and the death of the. the washington state debate coalition and the seattle city who posted this hour-long debate. [applause] >> moderator: good evening to the columbia basin college were tonight we hear the final debate between the candidates for governor republican bill bryant and democrats jay inslee. imc or douglas with you 13 is in seattle serving as co-moderator in tonight's event. >> moderator: our debate tonight was organized by the washington state coalition a group founded this year by seattle cityclub to increase access to nonpartisan positions. >> moderator: we invite our live audience here in our viewing audience to be part of this debate by following us and commenting on twitter. our hashtag tonight is the w a elect and where a non-partisan

debate. we'd like to thank our hosts the tri-cities, hispanic chamber of commerce city development council, tri-city regional chamber of commerce and business of the tri-cities. a final thanks to our debate sponsors and made it possible to leave the court from the aar p. in washington and their supporting sponsors of the bill and melinda gates foundation in tonight's debate sponsor stokes warren. >> moderator: let's begin with their opening statements. we had a coin toss prior to the debate and that determined that bill bryant will go first. mr. bryant. bryant: thank you columbia basin college for hosting this debate. tonight i want to tell you why i want this job. i want to share with you my vision of all we can accomplish together. with 30 to 50% of our minority students not graduating from high school, with the fourth

worst traffic in america, with the eighth highest unemployment in america come with homelessness exploding onto her streets with their mental health system ranked fifth yet and with salmon runs going extinct extinct comets are anyone who thinks we can do better and let's do it and let's start with education. through seventh grade i attended a rural school. it's because of that experience i want to ensure every kid regardless of where they grow up gets an education that gives them a chance to succeed. i'm running for governor because of education. let's fix our traffic mess of commuters can get to work on time and get home to see their families at a reasonable hour and let's work with the private sector to generate family jobs in communities that are still struggling with unemployment. and as someone used to volunteer at a homeless shelter i want dedicate ourselves to rebuilding

our mental health system so we can get people out up tents and onto their feet. i want to restore habitat so salmon come back every fall for generations to come. fulfilling that vision is going to take an activist engaged forward-thinking governor someone who's going to walk into difficult issues and who is adept at coalitions. that's the kind of governor i am going to be. i'm asking for your vote. tonight i hope i earn it. >> moderator: governor inslee. inslee: thanks for all who are involved in this. we are delighted to be here tonight. washington is where we raise their three boys in the orchards of the yakima valley. i think this is a perfect place for this discussion about how and why we are confident in an optimistic state in why we need to be confident and optimistic

governor. if you look at the tri-cities any look at the estate you realize three things. we are making progress on jobs. we are making progress on education. we are making progress on transportation. let's start with jobs where the chad well labs and autozone are growing jobs here. we are going to take its statewide. we have created 250,000 new jobs and 20,000 jobs have been created in the last month. we ought to be proud of that. the number one economy in the entire country. look at education what's happening in the tri-cities. paskal bulldogs have increased their graduation rate by 25% in the last several years. we are moving forward. the high school is the model for the nation s.t.e.m. education and what is happening here is happening statewide. we have had robust increases in education. every single child has access to

kindergarten. we are the only state in the country that is reduced tuition for every student in our public schools. we are making big progress. look at transportation and what we are doing in the tri-cities. we will rebuild the interchange and fix highway 12. that's happening all over the state for helping get bills passed. we are finishing the north-south freeway in spokane. all over the state of washington we are engaging the most massive infrastructure building program in the history of the state of washington. i am looking for this discussion i'm a confident optimistic governor and i believe that to keep the ball rolling. >> moderator: thank you. before we begin with our questioning be what you know there is a way can participate in shaping our debate with the help of our microsoft poll. if you go to wa debates.org you can decide the subject matter we

will focus on later this hour preview will be able to pick from for topics health care, homelessness homelessness, small business and women's issues and in a few minutes we will check back on the results and determine some of the questions were later in our debate. >> moderator: let's begin with questions. as you know police shootings have captured headlines throughout the country over the past few years. here in pasco antonio montes was shot and killed by police officers an incident captured on video. the prosecutor declined to press charges against the officer citing current state law which requires proof that officers acted in malice and without good faith. we will begin with mr. bryant. do you believe any to be a change? bryant: let's first talk about the environment in which we are living and i think too often right now in the united states we are living in an environment that is based on fear. that's not healthy for any of us. for our communities to really work and for us to exist together in a solid community and for us to have a good

relationship with law enforcement we need to have trust regardless of what the law is. we need to make sure we have trust within our community between the members of the community and law enforcement. that is undermining our democracy. we need to ensure that we support those who run towards danger and not away from it when there is a problem but at the same time we need to make sure that those people are representing us and treating everyone fairly and equally. there is right now a task force to examine this. they look at all facets of what is a difficult issue. they're supposed to come out with their findings that involve law enforcement and advocates. look forward to looking at those results in deciding whether or not washington state needs to change its legislation. at this point until we have that recommendation i think it would be premature. inslee: we have come a long ways in america given a racial divide that we know we have more work to do to secure racial injustice.

.. officers have training so that they can be escalate problems, so that they can be culturally competent. we have one of the best training centers in the country and they do this while but we have to make sure every officer has got training. >> the final piece in the mandate of the funding is to end

the overreliance on the local levies. in many cases they pay for the teacher salaries which is a state obligation. do you agree with the concept whereby local property tax levies would be lowered and raised to solve this problem? >> i believe in improving the education of our students. it's like climbing mount everest with 5.4 billion we have to give the rest away to the summit. there is a way to have a swap involved to reduce the local and make that up. but we shouldn't confuse this with a proposal that republicans put forth which would end up raising the taxes for half the citizens in the state of washington.

so under their proposal, it would raise the property tax is for half of the people in the state and put more money into the local schools. i don't believe that is the attainable version. i'm committed to getting this done. i believe combinations of robust economic growth and may be closing a couple loopholes. i think that can be done. and i can tell you i was shocked when the other day they said we can just kick the can down the road past 2017 and i will tell you why that was shocking to me we fashioned a bipartisan commitment. at my request they are working with a task force to get the job done. i'm committed and confident we can get that job done. what you did and here is what

was important. you've heard no plan. four years ago he said he would have a plan. the governor took out tv ads even though he had no plan of his own but he promised one and in 2013 he had no pla plan and 4 he had no plan. in 2016 all he did it se is sete committee to promise to work on it. the committee has met five times. the governor made half of the meetings. he has no plan but he is not engaged. delivering a plan through the legislative session is one of the primary reasons i am running for governor and i've already started working with legislators and reformers around the state on a plan. first is equity. right now we have a situation where rich school districts are able to provide their kids with

programs that disadvantaged neighborhoods are not able to provide. that isn't only unconstitutional, it is morally wrong. we will ensure there is equity that every kid regardless where they grow up will have the same amount of money spent. the second thing is we need to fully fund education. under my plan we will spend 50% of the general fund revenue budget on k-12 education. the third thing we need to do is innovation. we can't just pour more gas into the system and expect to get where we want to go so i went to an event last two years relevant to what kids want to do after they graduate as we have the pre- apprenticeship programs and industry certification for kids who don't want to go on to college and then we have to deal with uniformity. and when i said we might need to deal with it through 2020. >> moderator: let me follow up with you because i didn't get a clear answer and this is the single one you will deal with,

solving the query into the allegeand thelebanese swap that. where are you on the concept of lowering the local property taxes and raising state property taxes to solve the overreliance the supreme court -- >> we have some situations where the districts are paying $5,000 some wealthier. those folks in that district are still even though charging themselves not able to generate enough money to provide their kids the same programs the kids get for a dollar 20. so i would like to look at the model based on the massachusetts funding system where you have an equal property tax across all the districts. that raise is whether it raises in the district so the money doesn't go and get sent back. it stays in the district that every kid regardless where they grow up is going to have the

same amount spent on them. >> moderator: please clarify how much and what that would look like. >> i will attempt in 60 seconds. we can reduce the high property tax areas and also reduce the low property tax areas and thereby reduce the burden on local taxpayers but we can only do it so much because if you do it too far you end up increasing the property taxes in the wealthier areas and once we start doing that, i don't believe people will be accepting to raise property taxes and not putting additional dollars. we need to put the dollars and so that we can have apprenticeship programs. we have had action. we were starting and apprenticeship program, first one in the state this year, full-day kindergarten starting this year.

we are reducing class sizes this year. this year kids are getting tuition cuts and it's because we found a way to put $5.5 million. in the federal court ruling in the election the court ruled the large system was pressing the representation of the latino population. at the washington voterthe washd make this easier in other cities without the intervention of a. when people feel estranged from their society into separate from it they don't feel an obligation to that society.

when that happens, the content of our democracy is emptied. we need a vibrant democracy and that means in some cases we have to rearrange the line so everyone's vote counts and that's why i support legislation to be able to move their lines around so that every population can be equally represented that we have a bigger problem. our fastest growing demographic population as latinos. only 30% will not graduate from high school and are more likely to be incarcerated or live in poverty or have health problems and if that's the case they will be more diverse debate could divorce. we need to make sure they focus on high school graduation rates. i'm going to pull together the minority educators and leaders and we are going to put together

a four year initiative to increase the graduation rates among the minority communities. >> i fully support the voting rights act and i've been diligently attempting to pass it over the objections of the republican party. i do believe this is healthy for democracy. i do believe the experience in yakima has been demonstrably shown that this can help communities. we now have three young latinas that represent the districts that are not a majority in the districts. but in order to facilitate that and make it easier to embrace that farsighted effort to give people the ability to have their neighborhoods decide who's going to represent them, we need the voting rights act to make sure that happens and yes we do need people to get early childhood education. i put as much money or more in childhood education.

i was delighted to see the spanish-speaking kids learn because of the early education i helped finance. i love the fact that they will get full-day kindergarten now so they don't fall behind. i love the fact that we will have smaller class sizes now so that in the early grades, these kids come it is pretty amazing to me. we see their eyes light up when they get a concept because they got a good teacher and a smaller classroom and good things can happen. >> moderator: joining us tonight to assist our local journalists. we begin with kathy. >> moderator: diana from tacoma submitted this question online. last month five people were killed in a mass shooting in burlington at the cascade mall. if a suspected shooter is found guilty and sentenced what you

left your moratorium anlift youw the sentence to proceed? >> this and every other tragedy touches our hearts. the pain these families feel is beyond imagination. i know that because i've spoken to them. in my deliberations by smith with the victims of these crimes, some of whom agree with my position and some disagree. the position that i take is one that follows the fundamental precept that we should have equal justice under law. i did a lot of research about the death penalty in our state and i found some disturbing things. the fact is the death penalty is not anywhere close to being used in an equitable measure. one person gets life, the other gets death depending which side of the county line you are on. the racial aspects enter into this and i don't believe, no matter what you believe on the philosophical aspect whether new

testament or old testament person and both are sincere, we've got to have a system that is equal. what i found is the death penalty machine if you will is grossly inequitable. there is no death penalty in about 28 of the counties today because it costs too much. it's a lot cheaper they found to put someone in jail the rest of their life with no possibility of probation or parole and then to go through 20 years of paying lawyers. but i found is we need an equitable system and i will maintain my position that we will have a moratorium. >> argued for the death penalty and is it appropriate in this case? >> i'm confused about what the governor did. she decided she's going to impose a moratorium and it isn't

clear what would happen if it came up. i don't know if he would pardon a person or set aside the conviction. i'm not clear on what you actually do but let me tell you my position i would do as governor. i do not think a governor gets to pick and choose which laws to enforce and ignore. so as long as it is in washington state, i will enforce it. we now go to laurie williams. >> speaking of the court system, the state of washington has currently two lawsuits filed against the department of energy related to the nuclear reservation. one is about missing deadlines and emptying tanks and treating waste and the other is about worker protection from chemica chemicals. is the litigation the best way to achieve the cleanup and do

you support both lawsuits? >> i appreciate you asking that because i spent part of the day talking to different people about that. during the campaign i learned an awful lot. i spent two or three days meeting with people from all sides of the issues. i talked to employees, contractors, members and the federal department of energy and i'm trying to understand from all perspectives what's going on and why we are falling so far behind. all these people have different perspectives on what we need to be doing but there are different elements that ring true to all of them. first is that the governor isn't really engaged in debate would say we really need a gubernatorial leadership. the second thing they are saying is that he's focused so much on the tanks that he's ignoring the fact we have a bigger immediate threat with some of the properties only 120 yards from the river and finally this goes to your point that they are saying because he's largely relegated to the issue to the

attorney general or mired in litigation because that's what the attorney general does. what they are telling me is because we have so much litigation going on right now, parties can't really talk to each other about how to do moving forward and we are so focused on getting the lawsuit and the win in court to issue a press release that we are really not talking to people about how we can move up the timeframe and clean up this mess. as governor i want to provide that leadership. we need leadership, not lawsuits. >> governor, the taxpayers are paying both to prosecute and to defend. so what did you say to people who believe that their money would be better spent cleaning up rather than in the court system? >> i agree. what would be better is if the federal government fulfilled its responsibility to washington citizens, and in the sense that i've been working on this off and on for about two decades

when i was in congress i was a member of the caucus and worked with doc hastings to make sure we were on top of these issues and went to briefings. as far as talking to anyone i met with the secretary that i consider a friend about five weeks in seattle to talk about these and other issues. we are very engaged in talking to our federal partners that the federal government has let down the people. the people of the tri-cities are the most skilled workers in the world and they've done good work. they removed about 500 square miles of radioactive material and consolidated it on the plateau. they had a great plan but we need to give more safety that shouldn't be exposed to fumes or radioactive material. we had several workers get the material just the other day and we do have to provide some mechanisms to hold uncle sam . feet to the fire. the battle has to be won if we

are going to be sure that we finance the projects and if you let things just get kicked down the road sometimes the litigation is necessary and i think that we are making the right decision working with our federal partners but being insistent. we would like now to go to the first question we ask all of you which two of these topics you want addressed and here are the results from healthcare 23 23%, homelessness 45%, small business is 18 and women's issues 13 so homelessness talks to confirm. so i go t got to this question m an audience person. cities across washington are experiencing a surge in homelessness now that it's reached a crisis level do you believe it is time for the states to appoint a homeless czar to take charge of this issue and organize and coordinate the state response?

>> one of the first things i did this direct the department of commerce to focus priority i prn the youth homelessness and now in part because of my wife's leadership we passed the bill that would coordinate activities across multiple agencies to deal with the youth homelessness but beyond that it's important to put the meat on the bone to help the people that are homeless. they are citizens, neighbors, family members. if they can get a little help they can get back on their feet so here's what we've been doing, increasing low income housing stock build of 2,300 low income housing stock and saved about 4,000 others that were on the verge of going into higher-end. second, we fled the country in a thing called rapid re- housing and this is a program instead of getting people into the transitional housing where they do not improve, we get them in permanent housing more rapidly.

the federal government is following this and king county. i think this will be helpful. third, we focused on veterans housing. when i came in there were 1400 veterans and i found that totally inexcusable. so going to work and we have housed those 1400 veterans but guess what there's mor there ist have come in and become homeless because we know there's addiction problems and we are going to integrate the system so we can have better treatment but here's the other thing, the rent is going up and wages are not in every time it was up $100, homelessness was up 15%. one of the things we can do about this is increase minimum wage. the people in the state are working full-time. they don't have a problem or a mental health problem. they have a wage problem, s pron supporting a minimum-wage increasminimum wageincrease on s year. i'm looking forward to helping.

>> is it time for a homelessness czar in washington? >> this is a very important issue. we ask you not to applaud. >> this is a personal issue for me. i was a volunteer night manager at a homeless shelter in seattle and i understand the reasons why people are homeless and i tell you what, we do not have a coworker needed regardless of what the governor says there is no coordination between the cities and states. we are spending twice as much family were before. if someone in my company came to me and said we have a problem and i'm spending twice as much to solve the problem and it's only gotten bigger i would say you are not doing your job. if i'm governor we are going to do six things. first we will have zero

tolerance for camping on state lands. second we will give local law enforcement the authority they need to go in and deal with the criminal of lament and allow them to clean up unnecessary. in seattle we are spending between ten to 14,000. that's more than we spend for the care of some foster kids. we need to make sure it's being spent well. we can spend it well by investing in more permanent housing and job counseling and that will require looking at building codes to build more houses for people who are looking to get back on their feet. we also need to provide for mental health care. under the governor our mental health system is ranked 50th. but it's sinking. we need to coordinate the policy between the social hope services and the department of commerce. >> let's move onto the next

issue and that is healthcare. open enrollment for individual plans starts on november 1 and costs continue to go up. united health has withdrawn from the market place. the average premium increase will be 13%. is the health insurance market in washington working and what will you do to slow the premium increase we will start with you. >> this is a huge issue for whoever walks into the office in january 2017. in ten years it is going to consume a disproportionate amount of the budget sweeney to ensure the health care system works and right now it's not. not. it's meeting the needs of some but a lot of people are seeing their premiums going way up and coverage going way down and it isn't a pathway forward. one of the other things i'm hearing is if you want to have a marketplace that works while you've got two people to provie

them with real-time informationn so that patients can make informed decisions and doctors can communicate about what their choices are and we don't have that. we need to have that and we also need to combine primary and mental health. right now i'm being told in a lot of cases the costs are going up because if somebody comes in for a primary health issue let's say a sore throat the doctor realizes there's a mental health issue as well they will get a prescription for the sore throat and told them to come back for the mental health evaluation that probably never happens and it's that issue that we've got to do with. if we want to keep costs under control we need to combine the mental health and there's good models where that is happening g right now in southwest washington. there's opportunities to make savings but it's going to take an engaged governor and that is the kind of governor i want to be. >> we are doing today with the current governor every single thing bill talked about, all of

which were good ideas and guess what, we are already doing them. we are leading the united states and maintaining the inflation rate. we would like it to be zero but we are leading and here's the best evidence. last week the federal government gave my administration because of my readership and my team's leadership a waiver to use $1.5 million here's where we are going to do with it. when we are integrating mental and physical health, this is a no-brainer that are leading the country so you don't have to go to different places for treatment between our mental and physical health difficulty. number two, we are inventing new ways of purchasing health care so that we by value rather than volume. the old way was to buy a procedure. you pay per procedure.

we want to pay the physician in the hospital for health and we are leading the country by value rather than volume. we are increasing the availability for this opioid epidemic that we are experiencing. last week, i announced our initiative to attack the opioid epidemic. it has to do with making sure our physicians to prescrib physd anyone particularly the youth. it's providing telemedicine services. and you can call somebody and get the latest information. these things are working today. we are leading the country. i'm proud of the work and we want to continue it. >> it's become very common in washington as you know we have hot lanes. governor, do you support this to

help generate the revenue and money needed to replace and repair other corridors across the state which will soon need major upgrades is that appropriate? >> we have not made that part of our plan going forward. when i started as governor, i knew how troublesome traffic congestion is in many places across the state of washington. so i decided to focus intensely to build a big infrastructure improvement plan that could reduce congestion, to build more buses, single vehicles, overpasses, connections. we had a lot of opposition to that because the folks in the senate didn't want to pass a bill that eventually brought the parties together and we passed a $16 billion transportation package. this is the largest infrastructure project in the history of the state of

washington and it's going to help everybody, red mountain interchange, highway 1 12 finish the north-south freeway, it's going to finish 167, the highway to nowhere in pierce county. he did the firswe did the firstg to improve the congestion just a couple of weeks ago. and this is financed by an increase we like to do that for nothing but if you are going to builwere going tobuild a big ine program obviously you like to have revenues. we thought that was the fair and the best way to do it. we are now involved in a program to have a two year program and we are improving that by adding the lame so we can reduce congestion. >> i have no idea what the governor is talking about. i want to take one of those and

convert it to a general-purpose lane. you didn't get a very clear answer from the governor. governor. you've also heard him taking credit for passing the transportation package. i find that amazing. in the last months she pulled about 20 of us together to put together a transportation package. and at the end about a 16 month period we put together a plan for the next governor and was ready to go for the next legislative session. the governor came into town and need transportation a partisan issue for the first time ever and blew it up and it took many of us three years to put it back together again. we need to reduce traffic congestion. it will be the top priority and we don't need to have more megaprojects. the engineers, former and current are saying you need to have some solutions. we know there's an on ramp for an off ramp that was never meant to handle the amount of traffic

it is handling mouse we need to reconfigure. we know there's difficult parts of the road where we know we need to add a lane and we need to remove one of the toll lanes from 405. we also need to invest in transit that works and that people use because it works and we need to be able to deliver it within the next six to eight years and that's why i am going to add capacity so that we can bring in the transit to communities all across the area. >> we now go to the newsradio. >> good evening gentlemen and welcome to the tri-cities. this next question is for both and it comes from an audience member concerned about water quality in the basin are giving the state department of ecology is disregarding the recommendations of its own scientists to protect the lower well water from nitrate pollution resulting from big agriculture. how would you respond to that

concern? >> i lived there in the early '80s and 90s and my company still does business so i'm very involved with the number of folks struggling with the issues you bring up right now. what they are telling me is we are not making decisions based on sound science. they want to protect the water quality but these are regulations that were written for more over on the coast and what we need our regulations writteare regulationswritten fo. they are not against the regulations. they just want to make sure they make the investments that will yield a result at the end of the day and they are concerned they will be asked to make investments into the water and r quality won't be improved at a all. that's why i said i'm going to impose a moratorium on all of the regulations until the departments can justify the ones we've already gotten. i think it is going to take about six months but by june of 2017 we are going to look at every regulation and see if it

is meeting its objective and how you know it is meeting its objective. if it is successful what will wl look differently and four to seven years and what is the legislative authority that gives you the ability to implement that let's go through and make sure what we are asking people to do is based on sound science and is moving us towards the goal that we all want to achieve. if we do that people have a regulatory system people have confidence in and wants to invest in. the people deserve to have a well where you can give the water to your three month old and not worry about him getting nitrate poisoning. my administration is adopting a rule that will reduce the amount and to preserve human health and children's health and i've got to tell you i take issue with my opponent who doesn't want to move forward on what scientifically is necessary for

health and it is an approach that isn't just about the wells. we need rules against the whale trains blowing up. we saw bubbles up in oregon. we need a rule that would help them to be safer and inspect on a more frequent basis, do some other things to help first responders. my opponent wants to stop the rulemaking process and i don't understand about. when we have in the pipeline the ability, this is a little off subject we are going to build an interchange o, big infrastructue project that costs $40 billion in fix highway 12 that he says we don't need to do that. he's just going to do it with some kind of magic. i have to disagree with him. we've got to build this state. we've got 50 or 60,000 people moving here because we have the number one economy in the united states. it's one of the reasons we have

a homeless problem. so we need to build an infrastructure project that can accommodate all these people and we need to have rules that will protect our children's drinking water in the valley. >> republican secretary of state is calling for a law that would require them to prove u.s. citizenship or residency to get state drivers licenses and also it would ensure non- citizens don't vote. the only state in the country that doesn't require legal documentation to get a license or state identification. the rights groups argue there is no proof of noncitizens voting and others say this could hurt the state's agricultural industry. where do you stand? >> i'm not sure what the secretary is proposing. if she is proposing that we need

to bring our driver's license rules into compliance with the act, i agree with that and to propose legislation to do that. it is a simple piece of legislation the legislators haven't seen fit to pass that and i believe we can and should. if she is talking about requiring people who started voting in 1848, fought in the korean war and we don't let them vote unless they go down to the courthouse and show them their birth certificate, then no i don't believe that is necessary because i think there is such a minimal suggestion that there has been this particular problem. i think we need more people voting. if that is what she is suggesting, i don't know, i'm trying to use nonjudgmental language but i can't figure out what she's proposing that we do need to bring the driver's license system into compliance in the federal law and the reason is because some point the

federal government will no longer allow us to use the driver's license to get on an airplane for that would be a substantial inconvenience. so i talked with the administration most recently the secretary three weeks ago about the subject in hopes the federal government could allow us to pass a law to fix this and i will get that done. >> i want to go back and address some of the issues because we need to clarify the record here. he said i was opposed to any regulations which is just flat-out not true and he knows it because it has come up before. saying it over and over again doesn't make it true. today they were actually quite dissatisfied with the idea that you haven't done anything they've asked -- the rules forbid you from talking directly -- >> then i will talk to you. the governor has done nothing on this issue. as your governor i'm going to move forward with walls and

regulations that will ensure we restrict the train link and we have regular inspections of the cars and tracks. also the whole idea but i'm not going to finish what i've dedicated the last ten years to getting those build is just absurd. i'm not relying on magic i was relying on a package that you blew up and we passed three years later. when it comes to transportation and oil train safety i will be defending the interests of intee in washington state and to ensure that we have a voter id, yes we have to do it. we are one of the 50 states that don't and if we do not take action you will have to have a passport to get on an airplane and i do not want people to have to go buy a passport to visit their grandparents in california. >> we now welcome tom kieran

pascoe. >> is the father of two little girls, education is important to many people in the state. it shows in the last five years the demand for new teachers in washington schools has increased by 250% partly due to the fact experienced teachers are leaving so what is your plan to recruit and retrain highly qualified teachers? >> for me, teachers are family. my dad was a teacher, my sister was a teacher and is now a principal and my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are all teachers so this is something that comes up at family dinners all the time and we have to ensure that we are keeping young innovative teachers and desist demand right now too many are leaving after three or four years. this is where i want to dedicate increased funding for teachers to go to the new teachers and

the younger teachers. the governor put forth a proposal that would give them the most increases to the teachers that make over $70,000 a year that's not going to solve the problem. it's going to make funding even more difficult so let's put the funding into new teachers and encourage them to stay in the profession and make sure we are recruiting teachers of color so they can identify with the children and let's figure out how we can compensate excellent teachers. i want to build a state where every teacher wants to teach at washington state because they are fairly compensated and supported. that's what we have to strive for and that's what i will strive for. >> same question to you what will you do to keep teachers in the classroom? >> inslee: let me tell you what he's done because this is an important issue we lose about 50% of our new teachers for a combination of the lack of support in the classroom, excess class sizes and inadequate

compensation. and i as your governor has moved and made substantial progress on all of those things. it's one of the reasons i'm proud to be endorsed by the 55,000 educators in the state of washington because we know this is high-priority. my dad was a teacher, my brother and sister-in-law, so i know what this means. i fought in one and have the endorsement of the educators to get them a small increase in compensation but it's not enough. we need to do more to be able to attract and maintain quality people because i tell you they teach for two or three years and then they go to work for amazon. these are high quality people. second, i have provided and i'm very pleased by this because it's one of the things i thought

for in the mentorship program. we throw these teachers into challenging conditions. my dad told me he learned to teach from an old football coach who took my dad aside and taught him how to teach so now they have a mentor should. they get a mentor that stands behind them and works with them. reducing class sizes it isn't fair to a teacher to have to see those there's too many of them so we are reducing class sizes. those are the three most important things we've done. >> you've both opposed a state income tax however, going forward would you support closing any of washington's tax breaks as a way to raise revenue to help meet the obligations of schools and other programs and if so, what specific what you close and if not, why?

spinnaker i have supported closing some of the corporate tax breaks that are no longer economically justifiable, are not creating jobs bu that make t impossible to educate our children. because we've been able to close some of them, we've been able to give every student a tuition break in the school and increased compensation for teachers and now we want to move forward to extend some of the things we are doing. we have an opportunity program where we gave kids if you go yod program it increases the graduation rate from 55% to 95%. it's magic. i want to extend that to this community college and every college across the state of washington. that may include or require

using the revenue coming in because we have such robust economic growth and closing some of the loopholes. i know bill has a different view and served for years as a registered federal lobbyist. i know that he's close to the whale and gas industry. i believe the loopholes that gives $65 million that they do not need to. it wasn'need. it wasn't even meant for that industry. that ought to be closed and there's others as well but i'm out of time. >> what would you close specifically if any? >> i'm in favor of putting all on the table despite the governor says and once again he knows that. i said on day number one i'm going to identify strategic objectives for every department and then we are looking at every program come agency and tax incentives and if they are not moving as far as the strategic objective we fix them or eliminate them. everything is on the table in the administration.

he says he doesn't support an income tax. find. he said he would veto any tax increase four years ago and then weeks getting into the office proposed a billion dollars of new taxes. a tax on carbon and bottled water, a tax on beer and certain types of income. he said he doesn't support the income tax and i've asked him will you veto a tax on income if it lands on your desk and he won't say no. a few weeks ago in vancouver he said he would consider a tax on certain kinds of income. closing loopholes isn't going to provide billion dollars we need. we are going to have to have a program that will fund education across the state. it's great to be much more complicated than the governor thinks and that is why my plan where we deal with equity and increase the funding to 50% of the general fund and we look at innovation and deal with uniformity across the school

districts that's how we are going to get it done. it's hard to talk about in one minute and 60 seconds or 30 seconds but it's the kind of work i'm dedicating myself to as your governor. >> we have reached the point now we are at the end of the questions so it is time now for each of you to provide your closing statements. >> i appreciate this opportunity to come and have this debate and you being a part of it. they are inpu important to our democracy and it gives people a choice. this year you do have a choice between different types of people. i don't know who thinks if we reelect him what's going to change because if you listen to the debate tonight, think about what you didn't hear. you have a lot of talk about what he's done and how much money we've spent that he never said this is where we are going to go with education. i can give you a four-point plan. you didn't get one from him. when we talk about

transportation, he talked about what he's sort of gun and took credit for others' work, but he didn't talk about how we are going to get rid of traffic congestion or how we are going to recover salmon runs. we didn't talk about what we want to do with the homeless if i gave you a six-point plan. what do you think is going to be different if we reelect him? i don't think anything. i think we will continue to have gridlock on our highway. let me tell you what will be different if you elect me, i will be an activist governor and make sure we have a system that meets the needs of every kid. i want to ensure we work with employers to provide jobs in washington state but are still suffering from eight to 9% unemployment and i'm going to be dedicated to ensure that we reduce traffic jams. i want us all to th to dedicate ourselves to rebuilding our mental health system. these are the kind of things we can do. that is not a partisan or ideological agenda. it's just about all of us.

republicans, democrats and independents coming together so people can get a good job and afford a house and raise a family and retire in this natural beauty we all love and want to protect. that's what i want to do as your governor and i'm asking for your vote. thank you all to my opponent, i love taking the oath of office even more. so i would be honored if you could help me in that regard and i want to tell you why that is. the last four years i've bought up every single morning and tried to figure out what i could do to help realize their dreams and they are realizing a lot of their dreams because the work i've done in a bipartisan fashion. most all of our success in the last four years has been on a bipartisan fashion because we've divided government in the legislature.

and i think it is a bipartisan and personal joy of mine when i can go to an elementary school and see a young child who might have a speech difficulty who if she didn't get help with her speech difficulty might end up never reaching her full potential and now she's going to do that by the thousands because of the success that we are having in the early childhood education. it is a joy to go to a ribbon-cutting like i did the other day when we were improving which will connect and reduce congestion on one of the most congested corridors in the state. to go there if it means i that e an optimistic state and when you think about it fundamentally it is a monument of optimism. it means you are going to do better. your community will grow, you will create more jobs and have more scholarships and have better education and yes you will have less legal trains to

blow up and i think all of those are good things. so i would be very appreciative of your vote. good luck with remain an optimistic state. >> gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. [applause] we would very much like to think our audience here. thank you for joining us. have a good evening. [applause]

use the video clipping tool to create clips to share on social media. c-span.org on your desktop, phone or tablet for the presidential debate. policy, national security, the economy and social security. this includes the incumbent republican, democrat and libertarian robert marquette. prairie public tv hosted this half hour debate.

>> welcome to the prairie public coverage of election 2016. this is the debate for one of the u.s. senate seat. ♪ my guests today are the craft eliot, libertarian robert marquette, and republican senator opening statements senator hoven will go first. >> senator? >> things to you and prairie public for hosting this debate. i believe in north dakota i believe in the people of north dakota and i believe that the will of the government is to empower people. that means focusing on the fundamentals. the things that will help our economy grow and