>> ogres threats to our democracy right now people talk about threats to democracy is the issue of the fact we have over 10 million illegal immigrants that have come into this country since joe biden and kamala harris was the white house. if you go in some states where they allow someone to get a drivers license who is not a citizen of the united states. when you apply for the drivers license they say would you like to register to vote? that's the pathway to voter registration for illegal immigrants were not happening in wyoming but it's happening in a number of places. we have laws that say you should not be able to vote you cannot vote if you are an illegal immigrant. the democrats of block the bill that said this has to be the federal law note voting by illegal immigrants. right now the illegal immigrants are counted in the census. why would that matter?

they want resources to move to the cities you took the total look of the population of california and if you add all of the illegal immigrants that are there that's how they determine the electoral college of this. how many electoral votes as california get versus the three that we have in wyoming? we've a lot of illegal immigrants there and they have more of a population they're going to have more votes and take them away from other states. i believe it's a big problem not just with the individual illegal immigrant voting, but also every democrat voted in the senate to say good comic compass illegal immigrants in the census. they benefit us in the long run as it shifts the electoral college to the states that act as century states for illegal immigrants. >> 90 seconds. >> not a single democrat that voted to allow undocumented human beings who are not citizens of the united states to vote street simply did not

happen. it was a poison pill that you guys put on that table in the voted against i don't blame them i would have voted against it too. as far as the number of undocumented people in the country according to the people that should know, dhs and the border patrol 6.5 million. and of those four-point to million are accounted for. they have legal status for there's a difference between somebody who has legal status and somebody who is illegal. 1.6 undocumented folks got past the border patrol according to the border patrol. in wyoming for example since john got in the senate what was it 2007? we have had about 5000 who are undocumented. we have about the same amount today. it is not changed. it all to do about nothing.

during trump at 11.5 million so-called illegal people in the country. and now a santa 10.9 under the current administration. to say the biden administration is doing all this stuff is simply disingenuous. it does not comport to the facts. >> had been to the borders seven or eight times but each time i go i see what's happening at the border. people coming across illegally from all around the world. people being attractive because you couldn't free healthcare, free housing, free food, free cell phones, free debit cards loaded with cash. people are being drawn to this country illegally by the border was essentially closed when president trump left office. president biden came inside 90 for executive orders throwing open he has been in the white house but it counted for the census.

quicksort nearing the end of our allotted time for this could be the final question if the kid it's would agree to limit their answers to perhaps 30 seconds we might have time for one more question beyond this. much of the members of congress do comes in committee rooms reviewing information, testimony on many toxic topics in public interest. senator, answer on your committee work and mr. morrow will be the first respond what committees are topic areas for committee work would interest you? >> i've not been to congress but i've never been to congress but i'm a guy off the street i am paycheck to paycheck trying to get to congress. to go back on what he said no one is getting cell phones that's not a citizen know is getting free housing. no one's getting snappy. you have to be a u.s. citizen inthe watch that very closely pt i have friends try to get snap it is hard as far as committees go i pick up my committees. i want to work with seniors who want them to have the social

security but he would not even cosign despite my hundreds of calls asking gregory to please let them know i need him to do that. i want to be on the committee for clean energy. they are not called that, i'm calling them that. i would like to see, i'd like to be on the labor committee. that's my expertise and as a citizen. i'm tired of people making $2.13 an hour in wyoming for 28 years. it is untenable. >> i focus so much on the energy we had somebody on the energy committee since he became a state in 1890. i mention kelly noris a couple times she's her state forrester. talk about problems or having up there. i had the governor come back to washington for the endangered species act with the great wolf

and the grizzly bear and her efforts to get them off of the endangered species list. all of these things reelected to a state senate. >> 30 seconds to respond or we could move on to a more question. >> also will more question for. >> that will come from claire mcfarland. senator you will respond first. >> covid-19 pandemic fall on us all over again today and knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently as a u.s. senator and what would that be? >> and as a doctor too. i am a doctor, i'm a u.s. senator i was for the vaccine and against the mandate. we need to make sure we are prepared. i think what we did was to prematurely shutdown the entire country. you look at the hospitals in wyoming that had to shut down, we had not even gotten to wyoming. we did not have the protective equipment that we needed.

these are hospitals where nothing could be done. mammograms were not done performance because of him to shut down for different preventative care was not done. we should not have shut down the country at the way we did. that is a mistake. much further along with vaccine development. people should make the decisions by themselves that they want a vaccine. as a doctor i've taken it but as an individual jumping the government should tell you have too. that's one of my real promise of the biden administration with a vaccine mandate which is also stopping a number of people from going into the military when they have to get the vaccine. >> 90 seconds. >> we agree it's a good idea to get the covid vaccine and booster. we've done them to i get a lot of flak from people on your side of the aisle for that. i am grateful your role modeling such great behavior but got regarding that so thank you.

as far as hospital shutting down i missed all of that. as far as mandates i don't consider it a mandate when i tell you mr. peck either get vaccine target tested every week. the guy he endorsed was giving testing equipment to putin instead of to possibly really, really needed here we could not get a test you cannot buy a test for 50 bucks putin is getting them all. i like to straighten that out there was never a mandate by the biden administration. they didn't want you to either get the vaccine or get tested. that is reasonable we have 20 or 30,000 people dying every day a horrible death on a ventilator. who could not talk to the families. come on. it's not unreasonable to have a mandate or please get tested so we don't get people sick at your

federal agency. i do not consider that radical at all. i consider that good common sense to protect americans but that's what i'm going to jump going to fight to protect americans. i'm not going to tell them they have to get the vaccine but now i'm going to tell them senator barrasso got he hasn't i got my new mount follow suit. quick center, 30 seconds of follow-up. >> that's fine. >> of reach the end of a question and answer. we now have two minutes closing statements from each candidate. mr. morrow you go first. >> i think everybody that's been here. i think john for showing up and surprisingly we agreed on a great number of things but isn't that amazing that we can agree on so many things on your job, it is getting a lot of flak pretty getting vitriol and hatred. you've been very nice, very professional is something i really like to see. what i am troubled with is a 20 or seven calling your office hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of times for stuff like please cosponsor rs seven and i get a letter from you saying a cost too much. it doesn't cost anything. there's no funding at all in the act. that is the type of disingenuous behavior say their giving free cell phones free housing free food free this and that to undocumented people there is no evidence of it. it has been debunked over and over and over again you've got to stop watching fox news and newsmax because they are lying to you. when you pass it on you hurt yourself you are very professional and intelligent inn being. what do you get out of being disingenuous of their constituents? please be truthful it might help you. if you could be honest about these things and stop being so vitriolic and hateful towards immigrants. they built this country your family is an anagram put my family is an immigrant the only ones not immigrants are the first people over there and all

the other reservations. i am going to fight for all of wyoming individual except maybe the rich and powerful which i consider it your constituency per they've got enough people working for them from going to work for the disabled to 37% of wyoming the people making 213 an hour trying to get tuition. i'm going to fight for the disabled. i'm going to fight like i've been fighting for 46 years. for workers in the least among us. you serve better than john brasa. thank you for staying with us. to me election it's a job application but i am applying for this job because i think i can make a positive difference for the people of wyoming. earlier this summer a guy yelled at me in a parade he said you

are a warrior. i want to be forceful, effective a conservative responsible voice fighting for the people of wyoming. many of you know i lost my wife to cancer this past year many of you knew and loved bobby she was terrific. she would say john your job is about a lot more than voting on bills. it's making sure seniors get their social security checks. making sure veterans get the healthcare they need. it's making sure farmers and ranchers that they get the runaround from washington that they have somebody talk to its helping young people from wyoming who want to go to the military academy. that's what this is about. for me it's about more than that it's about spending every thanksgiving with her wyoming troops. with a big deployment right now in the middle east and the war -- make the world is a very dangerous place. they are in harm's way but we didn't talk but any of those issues this evening. i'll be with them at thanksgiving justice if i was with the soldiers in south korea last year for thanksgiving. we share a meal some of these

kids is the first time they've ever been away from home for thanksgiving. june what they want to talk about? the wyoming weather them i talk about hunting this fall and they want to talk about wyoming cowboy football team. i want to thank them for the sacrifices they are making is and it's it senator i will tell you this is not about me for this election is about you, your family, your life, your future and your freedom. i will work for you. i will stand up for you and i will fight for you every day in the united states senate on behalf of the people with starch campaign coverage on

c-span now areree mobile video app for online at c-span.org. the democratic and republican nominees in delaware's 2024 gubernatorial race participated in a debate hosted the university of delaware including topics like health care, law enforcement, and gun safety laws run into succeed outgoing democratic governor john carney limited from running from a third -- for a third term by state law.

the debate features of the candidates enter the race for delaware governor. the democratic nominee for governor's new castle county executive matt meyer and the republican candidate is a state representative bike ramon. to go over the rules. both candidates agreed in advance to the rules for this 90 minute debate. they have agreed to hold their responses to specific time limits. we will have questions from the delaware public media reporter and the executive producer for the student television network at the university of delaware. the candidates have agreed there will be no opening statements. you will hear closing statements from both candidates later. the candidates will enter under the order they determined themselves with a pre-debate

coin toss. we will try to keep our questions assistant to get to as much as we can in tonight's debate. we will start with education and focus there. i will send things to sarah for our first question going first to matt meyer. sarah: an independent review of the delaware education funding system released last year from the staining million dollars to $1 billion more in education. the analysis indicated delaware should get rid of the current funding structure based on the number of students and switch to a system strongly based on student need providing more to schools with higher need. the public education funded commission is weighing the recommendation on plans -- recommendations and plans to deliver its own suggestions to the governor by next october. how would you change the delaware funding system if at all? do you think more money should be invested in education?

mr. meyer: i am running for governor because i believe we need leadership to create quality jobs for delaware he ends -- delawareians, working tirelessly to increase the affordability and accessibility of health care. working to improve our education system. our public education system should be world class in delaware. i am a teacher. six and seven years ago i was a teacher. i got fed up by the quality of our schools. it's the number one issue for me as governor. in all of the years of delaware we never elected a public school educator is our governor. there will be dramatic, rapid

changes to our funding system to invest attract and retain the highest quality educators. we will look at consolidating districts. we will look at providing choice to delaware families and the schools they go to and invest like never before in partnership with my lieutenant governor in early childhood. sarah: mr. ramoe on education funding? >> having been elected the last 16 years i am clearly aware of obstacles in education. we have big obstacles. you have to take a global solution. i'm not sure i would agree what we need to spend on education. but, i clearly agree more money needs to get into the classroom for children and teachers. teachers need to be empowered to

have resources they needed to produce a formative educational experience for the children. the children in need to be placed in an environment where we can guarantee their successes instead of graduating them when they aren't ready for the next grade. we need to keep them, cuddle with them, and keep them in an environment where they can be successful. i don't believe we allocate the amount of money we currently have in the education system. we are third, maybe second with how much we fund, third or second to last in results. it is very clear delaware is getting no value. look at capital per state and cost of living. we are literally the worst with how much we spend for the results we get. i would truly like to 33 -- c three major modifications. first, we can't just promote a child because they are supposed to go to the next grade. we have to give the children the attention and time they need to be successful.

second, we can't continue to have teachers are scared to be in classrooms. we need more security. third, we have to empower each and every school to be successful. sarah: talking more specifically about if you want to invest more funding in the system and if the current unit funding structure should be restructured as well as of the public education funding commission recommends something different from your plan, how will you work with the general assembly to go through with what you want or would you stick to the recommendations they give you? rep. ramone: i have been running the state local government for eight years managing over $2 billion of taxpayer money. with that we not only reduce taxes but invest in creating new programs providing low income kids with high income skills to enter the job market of tomorrow. i think we need to act with urgency.

collaboratively, with legislative partners. our funding formula was written in the 1940's, among the oldest in the country. think of the people that wrote the formula. what were their values? that is the formula we are following? that does not make sense. i know there is a commission. under the commission is moving forward collaboratively. my commission will move forward with urgency. i stood in front of students that are losing opportunity because of the failure of leadership. sarah: same to you mr. ramone. if the funding commission recommends something different from what you see as your vision how would you tackle that? rep. ramone: when you run businesses for 40 something years you learn how to verbalize and visualize not just of the problem, but a solution and the path forward. that path is not straight. it is often curved and shaky.

in the general assembly for 16 years i listened to the issue for four or five years before i got elected. it isn't a simple solution. it is clear when you have brought all 19 districts? when i first got elected my vision was to consolidate districts with senator peterson in a bipartisan way and it was shut down. you need the knowledge and experience listening to the needs and finding a trajectory forward where you can rectify all of them. you can't do that with a 100 page plan or in a bubble. you have to do it with all of the players at the table. coming in as a republican in the state of democrat, whether republican or democrat you start barking what you do you want to be successful. you have to be a bipartisan executive who listens to everybody's ideas and it how to incorporate solutions. sarah: sticking with education but moving to student achievement for a moment, the 2020 for statewide student

assessment results show overwhelmingly stagnant outcomes in student proficiency with english language arts around 40% grades three-eight and math proficiency 33%. the governor increased opportunity funding and approved $3 million for early literacy coaches and some proposed more drastic changes to address the deficiencies. under your administration would you support some of these like creating a school voucher system subsidizing the cost of private or religious schools with taxpayer dollars or tying educator salaries to student performance rates? rep. ramone: i actually believe that when you watch your education system being at 9% and 7% of two schools in new castle county four or five years ago and you go, my goodness, that means only one out of every 10 is almost at reading level. then you watch it go down to five and four. that is an embarrassment. that is a failure.

that's a failure of our county, our city, and our state. for all of the children in their schools, and it is four years of children. i absolutely believe that if a child and their family only ability is to go to a failing public school, they should have the ability to go somewhere else. whether they have to get a tax voucher to offset the cost or whatever. i do not think it is everyone do whatever. it is very defined. the resources would be used for those that have no other choice. that is our obligation to allow children to go to a school that works. second. when we started opening charter schools we made a line in the sand that if they aren't getting a certain level of accomplishment we closed them. we have no mechanism to do something similar in traditional public schools.

the only way to fix it is by addressing those that need the most help and that means the entire funding mechanism needs to be reconsidered. it is broken. it is the most complicated in the nation and even the funding people in the districts don't know how to read it or how it works. sarah: same question on supporting a school voucher system and tying educator sadr city -- salary student performance. mr. meyer: you have districts like laurel that have gone to asynchronous learning classrooms because of the crisis attracting and retaining educators. first we need to look at how we take care of public spaces. one thing i have learned in eight years running our state's largest local government is when you make smart investments in public institutions people like them. they are happy. when you take someone's tax dollar and get a return for it it meaningful. voucher programs are dangerous. it is something donald trump and

betsy devos tried to do nationally, taking money from the public education system. all sorts of studies show what that does. it takes a school system where there aren't winners or losers and increases the number of losers that are left behind in schools where they can't learn that are further underfunded. it is a right wing, republican attempt to drain public school resources and give tax breaks to wealthy people already sending their kids to private school. it is the first step towards vouchers ending up with kids going to $30,000, $40,000 per year private schools saying where is my voucher. this will devastate a public school already struggling. we need to invest. there are incredible people and incredible programs but it is struggling. with our leadership we will make the investment to make the difference. sarah: you have talked about paying high-performing teachers

more. can you talk more about how you would quantify its success based on student performance? mr. meyer: there are measures available including testing, but not exclusively limited to testing. when i was a teacher we would say, it is very hard to measure teacher performance. even school performance. when you go to a great school you know it is a great school and when you go to a failing school you know it is a failing school. when you go to a great teacher's classroom nobody knows it is a great teacher's classroom. when you go to a failing classroom everybody knows it is a failing classroom. we will put in methods to reward and incentivize teachers, the highest quality educators, not just teachers, paraprofessionals, staff, to go to the places we need it most. there are 17 schools as of the last testing cycle, 17 public schools in delaware with a single digit proficiency in reading and math.

matt meyer's administration will have leadership that acts with urgency. we can't address economic, health care, or housing issues unless we first address this root cause. sarah: anything to add on teacher performance? rep. ramone: it's basic. looking at delaware being one of the lead is second and the bottom in the amount of tax dollars we take from citizens to put in education, less than $.25 gets to the classroom, the lowest in the nation. if we are talking about empowerment, let's empower principals. if you are talking about local control, let's give local control to families able to go to local community schools. if you are talking about improving and enhancing a child's ability to be successful in their educational experience, we need to make sure we have teachers that love to teach that are paid more than anyone else and rewarded for being great teachers, not feeling they have

to move into administration to get a pay increase. one of the biggest things i get a little disappointed in in politics is when people try to say what other people are saying. never have i said everybody should get a voucher. what i have said that my opponent is not agree with is i do not believe a child should be forced to go to a failing school when less than 5% of people come out of the school able to read. tom: we will stick with education and continue with a look at student behavior. a recent student behavior in school climate task force meeting saw the state teachers union offer a teacher survey report showing 75 percent of delaware teachers experienced outbursts by teachers that disrupted learning. over 50% also experienced chronic absenteeism, had items destroyed due to student behavior or faced verbal threats or aggression from a student. the task force is formulating recommendations to address these and other issues.

what do you plan to prioritize to make classrooms more conducive to learning for students. mr. meyer: every child in the state should be able to go to a school where they have an excellent opportunity to get an amazing education and every parent should know when they send their son or daughter off to a delaware public school they are sending them to a safe place. it is among our most important and urgent responsibilities in leading the state. today there are all of these issues you can't see that cause problems. we are putting the burden on the teacher. in addition to compensation, another large reason why we have such challenges retaining

teachers is theyre