criminals, the blue ban. or of people whose only criminal conviction is for an immigration-related crime, the rhett band. those added together, people never been convicted of a any non-immigration crime, consistently accounted between 82 and 90% of border removals throughout this whole period and 87% of border removals in 2013. among people who have been convicted of any type of violent crime at the border, that represents about 4% of border removals in 2013. 4% violent crimes. 87% no criminal offense or just an immigration offense. the picture is completely different for interior removals. so just to, emphasize this point, those pictures look very different. for interior removals, for the entire period about a third of everybody who has been deported from within the united states

were non-criminals. that number fell to 13% in 2013. immigration crimes for the entire period represented 6% of interior removals. and that climbed to 13% in 2013. so that means that 3/4 es of people removed from the interior from 2013 were convicted of a non-immigration crime. this slide goes into more detail about what types of crimes people removed from the interior and from the border have been convicted of. so looking at the left side of the picture, as i said, about 3/4 of people removed from the border have november been convicted of a crime. then, you know, another, whatever it was, 12% have been convicted of an immigration related offense. then every other crime, one or 2%. about interior removals, about a quarter have been either never

convicted of a crime or convicted of an immigration only related crime. that is the first two wedges. 28% have been convicted of violent crimes. 15% are in category of general non-violent crimes. 18% are drug crimes. and 13% are traffic offenses. and of the traffic offenses, about 2/3 of those are dui and 1/3 are other types of traffic offenses. again very different pictures at the border and in the interior. one reason it is important to understand differences between border enforcement and interior enforcement the data show different trend over time where enforcement is taking place. so what this picture shows, the bars in this picture are total numbers of removals. the black line is the number of border removals. people apprehended at the border and then removed. the red line is people apprehended in the interior. so you know, a first thing you can see from this picture which

bears emphasis is that the total number of removals has been at record levels during the obama administration. the lowest year of removals during the obama administration is higher than the highest year for any other president. the last two years have each set all-time records for number of removals. so there is some confusion in the popular discussion about removals but there is no ambiguity that removals are at an all-time high. but, looking a little deeper into this picture, what is interesting about this picture, we see four distinct period between 2003 and 2013. so in the first couple of years, first three years of the bush administration, removals were basically flat and the ratio between border removals and interior removals was pretty much unchanged. there was pretty much status quo, no dramatic changes to the enforcement system early in the bush administration. what we see beginning in 2006, is a steep increase between 2006

and 2009 in the total number of removals. and what happened then is that with the failure of the comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the senate in 2006, the bush administration initiated a real enforcement surge. what you can see that was driven overwhelmingly by increased interior enforcement. these were worksite raids and other operations of fugitive operation teams. this shows up in the data as increased interior enforcement. those numbers flat enout during the first years of the obama administration. total number of removals is flat and no real change in ratio of border to interior enforcement and most recently since 2011 we see removals have started to increase again and it is driven entirely by increased border enforcement while interior enforcement has actually fallen during the period of rising removals. so very different things going on. one other way that border and

interior removals differ is by the enforcement pipeline or by how how enforcement is implemented. what we see here at the border, the majority of removals are expedited removals. another 31% are reinstatements of removals. all together, 86% of, i'm sorry, 84% of border enforcement is non-judicial, either reinstatements or expedited, versus 16% judicial removals. in the interior we see over half of all removals are judicial removals. and it is, we see that many fewer expedited removals we would expect. that is tool designed for new entries. noteworthy of 29% of interior removals are still reinstatements. another 7% are administrative removals which is another form

of non-judicial removals for certain criminal offenders. so, one last sort of removal pattern piece of information i'll share is, looking at the time between when people enter and when they're apprehended. as we'd expect, among border apprehensions, people are apprehended much more quickly. so 90% of border apprehensions occur within two weeks of entry, versus 6% occur a year or more after somebody enters the country. of course the pattern is different for interior apprehensions. interior apprehensions occur within two weeks of entry, versus 2/3 occur after reentry. a way to see the populations look different from each other in terms of their fix in the u.s. also interesting to look at the reinstatement because this is somewhat controversial procedure. what reinstatement means is somebody who previously formally removed if they get

reapprehended, that former, that previous removal order gets reinstated without having opportunity to appear before a judge and maybe argue that your circumstances have changed. what we see, 72% of reinstatements occur within two weeks of the reentry versus just 15% that occur more than a year after reentry. so the other key set of findings from this report, and key set of analysis is that we compare actual removals to dhs enforcement priorities and you know, the bottom line finding is that most removals are consistent with dhs's enforcement priorities. this slide disaggregates removals that fall outside of dhs's current priorities, bottom stripe, purple stripe. recent entrants, immigration obstructionists. i will explain exactly what i

mean by that term in a moment and people that have been convicted of crimes. three points about the overall findings here. one is that 95% of all dhs removals since 2003 or between 2003 and 2013 fall within one or more of these categories. so 95% of everyone removed meets one or more of dhs's priorities. the second point, that includes 93% of everyone removed bit bush administration. so the bush administration adhered to obama's enforcement priorities. so when you look at these data, it is a little bit surprising that the morton memos should have been a major source of controversy because, you know, it's clear, both historically and in the data, they formalized long-standing priorities that already existed going back to the ins era. having said that the third observation about the slide we see trend i talked about before,

translate into adherence to these priorities. so, although the, the morton memos didn't break radical new ground but they did sort of redirect enforcement. what you saw during the bush administration's enforcement surge between 2006 and 2008, and we look at this in more detail in the report, the share of non-priority cases increased and actually 2008 was the year that non-priority cases peaked at 10% of all removals. and that trend reversed as soon as obama came into office and non-priorities fell to less than 1% in 2013. so, and you see that especially after the memos came out in 2010 and 2011. so the morton memos have been effectively implemented but they have also been criticized by some advocates for immigrant rights because they define dhs's priorities very broadly.

so in particular, i mentioned that the three categories, recent entrants. recent entrants are defined by dhs, anyone apprehended within three years of entering the united states as well as anyone apprehended by cbp regardless of the timeline. immigration obstructionists are anyone who has ever been ordered deported, been ordered removed, excuse me, anyone ever been ordered deported as well as anyone who fails to appear at immigration hearing. criminals are defined as anyone who has ever been convicted of any crime. so those are all a broad definition of those terms. so what this table does is two things. one thing, in the first row what we look at is, if dhs were to strictly adhere to its enforcement priorities, meaning that anybody who fell outside of those priorities would benefit from discretion and not be deported, how would that change the enforcement numbers? this table only looks at i.c.e. removal cases.

we can't look at cpb cases here because we don't have enough information about them. we see removals have fallen, i.c.e. removals would have fallen, 2.7% reduction. what the rest of the table does, ask the same question, but if the priorities were defined somewhat more narrowly. instead of all criminals, what if we only focused on people convicted of non-immigration crimes? if we only focused on people convicted of violent crimes? the way to read this table, the easy way to read it, basically look at these numbers and compare them to this. what you can see excluding immigration crimes from the priorities, doesn't actually move the needle. when you look at, in detail, it only changes the removal numbers by 7,000 over the entire 11-year period and i'll say something about the reason in a moment. so, we don't really see these numbers go up until we look really, significantly narrowing the criminal categories that

we'll focus on, by not emphasizing level three i.c.e. offenders or not emphasizing violent criminals, all of these numbers are smaller than we expected. so that is something that we were interested in and we looked into and one of the reasons for that is that most people who fall into one of i.c.e.'s priority categories fall into one or more of i.c.e.'s priority categories. the example i was about to say something about, immigration crimes, most people convicted of immigration crime are apprehended at border and convicted after immigration crime. they're not just seen as immigration crime but border crosser. most people reinstated are apprehended at border and may have been convicted of immigration crimes. all people fall into all three categories or fall into two out of the three categories. in obama years, 58% of all removals fell into more than one priority category. that is one reason why the numbers in the previous table

were a little smaller than we expected. so in this table we looked at some more complicated scenarios where, well, what if with changed one or more of the priorities at the same time? what you can see, this does show that removals would fall more. you know which is what we would expect. i will talk you through a couple of cases because it is a lot of numbers to throw at you. so what this row is showing is that, if, dhs no longer focused on nonviolent criminals as a top enforcement priority and they no longer focused on 10-year-old removal order, didn't consider people who had been removed 10 years previously to be a top priority, then we would project removals would have fallen by about 17% over the previous 11 years. and you know, what this row is showing you, if dhs no longer emphasized non-dui traffic crimes and, and defined recent

entrants to be somebody came in the last one year instead of three years, removals would have fallen by 9% or 7 or 8% of those changes themselves. the most far-reaching set of changes that we model is to de-emphasize non-violent criminals to deprioritize, deprioritize people who entered more than a year ago and 10 or old removal orders and that would have reduced removals 19%. these numbers are a little bigger than the previous table. one of our takeways is still that we were surprised that playing with the enforcement priorities, you know, doing these experiments with the enforcement priorities, thinking about the enforcement priorities doesn't produce a larger reduction in numbers. one reason is because removals of priorities is one reason. a second reason is most removals fall into core dhs interests. most people are removed from the border are apprehended at border within three days of entering.

those are people did. hs views as enforcement priority. most people removed from interior were convicted of violent crimes or drug crimes or dui. those are people who are viewed as sort of core enforcement priorities. for that reason, change in the enforcement priorities doesn't push the numbers down that much. and, this sort of relates to a third point which is that, if we think about exercising prosecutorial discretion during the enforcement process, as a form of a executive action designed to reduce removal numbers, it is important to recognize that discretion during the enforcement process has a difficult kind of impact on immigrant communities than an affirmative daca style program which unauthorized immigrants would actively apply for relief. discretion during enforcement is less concrete and it is more difficult for immigrant communities to observe because most people who could potentially benefit from discretion during enforcement

don't ever experience that benefit because they never entered a dhs enforcement system. if you think been a unauthorized immigrant who lives in the united states and never commits a crime, they just don't interact with dhs for the most part. so they're never going to see dhs's discretion in action. so, that is how this type of discretion should work. it means that isis focusing on high priority cases instead of, you know, people who would benefit from discretion but it also means the psychological impact of discretion during enforcement and politics much any changes to enforcement priorities are quite different for those from application-based daca style program where people affirmatively seek relief. i will pause there. i remind you my three key takeaways. stark differences between border and interior enforcement across the board. vast majority of current removals meet dhs enforcement priorities. and changes to the priorities would likely have modest impact

on total removal numbers. >> okay, all right. hope that gives you a good summation of an enormous amount of numbers, more of which you will find in the report itself but they actually do really add up to these broad conclusions. so with that let me turn to you, rebecca. >> thank you, doris, and thank you, marc and good morning to everyone. i have want to thank mpi for inviting me to participate in today's discussion. i really appreciate the opportunity to be able to discuss some of gao's work, looking at some of the issues and topics related to some of the issues and topics that are raised in mpi's report being issued today. before i turn to my remarks on some of gao's more specific reports, i just wanted to give you a little bit more background on me and also who gao is in case some of you may not be as familiar about who we are as an

agency. so, as doris mentioned, i am director in gao's homeland security and justice team. in that capacity i lead our work on border security and immigration issues. now gao as an agency is located in the legislative branch. we're sometimes referred to as the investigative harm of congress or the congressional watchdog. and so in that capacity we examine how federal taxpayer dollars are spent and we examine how government programs and initiatives and efforts operate. most of our work is done at the request of chairs or ranking members of committees of jurisdiction in congress. or our work can also be mandated by committee reports or public laws. our reports are available on our website, which is gao.gov. and many of our worth contain recommendations to agencies that

we're reviewing on changes or improvements that they can achemake to their programs. on the border security and immigration work in particular we have covered a range of topics. on the border security side we've looked at issue like goals and metrics for assessing border security efforts. we've also done work looking at dhs's management and oversight of efforts to acquire and deploy surveillance technologies along the border. we've also done work looking at how different agencies have some responsibility for border security efforts, coordinate and collaborate on their efforts. on immigration side we've done work looking at various enforcement efforts including i.c.e. oversight of schools that admit foreign students. we've also done work looking at overstay enforcement issues and on the immigration benefits side we've done work looking at u.s.

cis's processes and adjudicating benefits and looking at employment verification issues. i want to give you a flavor of who gao is as an agency and sort of range of work we've done, more specifically on border security around immigration issues. for today's discussion i want to focus my remarks on two or three key reports that relate to some of the issues and topics that are raised in mpi's report. . .